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61-569: Steve Dallas is a fictional character in the American comic strips of Berke Breathed , most famously Bloom County in the 1980s. He was first introduced as an obnoxious frat boy in the college strip The Academia Waltz , which ran in the University of Texas 's Daily Texan during 1978 and 1979. Steve then reappears in Bloom County after graduation as a self-employed, unscrupulous lawyer. He

122-409: A Bloom County storyline in which Steve Dallas breaks his back after being attacked by an angry Sean Penn . Breathed also nearly lost his right arm to a boating accident. Breathed has said that he is an atheist, yet he does not fear death more than "sharing a room in a detox center with a sobbing Rush Limbaugh ". On May 18, 2008, in his comic strip Opus , Breathed announced he was suffering from

183-515: A perm (thinking it made him look like Alan Alda ), and canvassed for Jesse Jackson 's 1988 Presidential campaign. This carried on for about a year, until Steve found out that his girlfriend Gladys was cheating on him with the bassist for " Guns 'n Spittle " and Opus had been using his toothbrush to comb his nose hair . Devastated, he resolved to forever avenge feminine betrayal, and by doing so, he put his trademark sunglasses back on. He immediately returned to his old, cantankerous self. During

244-632: A condition known as spasmodic torticollis . Billy and the Boingers 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. On July 12, 2015, Breathed started drawing Bloom County again. The first revived strip

305-568: A drug bust as a result. In the 2013 movie Are You Here , Owen Wilson plays 'Steve Dallas', an inveterate womanizer. In one scene, Dallas is slumped in a recliner wearing sunglasses just as his Bloom County namesake often does. Berkeley Breathed Born in Encino, California , but raised in Houston, Texas , Breathed attended Westchester High School in Houston. Breathed was first published when he

366-510: A few aspects of the strip bearing more than a passing resemblance to important Bloom County features (including at least a couple of artistic similarities), and an episode of the animated series wherein the character Uncle Ruckus calls Breathed "Master Penguin Draw'er". The series was adapted into the 1991 animated Christmas special entitled A Wish for Wings That Work , which is now available on DVD. The fictional setting of Bloom County served as

427-433: A flashback of Dallas's teenage years showed him reading conservative author William F. Buckley 's book God and Man at Yale . Dallas did not, however, seem to hold the traditionalist religious moral principles that were associated with Reagan and his allies on the right at the time, as his womanizing and lack of religious practice would indicate. He once went so far as to say that, "My God. We've got to get Carter back in

488-454: A form of conversion therapy . Steve was depicted as a middle-aged man with thinning hair and a noticeable paunch. Steve was also reunited with his long-lost son Augie (presumably named after Augie Doggie ), and reluctantly took on the role of father figure. The August 26, 2007 strip implied that he was romantically involved with the recently re-introduced character Lola Granola , a former love interest of Opus. Breathed has stated that Dallas

549-589: A greeting card and gift ensemble collection for American Greetings , featuring the "Bloom County" characters Opus , Bill the Cat , and Milquetoast the Cockroach . As of January 2018, Breathed has produced ten children's picture books. Two were made into the animated films: A Wish for Wings That Work ( Amblin Television / Universal Cartoon Studios , 1991) and Edwurd Fudwupper Fibbed Big ( Nickelodeon Movies , 2000); one

610-524: A high contrast photo within the strip, is modeled after the Linsay House located at 935 East College Street. Another Iowa City landmark, The Prairie Lights Bookstore, was referred to in the strip as the "Prairie Lights Newsstand"; original Bloom County artwork from Breathed now hangs in the bookstore. Another original Bloom County strip hangs in the Iowa City Public Library . Breathed used

671-419: 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. 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

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732-499: A small town. Breathed said he made the choice because he had followed a girlfriend to Iowa City , Iowa ; Breathed commented, "You draw—literally—from your life if you’re going to write anything with some juice to it. I did just that." Breathed's hand-printed signature on his strips was usually presented in mirror image, i.e. right to left. Breathed's award of the Pulitzer Prize in editorial cartooning in 1987 for Bloom County

