Long Lost “BOOM COUNTY” Strip Unveiled !!!
Well, as promised, I did some more digging into that box of stuff in the basement. And I found GOLD — one of the original Sunday editions of Boom County, a sponsored comic strip based on Matt Hazard!
Boom County was a marketing initiative from the early 80s — I hired a comic strip artist to create a hilarious series based on Matt Hazard and then placed the strip into daily newspapers across the country. Boom County was a smash hit and ran for a marvelous three months before it was discontinued by editors who felt it was “marketing” and not a real comic strip. I wrote the script myself, and, I must say, it’s STILL HILARIOUS! Note the timely jab at the “Where’s the Beef?” commercials!!! HAHAHAHA!!!
To clarify, the Dinosaur friend in Boom County is a character I created for the strip — when Hazard travels to the time travel zone of Xenon 5 in The Adventures of Matt in Hazardland, he saves this Dinosaur, “Opie,” from annihilation during his epic battle against Neutronov’s Mega-Nuclear Robo TyranoToxic-a-Saurus. Opie comes back to our world timeline to live with Matt in Boom County. Genius!!
A Rare Copy of a Sunday Edition of "Boom County"
We had planned a spin-off Saturday morning cartoon series, a video game for kids based on the strip, and plushie dolls based on Opie, but the newspaper cancellations halted all work on those projects.
- R. Tokey
