The Academia Waltz
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The Academia Waltz was Berke Breathed's first cartoon, published daily from 1978 to 1979 in The Daily Texan (http://www.dailytexanonline.com) at the University of Texas at Austin, where he was a student. The strip focused primarily on college life, although it sometimes made references to big news stories of the time (such as the incident at Three Mile Island in 1979).
Characters
- Steve Dallas was a sleazy fraternity member preoccupied with the pursuit of sex. He became an icon in many circles at the University of Texas, which was not Breathed's intent.
- Kitzi was Steve's girlfriend. She often found ways to bend Steve to her will, a fact not always clear to Steve.
- Rabies was Steve's reluctant canine friend.
- Saigon John was a wheelchair-bound Vietnam War veteran who frequently attended protest marches. He did not often see eye to eye with the conservative Steve.
Two of the characters from The Academia Waltz would be resurrected for Breathed's next strip, Bloom County: Steve Dallas and Saigon John (called "Cutter John" in Bloom County). Rabies also became a character early on in the strip, but disappeared around the time that Opus the penguin (who would later become Breathed's most popular character) appeared.
Kitzi later made a guest appearance in Bloom County in 1985, although the character had been altered to be Steve's younger sister rather than his girlfriend.
Collections
Two collections featuring the comic were published. They are currently out of print and extremely rare, or as Breathed's website claims, "EBay is your only hope." [1] (http://www.berkeleybreathed.com/pages/Cartoon_Collections.asp).
- The Academia Waltz (1979)
- The Academia Waltz: Bowing Out (1980)
A few Academia Waltz comics were also reprinted in the Bloom County collection Classics of Western Literature (1990).
External links
- Berkeley Breathed's website (http://www.berkeleybreathed.com)
- The Daily Texan (http://www.dailytexanonline.com) - The newspaper where The Academia Waltz was originally printed