Bloom County
From Freepedia
Bloom County was a popular comic strip by Berke Breathed which ran from December 8, 1980 until August 6, 1989. It examined events in politics and culture through the lens of a fanciful small town in Middle America, where children have adult personalities and vocabularies and animals can talk. It grew out of a strip called The Academia Waltz, which Breathed drew for the student newspaper while a student at the University of Texas.
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Characters
Core characters
- Opus is a large-nosed penguin with a herring addiction who lost track of his mother during the Falklands War. Initially Opus was only a bit player in a throwaway gag. But his hopeless naïveté made him a favorite, the center of the strip, and the subject of two "sequel" strips (Outland and Opus) and a children's movie.
- Milo Bloom is a ten-year-old newspaper editor and probably the most world-wise of the whole bunch.
- Steve Dallas is a former fraternity member, unsuccessfully practicing lawyer, would-be womanizer, manager of Deathtöngue, legend in his own mind, and antagonist of the group.
- Bill the Cat is a large orange cat who bears the characteristics of someone entirely burned out on LSD. He's been a cult leader ("Bhagwan Bill"), televangelist ("Fundamentally Oral Bill"), perennial presidential candidate for the Meadow Party, had his brain replaced with Donald Trump's, has died (and was cloned from his own tongue), been a Russian defector, heavy-metal rock star ("Wild Bill Catt" of Deathtöngue), drug addict, cat-sweat donor, and a woman named Frieda.
- Michael Binkley originally owned Opus ("A boy and his penguin!") and is wishy-washy and overly reflective, when not contemplating the lives of pop-culture icons. His "anxiety closet" has been a staple of many storylines.
- Oliver Wendell Jones is a young African-American and a gifted scientist, having invented a miracle hair-growth formula and hacked Pravda with the headline "Gorbachev sings tractors! Turnips! Buttocks!" among various other technical achievements.
- Cutter John, a wheelchair-bound Vietnam veteran often in Star Trek fantasies and anti-war protests.
- Bobbi Harlow is the feminist schoolteacher of Milo and Binkley, as well as the love interest of Steve and Cutter. She was a major character until 1983, when she faded away completely.
Other characters
- Hodge-Podge
- Portnoy
- Tom Binkley (Michael's father)
- Lola Granola
- Steve's mother
- Milquetoast the Cockroach
- Rosebud the Basselope
- Ronald-Ann Smith
See also Minor characters in Bloom County
Notes
For reasons best known to himself, Breathed's hand-printed signature on his strips is usually presented in mirror image, i.e. right to left.
Among the topical issues discussed at length in Bloom County are US anti-drug policy (Dr. Oliver's Scalp Tonic), Christian televangelist scandals (Fundamentally Oral Bill), animal testing (Attack of the Mary Kay Commandos), hard rock and censorship (Deathtöngue and Billy and the Boingers), and mass-media advertising (Opus and his weakness for infomercials).
Berke Breathed was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in editorial cartooning in 1987 for Bloom County.
Breathed decided to end the strip in 1989. In the continuity of the strip, a series of events led to the dismissal of the original characters and a plot transition to Breathed's next strip.
Shortly after Bloom County ended, Breathed started a Sunday-only strip called Outland with original characters and situations introduced in Bloom County's final days. However, Opus, Bill and other characters eventually reappeared and slowly took over the strip. Outland ran from September 31989 to March 261995.
Another Sunday-only spinoff strip called Opus started on November 23, 2003.
Bloom County itself
The fictional setting of Bloom County served as a recurring backdrop for the comic and its sequels, although the nature of the setting was frequently altered.
In the comics, the county is presented as a stereotypical American midwestern small town (although the state in which the county exists is never explicitly mentioned). The small town setting was frequently contrasted with the increasing globalization taking place in the rest of the world; though Bloom County contained the likes of farmers and wilderness creatures by default, it was frequented by Hare Krishnas, feminists, and rock stars.
The county was home to the Bloom Boarding House, Steve Dallas' law offices, the Bloom Beacon and Bloom Picayune newspapers, at least one pond, and Milo's Meadow. In the comic's later years, the county contained what appeared to be a big-city ghetto ("across the tracks", as it was known).
The geographical profile of the county was fluid as the artistic style of the strip evolved. During most of Bloom County's run, the rural meadow setting was presented realistically, while in its later years it became increasingly more abstract.
Bloom County's role in Outland was a bit questionable, as the Outland setting of the strip was originally set apart from the county by way of a magical doorway. By Outland's end, however, the Outland appeared to be a part of Bloom County itself.
Opus currently takes place in Bloom County.
Bloom County books
Collections
- Loose Tails (1983)
- Toons For Our Times (1984)
- Penguin Dreams and Stranger Things (1985)
- Billy and the Boingers Bootleg (1987)
- Tales Too Ticklish to Tell (1988)
- Night of the Mary Kay Commandos (1989)
- Happy Trails! (1990)
Anthologies
None of these reprints contain complete runs of the strip. Many Sunday strips have never been reprinted. All of the daily strips were reprinted in Comics Revue magazine.
External links
| Berkeley Breathed's Bloom County series Comics |