793-430: A sparkling symptom of a renewed national ridiculousness. We're back baby. Breathed originally had no plans of publishing the new strips outside of his Facebook page, commenting that “Newspapers need deadlines, alas. Like my departed friend Douglas Adams used to say, the only part of deadlines I enjoyed was the whooshing sound as they sped by.” An archive of the new strips has started at GoComics since then. A new book

854-477: Is being " bussed in " to the strip as part of a court order. Once Bloom County characters are scattered, only Opus is left as part of a plot to transition to Breathed's next strip in Bloom County' s final week. 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

915-402: Is just 94 miles from Bloom County". Geographically, this would place Bloom County in either Iowa or the far north-central tier of counties of Missouri , but likely referring to the distance from Iowa City , where the strip was produced, to Des Moines (see § Real-world references below) . Also, in a Sunday strip with L.H. Puttgrass, he is holding a King Soopers bag, which would place

976-479: Is no more eternal than a ripe melon. The ugly truth is that in most cases, comics age less gracefully than their creators". Breathed replaced the strip with the surreal Sunday-only cartoon Outland in 1989, which reused some of the Bloom County characters, including Opus the Penguin and Bill the Cat . He ended Outland in 1995. In 2003, Breathed began the comic strip Opus , a Sunday-only strip featuring Opus

1037-482: Is quickly fired from both jobs; Michael Binkley becomes a wild boar skinner for Prince Valiant . Lola Granola says that she has been invited to pose for Playboy , which Opus dislikes. Milo Bloom is seen with a snake swallowing him head first and informing Opus he would be appearing Tuesdays in The Far Side . Oliver Wendell Jones is seen with the distinct features of Family Circus characters. He informs Opus he

1098-451: The Doonesbury comic strip from which it obviously took its idea. Bloom County earned Breathed the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning during 1987. The strip eventually appeared in over 1,200 newspapers around the world until Breathed retired the daily strip in 1989, stating that he wanted to terminate the strip while it was still popular. At that time, he said, "A good comic strip

1159-455: The University of Texas . The comic strip attracted the notice of the editors of The Washington Post , who recruited him to do a nationally syndicated strip. On December 8, 1980, Bloom County , syndicated by The Washington Post Writers Group , made its debut and featured some of the characters from Academia Waltz, including former frat-boy Steve Dallas and the paraplegic Vietnam War veteran Cutter John . Breathed set Bloom County in

1220-423: The call letters KRNA to refer to Bloom County' s rock radio station featuring "Rockin' Charmin' Harmin". The call letters belong to an actual Iowa City rock station which featured a disc jockey named "Charmin'" Jeff Harmon in the 1980s. Several Iowa City local news items also directly inspired Bloom County storylines. For example, a fictional Ronald Reagan sexist gaffe, referring to women as "little dumplin's",

1281-514: The paraplegic Vietnam War veteran Cutter John . At its start, the strip's style was so similar to that of another popular strip, Doonesbury , that Doonesbury's creator Garry Trudeau wrote to Breathed several times to indicate their similarities. Breathed has acknowledged that he borrowed liberally from Doonesbury during his early career. In the Outland collection One Last Little Peek , Breathed even put an early Bloom County side by side with

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1342-449: The "Gephardtization" process on him instead, which was the same procedure used previously on then- U.S. House Majority Leader Dick Gephardt to completely reverse opinions and attitudes. After being presumed dead by the residents of Bloom County, Steve was zapped back to earth a few days later. To the whole county's amazement, he was now a sensitive, caring liberal and feminist . He stopped wearing his trademark sunglasses, quit smoking, got

1403-498: The Animals!" , T-shirts, and other merchandise. Breathed cameos as himself in the 2004 short film Tim Warner: A Life in the Clouds , a fictional tale about an unhappy cartoonist and his unfunny strip, The Silver Lining . Breathed is a fan of outdoor activities such as powerboating and motorcycling . In 1986, he broke his back in an ultralight-plane crash, later incorporated into

1464-462: The Penguin, who was one of the main characters of Bloom County . Several newspapers chose not to run the August 26, 2007, Opus cartoon because it might offend Muslims. On October 6, 2008, Breathed announced plans to discontinue all work on comic strips with the final Opus strip to run on November 2, 2008. Breathed planned to focus on writing children's books . Breathed explained that he felt that

