Bloom County
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 The cover of the first Bloom County collection |
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Bloom County was a popular American 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 produced for the student newspaper while attending the University of Texas.
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[edit] Characters
[edit] 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) in addition to two children's books and a television special.
Milo Bloom
- Milo Bloom is a ten-year-old newspaper reporter and probably the most worldly-wise of the whole bunch. Milo was the original protagonist of Bloom County.
- Steve Dallas is a former fraternity member, unsuccessfully practicing lawyer, would-be womanizer, manager of the band Deathtöngue, legend in his own mind, and antagonist of the group. Usually seen with a cigarette in his mouth.
- Bill the Cat is a large orange cat. Originally introduced as a parody of the comic character Garfield and the associated product tie-ins, and having little active character of his own, beyond his trademark "Ack, pbthhh" exclamation, he became something of a blank slate for various plot mechanics to revolve around. He's been a cult leader ("Bhagwan Bill"), televangelist ("Fundamentally Oral Bill"), perennial presidential candidate for the Meadow Party, heavy-metal rock star, and, in the last months of the strip, had his brain replaced with Donald Trump's. He has been known to speak, and be aware of what he is saying, most notably during his trials for Communism charges, when he remarked "Say, you don't suppose the "Jury Box" is anything like a litter box, do you?"
- Michael Binkley originally owned Opus ("A boy and his penguin!") and is wishy-washy and overly reflective (perhaps like Charlie Brown?), 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, a computer hacker, and a gifted scientist, having invented a miracle hair-growth formula among other things. He once tried to bring an end to the Cold War by hacking the front page of Pravda with the headline "Gorbachev urges disarmament: Total! Unilateral!"; however, faulty translation led to the headline reading "Gorbachev sings tractors: Turnip! Buttocks!" He has a fairly extensive criminal record for his numerous hacking-based pranks.
- Cutter John, a wheelchair-bound Vietnam veteran noted for 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 (referenced only once in the strip's later years, when Opus learns she joined the crew of Donahue).
[edit] Other characters
See also Minor characters in Bloom County
[edit] Notable storylines
For detailed summaries of all storylines, see the entries for the individual books.
- Steve forms a heavy metal band with Opus, Hodge Podge, and Bill, initially called "Deathtöngue". Steve is forced to rename the band Billy and the Boingers after he is dragged before a congressional hearing investigating the effect of heavy metal music on youth, similar to the Parents Music Resource Center. The Boingers disband after their frontman, Bill the Cat, is caught attending a Bible study group with a woman whose character is based on Mother Teresa. Ironically, the group suffers but the woman ends up with a Pepsi endorsement.
- Oliver Jones finds out about Apartheid and builds a "photo-pigmentizer" with which he plans to start an international brouhaha by using it on the South African ambassador to the US, making him black. Oliver sends the machine to Washington D.C. with Cutter John on a balloon chair (this aspect of the story may have been based on the flight of so-called "lawn chair pilot" Larry Walters), and Opus is accidentally dragged along. While airborne, several balloons are popped by shotguns, sending the two plummeting into the Atlantic Ocean. Both are assumed dead, so Opus' money is given to Bill the Cat, who wastes it all. Eventually, Opus turns up at the Bloom County Boarding House with amnesia, which lasts until he is shocked by the news that Diane Sawyer has married Eddie Murphy, after which he reveals that he and Cutter John survived the splash-down and were captured by Russians. The Russians kicked Opus off the submarine and took Cutter John back to Russia. The citizens later swap Bill the Cat for Cutter John.
- Opus decides to reunite with his long-lost mother for Christmas in Antarctica, only to discover that the ship he's travelling on is the Rainbow Warrior. Escaping Russian whalers with his next-door neighbour, Mrs. Limekiller, he enters the world's least despoiled civilization only to be attacked by American troops invading. Opus later discovers that his Mother supposedly died saving soldiers in the Falklands war. Her gravestone reads, 'The Falklands Martyr: She Loved her Boy'.
- Opus discovers that his mother is alive. (He screams to Milo, "SHE ISN'T DEAD!", to which Milo replies "Who? The Democratic Party?"). He tries to rescue her from captivity in the Mary Kay cosmetics testing centre. He discovers his Mum in a cage (she vaguely resembles Opus wearing Mary Poppins's hat) only to be caught in a firefight between Mary Kay ladies with Pink Uzis and the Animal Liberation Guerilla Front.
- In a spoof of Ayatollah Khomeini's fatwa on Salman Rushdie, Opus is the subject of a fatwa by the Mary Kay cosmetics company for writing an editorial suggesting that women wearing too much makeup look "ungodly."
