From the chat:
RUSSELL: Yeah, I suppose that [day-in-day-out deadline] pressure is responsible for Bloom County's anarchic quality. I really think that strip is the closest newspaper comics ever got to feeling like a Chuck Jones cartoon --P.S. I got quoted a few times! Mike had put out a request on his Twitter feed for questions. This is almost certainly the first time I've been quoted at Ain't It Cool News.
DUNBIER: That's completely fair, yeah.
RUSSELL: -- and I suspect that was probably in part because he wasn't giving himself the time to think too hard about it. He was too busy panicking.
DUNBIER: But the sources of inspiration he had were wonderful. He's got this reputation for being cynical, and Bloom County can definitely be cynical in places. But it's also very naïve -- and I think that's part of Berkeley's makeup. He's cynically naïve, or naively cynical. I think he wants to believe in something; he wants to believe in people. And that's a very endearing quality.