1525-465: The United States was going to face "tough times", and that he wanted to end the saga of his most memorable character "on a lighter note". The last Opus comic strip appeared on schedule, but in what may be a comic first, the final panel required an online link. The final panel of the strip showed Opus sleeping peacefully in the bed depicted in the classic children's book, Goodnight Moon . This panel

1586-472: The University of Texas, Breathed self-published two collections of The Academia Waltz , using the profits to pay his tuition. The comic strip attracted the notice of the editors of The Washington Post , who recruited him to do a nationally syndicated strip. On December 8, 1980, Bloom County made its debut. It featured some of the characters from Academia Waltz, including former frat-boy Steve Dallas and

1647-609: The White House " after associating Ronald Reagan 's presidency with the end of the Sexual revolution and therefore the end of his conquests at "Bob's Bar & Flesh Market". Like most conservatives (and liberals , and others) portrayed in Breathed's work, Steve's political positions do not appear to stem from actual convictions. As a lawyer, Steve took on hopeless cases defending psychotic and obviously guilty criminals and murderers, much to

1708-409: The chagrin of his overbearing mother. On one occasion, he did win a case (his client had allegedly murdered her husband with an axe ), but only because the jury cared more about what the woman wore than whether or not she was innocent (at one point, she found a plastic picnic knife and supposedly tried to make a fillet out of a CNN cameraman). A bachelor throughout the entire run of the strip, he

1769-550: The closing credits of the Texas-based 2003 film Secondhand Lions , which featured a strip called Walter and Jasmine . The panels that Breathed drew for Secondhand Lions appear in his cartoon anthology book Opus: 25 Years of His Sunday Best , in which Breathed terms them "the comic strip that never was". Breathed has been a supporter of the animal rights group PETA and illustrated the cover of earlier printings of PETA's cookbook The Compassionate Cook, or, "Please Don't Eat

1830-513: The closing down of Bloom County in the final days of the strip, Steve seeks employment in other strips. He is seen (in the strip) to land a guest spot in Cathy , much to the title character's horror. (Many years later, in the revived Bloom County , the Cathy character slept with Steve Dallas, and regretted it in the morning.) In the 21st century reboot of Bloom County Steve remains a major character. At

1891-573: The comic in Colorado. On January 29, 2016, Berkeley Breathed posted on Facebook that "The Bloom County boarding house still sits in beautiful hayseedless Iowa City, home for this cartoonist for four years." 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,

Steve Dallas - Misplaced Pages Continue

1952-401: The comic strip and fires all of the cast. In the strip's final weeks the cast found new "jobs" with other comic strips. A "goodbye party" was held over the course of the week where characters talked about joining new strips. Portnoy and Hodge Podge get jobs as janitors behind the scenes at Marmaduke ; Steve Dallas joins the cast of Cathy and attempts to pitch himself as a new superhero, but

2013-444: The comments on the picture if this was in response to Donald Trump 's presidential campaign; Breathed responded, "This creator can't precisely deny that the chap you mention had nothing to do with it." The next day, July 13, 2015, the first comic of the revived strip was officially posted online, also to Breathed's Facebook page. The strip was relaunched under the Bloom County 2015 title, only to be renamed simply as Bloom County at

2074-401: The content in each book. Breathed also said that he believes that, "I just closed my eyes and dropped a dart on the ones to be included." He felt relieved the publishers did not "have to ask ... to do this again." On October 25, 2017, IDW published Bloom County: Real, Classy, & Compleat: 1980-1989 , collecting the complete run of Bloom County in two volumes. An "Ultimate Collectors Set"

2135-613: The county by way of a magical doorway. By Outland 's end, the Outland appeared to be a part of Bloom County itself. The final Outland strip listed the characters as living at "555 Hairybutt St., Bloom County, Outland". Opus also takes place in Bloom County. Breathed lived in Iowa City, Iowa during the early years of the strip, and the setting of Bloom County resembles Iowa City in several ways. The Bloom Boarding House, which appeared as

