Bloom County/Characters

Note that this list also applies to the strip's spin-offs, Outland and Opus.

Milo Bloom
The star of Bloom County from its earliest days, Milo was the group's Only Sane Man, though he could be goofy as the rest of his friends when the situation called for it. Also a dedicated journalist with a habit for completely making up stories stretching the truth.


 * Almighty Janitor: Has a lot of pull at the Bloom Beacon despite being the intern and later copy boy.
 * It helps that the Chief Editor is a jittery wreck trying from trying and failing to hold off his yellow-journalism impulses, and thus spends much of his time hunched on his desk in agony as Milo temps him.
 * Characterization Marches On: See below.
 * Cloudcuckoolander: Early in the strip, to the point of having a crush on Betty Crocker. He mellowed out with time but still has traces of it.
 * Deadpan Snarker
 * Intrepid Reporter: Parodied.
 * Lurid Tales of Doom: What he publishes in most of his articles for the paper.
 * Only Sane Man: For most of the strip, especially in the Meadow Party storylines.
 * Put on a Bus: He wasn't in Outland or Opus. (Though he did have a nonspeaking cameo in one of the last Outland strips...as a passenger on a bus!)
 * The Short Guy with Glasses

Opus
An anxious, lovable penguin and the main character for most of Bloom County and its two sequel strips (Outland and Opus). Opus is very nervous and often forced into situations he'd rather not be in; he is also a sucker for late night TV ads. He was also on a quest to find his mother for some of the duration of Bloom County and Outland, finding her at the end of the latter. But then he promptly fled in Opus when he found her insufferable.


 * Butt Monkey: Forced into doing a lot of things and treated like crap by the world a good chunk of the time.
 * Breakout Character / Ensemble Darkhorse: Opus was originally only supposed to appear for a few weeks, but both the fans and Breathed himself loved the character so much, he quickly became a regular and eventually the main character. "Pear Pimples for Hairy Fishnuts" was arguably his breakout.
 * Everything's Better with Penguins
 * Interspecies Romance: Was engaged to human Lola Granola for at least a year and has gone on dates with other human women.
 * Laser-Guided Amnesia: After he and Cutter John disappeared over the ocean, he returned with regular amnesia. But after a while his normal personality and memories returned but what happened to Cutter John was unknown.
 * Luckily months later, a false claim that Eddie Murphy was marrying Opus' crush Diane Sawyer shocked him enough to jar his memory.
 * Missing Mom: A recurring theme in Bloom County and Outland.
 * My Beloved Smother: See Wanting Is Better Than Having below.
 * Put on a Bus: Twice. The first time he and Cutter John were lost at sea and presumed dead and he came back with amnesia. Then later in the strip, after Bill became Fundamentally Oral Bill, he was kicked out of the Boarding House by the converted house members after Bill decried "Penguin Lust" on TV. He came back later after Bill stopped being popular and stayed ever since.
 * Retcon: He used to be Binkley's pet.
 * Vitriolic Best Buds: With every single character except Binkley, though it's mostly one sided.
 * Wanting Is Better Than Having: Opus searched all of Bloom County and Outland for his mother only to find out she was overly controlling and tried to force him to marry a large, repulsive penguin named Eunice.

Bill The Cat
The second most famous character.


 * Anthropomorphic Shift: Became taller and longer-limbed over time. The trope was inverted as well, as Bill also gradually stopped speaking in anything but grunts and "ack"s and suffered a major drop in intelligence.
 * Back From the Dead: Thanks to Oliver cloning him from his only remains (His tongue).
 * Breakout Character: Created by Breathed as the least marketable character possible, he ended up with tons of merchandise.
 * The Chew Toy
 * Expansion Pack Past
 * Fat Cat: In any of the early strips.
 * Kavorka Man: Especially in Outland.
 * Overly Long Tongue
 * The Unintelligible: he only speaks coherently every once in a while. Usually he says little more than "ACK."
 * Why Do You Keep Changing Jobs?: He has been a lot of things, including a TV star, heavy metal frontman, dead, Meadow Party Presidential candidate, Rajneesh cultist, communist, evangelist and Donald Trump. (And that's just in the Bloom County canon...)

Michael Binkley
A wide eyed idealist and Milo and Opus' best friend. Lived with his dad Tom, who he clashed with with their polar opposite personalities. Also has a closet full of anxieties.


 * Breakout Character: Went from a nerdy Klinger to one of the main characters.
 * Cloudcuckoolander: Especially early on.
 * Future Loser
 * Last-Name Basis: His real name is Michael Binkley, but even his dad calls him Binkley.
 * Missing Mom: Ran away with a Hell's Angel about 2 years after Binkley first appeared.
 * The Pollyanna
 * Retcon: By the beginning of Opus, Binkley had apparently aged into a teenager, had a disastrous first kiss, and had become a Tibetan eunuch. He returned in a later comic, unaged, with zero explanation.

Steve Dallas
A scumbag lawyer with murderers as his almost exclusive clientele, Dallas is a dedicated Republican, drinker, smoker, and womanizer. He's also Breathed longest lasting character, starting with his college strip The Academia Waltz. He is the only character to be in every single one of Breathed's strips. Later had his personality flip-flopped to become a sensitive guy, then flipped back.


 * Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: Steve's habit of having a few too many has led to incidents of this (most notably during his attempted "courtship" of Bobbi).
 * Amoral Attorney
 * Back for the Finale: His personality went back to normal just in time for Bloom County's last few weeks.
 * Casanova Wannabe: He very rarely scored with women.
 * Character Overlap
 * Cool Shades
 * Hopeless Suitor: For Bobbi. And he frequently got arrested and punched in the process.
 * Jerkass
 * Misaimed Fandom: Breathed's intention was for Steve to be the obnoxious foil to Cutter John. Guess which character became the favorite of the fraternity demographic?
 * Strawman Political: For Republicans.
 * We Want Our Jerk Back: While he was flip-flopped for a long time, the cast were just as annoyed by his overly wimpy personality.
 * Write Who You Know/Reality Is Unrealistic: "Steve Dallas is, sadly, not a caricature."

Oliver Wendell Jones
The resident nerd of the area. Both a dedicated hacker and mad scientist.


 * Black and Nerdy
 * Black Best Friend: With both Binkley and Milo.
 * The Cracker: Hacked the White House computers on a regular basis, not to mention countless others.
 * For Science!: Pretty much anything he does.
 * Name's the Same: Has the same name as Captain Oliver Wendell Jones, a neurosurgeon from MASH (novel).
 * Nerd Glasses

Cutter John
A war veteran. He relies on a wheelchair to get around. Well liked by everyone and dated Bobbi until she left the cast.


 * The Ace
 * The Captain: Played Captain Kirk and just captain in general during the meadow crew's Star Trek fantasies.
 * Casanova: When he wasn't dating Bobbi.
 * Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Breathed said that he got rid of Cutter because he found it hard to draw a wheelchair in the confines of a comic.
 * Handicapped Badass: Got tons of women and stood up to the Russians during months of imprisonment.
 * Porn Stache

Portnoy and Hodge Podge
Respectively, a groundhog and jackrabbit who sometimes hang out with Milo, Binkley and Opus. Early on, they also hung out with a couple other animals, including an unnamed bear.


 * Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Did not carry on to Outland and Opus.
 * Improbable Species Compatibility: Hodge Podge had kids with Rosebud.
 * Fantastic Racism: Hodge Podge does not like pigs. So when Portnoy came out as a groundhog, Hodge did not take it well.
 * Talking Animals
 * Those Two Guys

Rosebud
A basselope (basset hound/antelope) who appeared late in the Bloom County run.


 * Breakout Character: She got a whole book, The Last Basselope.
 * Mix-and-Match Critters
 * Samus Is a Girl: She was thought to be a male for a long time until a 1988 storyline where they were searching for a cast member who was actually a female.
 * Talking Animal

Ronald-Ann Smith
A young black girl from the "wrong side of the tracks" during Bloom County. Became the main character during Outland before Opus took over and eventually disappeared from the strip entirely.


 * Back for the Finale: Appeared for one out-of-character strip during Outland's final months.
 * Beware the Nice Ones: She was usually very sweet during Outland, but had quite the mischievous streak.
 * Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Disappeared two thirds of the way through Outland.
 * The Pollyanna

Bobbi Harlow
A 20-something feminist teacher who was a main character during Bloom County's early years. Eventually became less and less important until she up and disappeared from the strip. Dated Steve and then Cutter John.


 * Bus Crash: Was revealed to have later joined the staff on Donahue and then cut her ear off when she was fired.
 * Deadpan Snarker: Towards Steve.
 * Demoted to Extra
 * Hot Teacher
 * Straw Feminist: Subverted. Didn't stop the town from treating her like one, though.
 * Only Sane Woman

Lola Granola
Opus' fiance for about a year in Bloom County. Was a modern artist with a personality opposite Opus'.


 * Back for the Finale: She had a brief conversation with Opus at the Bloom County wrap party in the strip's last weeks.
 * Bare Your Midriff: Quite a bit.
 * The Bus Came Back: She returned to Opus in a major role as Steve Dallas' girlfriend...nearly twenty years after her last appearance in any Breathed comic.
 * Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Disappeared right after her and Opus' annulment.
 * Embarrassing Tattoo: Of Dan Fogelberg's face, apparently in a scandalous location.
 * Moral Guardians: Threw a fit in Real Life over Lola's conversion to radical Islam. This led to that series of Opus comics being cut from several newspapers. The outcry eventually prompted Breathed to end the comic.
 * Interspecies Romance: With Opus.
 * Satellite Character: In most of her major Bloom County storylines, she had almost no interaction with anyone besides Opus. Ditto with Steve in Opus.
 * She Who Must Not Be Seen: For the first few strips that featured her.
 * True Art Is Incomprehensible: Lola's modus operandi.

Yaz Pistachio
Bobbi Harlow's teenage niece, who only appeared in the comic in 1983.


 * Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Her last appearance was in very early 1984.
 * High School Dance: Steve Dallas was recruited to be her date. Hilarity Ensued.
 * Nice Hat: In most of her appearances, she's wearing a flat cap.
 * Shrinking Violet: She admitted that she didn't "fit anywhere" in her high school's social scene. But she did find True Companions in the Meadow gang.
 * The Smurfette Principle: She was pretty much the comic's token female for a while after Bobbi was Put on a Bus.
 * Teens Are Monsters: Averted; she's actually quite friendly.
 * Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?: Name one name, just one name, that's weirder than "Yaz Pistachio."
 * Berkeley Breathed.