Bloom County is an American comic strip by Berkeley Breathed which originally ran from December 8, 1980, until August 6, 1989. It examined events in politics and culture through the viewpoint of a fanciful small town in Middle America, where children often have adult personalities and vocabularies and where animals can talk.
Guy Berkeley "Berke" Breathed is an American cartoonist, children's book creator, director and screenwriter, best known for his comic strips Bloom County, Outland, and Opus. Bloom County earned Breathed the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning in 1987.
Opus the Penguin is a fictional character created by artist Berkeley Breathed. Breathed has described him as an "existentialist penguin" and the favorite of his many characters.
Milo Bloom is a fictional character in the American comic strip Bloom County. He was originally the main character, but was soon overshadowed by his best friend Michael Binkley and later on by Opus the penguin.
Steve Dallas is a fictional character in the American comic strips of Berke Breathed, most famously Bloom County in the 1980s.
The Academia Waltz was Berkeley Breathed's first comic strip, published daily from 1978 to 1979 in The Daily Texan 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.
Opus was a Sunday strip drawn by Berkeley Breathed for a period of five years, 2003 to 2008. It was Breathed's fourth comic strip, following The Academia Waltz, Bloom County and Outland.
Cutter John is a fictional character in the 1980s comic strip Bloom County by Berke Breathed.
Outland is a comic strip written and illustrated by Berkeley Breathed from 1989 until 1995. It was a Sunday-only spin-off of Breathed's strip Bloom County, featuring many of the same characters.
Oliver Wendell Jones is a fictional character in Bloom County, Outland and Opus, three comic strips by American cartoonist Berkeley Breathed. The character was named for United States Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr..
Ronald-Ann Smith was a character in Berkeley Breathed's comic strips Bloom County and Outland.
Lola Granola, also known as Fatima Struggle, is a fictional character in the comic strips Bloom County and Opus by Berkeley Breathed.
The following are minor characters from Berkeley Breathed's comic strip Bloom County. Though significant enough to have appeared multiple times in the strip, they were not crucial to the strip's overall development, and disappeared without much explanation long before Breathed segued into his next comic, Outland.
Toons for Our Times is the second collection of the comic strip series Bloom County by Berkeley Breathed. It was published in 1984.
Penguin Dreams and Stranger Things is the third collection of the comic strip series Bloom County by Berkeley Breathed. It was published in 1985.
Loose Tails is the first collection of the comic strip series Bloom County by Berkeley Breathed. It was published by Little, Brown and Company in 1983. At least two different editions exist; the contents and front cover art are identical but later editions swapped out the serious author biography on the back cover for a parody one.
Billy and the Boingers Bootleg is the fifth collection of the comic strip series Bloom County by Berkeley Breathed. It was published in 1987.
Tales Too Ticklish to Tell is the sixth collection of the comic strip series Bloom County by Berkeley Breathed. It was published in 1988. The cover image, of Opus sitting on the lap of George H. W. Bush, is a parody of the infamous photo of Donna Rice and Gary Hart from May 1987.
The Night of the Mary Kay Commandos is the seventh collection of the comic strip series Bloom County by Berkeley Breathed. It was published in 1989.
Bill the Cat, or Bill D. Cat, is a fictional cat appearing in the works of cartoonist Berkeley Breathed, beginning with the comic strip Bloom County in the 1980s and continuing in Outland and Opus in the following decades. Bill also appeared in some of Breathed's illustrated children's books, including A Wish for Wings That Work, which was also made into an animated Christmas television special, and also on greeting cards and other sundry merchandise. Bill was originally capable of speaking English reasonably well, but storylines featuring an automobile accident, repeated periods of drug abuse, and brain surgery have since seen the character transition to a nearly mentally handicapped mute state in which the cat's most frequent spoken sentiments are "Ack!" and "Thppt!" - the former a result of his regularly choking on hairballs, the latter an approximation of "blowing a raspberry".