- Donald Trump dies, but his brain is successfully transplanted into the body of Bill the Cat. Trump/Bill sees the brighter side of the situtation: "Legally, now I can poop on Ed Koch's lawn."
- Opus receives 779 million dollars in cash from the U.S. Government under the mistaken belief that he is a scientist working on missile defense research. Opus uses the money to buy Bolivia.
- After the breakup of Billy and the Boingers, Bill the Cat becomes a Fundamentalist televangelist, "Fundamentally Oral Bill" (a play on Oral Roberts). He declares "penguin lust" to be the biggest scourge on society. As a result, Opus is banished from Bloom County and briefly becomes a male stripper (who refuses to remove all his clothes).
- The cast of Bloom County goes on strike. W. A. Thornhump refuses to concede to any of their demands and attempts to have his office staff fill in. Things get ugly when Steve Dallas crosses the picket line and Thornhump hires strike-breakers to play Opus, Bill, and Oliver. In the end, the strikers are defeated although Opus still threw eggs at Steve saying "Here comes breakfast from Aunt Opus!!"
[edit] Other Notes
For reasons unknown, 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 (initiated by Bill the Cat's body becoming a vessel for Donald Trump's brain) 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 3, 1989 to March 26, 1995. Another Sunday-only spinoff strip called Opus started on November 23, 2003.
Bloom County has had a profound influence on many later cartoonists, particularly cartoonists who have a particularly irreverent bent or tackle political topics in their work:
- Scott Kurtz, creator of the popular webcomic PvP, acknowledged Breathed's contributions at one point with a strip expressing the opinion that "so many webcomics...are nothing but Bloom County ripoffs", then lampooning itself by mimicking Breathed's art and dialogue style itself in the final panel [1].
- Aaron McGruder, creator of the comic and later animated series The Boondocks, has paid homage to Breathed's work as well, with a few aspects of the strip bearing more than a passing resemblance to important Bloom County features, and an episode of the animated series wherein the character Uncle Ruckus calls Breathed "Master Penguin Draw'er".
[edit] 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.
From left to right, Reynelda the doll, Ronald-Ann Smith, Binkley, Milo, Hodge-Podge, Portnoy, and Opus.
In the comics, the county is presented as a stereotypical American midwestern small town. 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.
While the location of Bloom County is never explicitly mentioned, there have been some clues in the strip. When Oliver Jones identified Bloom County as the place where Halley's Comet would crash into Earth, a sign was seen saying that it was at 35.05 N 146.55 E. This would place it in the Pacific Ocean, about 300 miles off the coast of Japan. Oliver's previous calculation was 39.43 N 105.01 W, which would place it just south of Denver, Colorado. Another strip has Opus stating that Des Moines, Iowa was 96 miles away from Bloom County, which would place it in either Iowa or Missouri.
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.
[edit] Real world references
Bloom County contained many similarities to Iowa City, Iowa, where Breathed lived at the time. The Bloom Boarding House, for example, which appeared as a high contrast photo within the strip, was an actual residence located at 935 East College Street in Iowa City. Breathed lived in the home during part of the time he was publishing Bloom County. [citation needed]
In addition, Breathed used the call letters KRNA to refer to Bloom County's rock radio station featuring "Rockin' Charmin' Harmon". The call letters belonged to an actual rock station based in Iowa City in the 1980s, which featured a disc jockey named "Charmin'" Jeff Harmon. The station still operates in Iowa to this day. [2]
Several Iowa City local news items also directly inspired Bloom County storylines. For example, a Bloom County politician's sexist gaffe, referring to a woman as a "lil' dumplin'", was taken directly from an incident when University of Iowa football coach Hayden Fry made the same comment, infuriating feminists at the university.
Further, the final Bloom County strip hangs in the main branch of the Johnson County Library in Iowa City.
[edit] Bloom County books
- Loose Tails (1983)
- Toons For Our Times (1984)
- Penguin Dreams and Stranger Things (1985)
- Bloom County Babylon: Five Years of Basic Naughtiness (1986)
- Billy and the Boingers Bootleg (1987)
- Tales Too Ticklish to Tell (1988)
- The Night of the Mary Kay Commandos (1989)
- Happy Trails! (1990)
- Classics of Western Literature (1990)
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.
[edit] External links
- Berkeley Breathed's website
- Toonopedia
- Breathed interview in The A.V. Club, August 15, 2001
- Bloom County Zone
- "Bloom Boarding House", 935 East College Street, Iowa City
| Berkeley Breathed's Bloom County series Comics |