2196-427: The county contained what appeared to be a big-city ghetto ("the wrong side of 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. The Outland setting of the strip was originally set apart from

2257-470: The end of Outland in 1995, Steve came out of the closet and admitted he was gay. In his final appearance in the comic, he had married a man ( Doonesbury 's Mark Slackmeyer ) and was thinking about adopting children . However, in Opus nine years later, Steve was back to his babe-mongering ways after enrolling in the "Rev. Doogle De-Poofta" which used shock therapy to attempt to "cure" homosexuality; in

2318-535: The extent that the Reagan White House 's policies were only sometimes enough to satisfy him. (He remarked early in the President's tenure that he thought " Haig and the generals should run Reagan and his liberal pack right out of the White House.") However, both he and the other (mostly liberal) characters became less hostile to Reagan's policies as both the strip's run and Reagan's tenure ran on. In another strip,

2379-405: The start of 2016. On the return of the strips Breathed stated: Deadlines and dead-tree media took the fun out of a daily craft that was only meant to be fun. I had planned to return to Bloom County in 2001, but the sullied air sucked the oxygen from my kind of whimsy. Bush and Cheney's fake war dropped it for a decade like a bullet to the head. But silliness suddenly seems safe now. Trump's merely

2440-536: The strip have been released far more sporadically in recent years. In 2023, Breathed only created seven daily strips released between July 23rd and August 13th and has yet to release any at all for 2024. Starting from 2016, Breathed took on, with permission, the characters from Calvin and Hobbes in an occasional series of strips. Bloom County has had an influence on other cartoonists, particularly cartoonists who have an irreverent bent or tackle political topics in their work. For example, Scott Kurtz , creator of

2501-503: The strip, "Headlines" breaks to identify the top stories of the day, and commentary from Breathed. Each volume has three separate releases: a standard edition, a signed edition, and a signed, remarked edition. Breathed said that the reason why the strips printed in The Bloom County Library were not published in previous collections was that the publisher would not let Breathed publish 400 pages each year, so Breathed had to reduce

Steve Dallas - Misplaced Pages Continue

2562-431: The strip. Outland ran from September 3, 1989, to March 26, 1995. Another Sunday-only spinoff strip called Opus ran from November 23, 2003, to November 2, 2008. On July 12, 2015, Breathed posted to his Facebook page a photo with the caption "A return after 25 years. Feels like going home." The photo showed him drawing a comic strip with the title Bloom County 2015 with Opus pictured in the first frame. A fan asked in

2623-546: The strips that preceded Loose Tails . All of the daily strips have been reprinted in Comics Revue magazine. IDW Publishing published The Bloom County Library , a five volume hardback collection of all Bloom County strips, beginning in October 2009. This series is part of their Library of American Comics series. It is a complete reprint of the strip, including side notes about cultural and political references made in

2684-405: The 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 in the final panel. Aaron McGruder , creator of the comic and later animated series The Boondocks , has paid tribute to Breathed's work as well, with

2745-470: Was Opus the Penguin , who idolized him and tagged along with him like a younger brother. Steve often used Opus' hero worship to manipulate the hapless penguin into doing his dirty work (although occasionally Steve was heard to have threatened Opus into helping him instead). He was often shown to hold strongly conservative political positions (albeit to a lesser extent than in The Academia Waltz ), to

2806-414: Was 39.43 N 105.01 W, which would place it just south of Denver, Colorado . In an early strip, Milo gives his address as "Box 163, Bloom County, N.I., 12460", the zip code for which would place it about 30 miles southwest of Albany, New York . Another strip has Opus trying to make airline reservations to Des Moines, Iowa . He balks at the outrageously high quoted price for a ticket stating that "Des Moines

2867-412: Was announced The Simpsons writer Tim Long joined the series as showrunner. Like many other popular comic strips, Bloom County has been republished in various collections . By 2004, the comic strip was reprinted in 11 books, the first having been published in 1983 and the last in that year. None of the reprints contained complete runs of the strip, although Bloom County Babylon contained many of

2928-522: Was announced in June 2016; Bloom County Episode XI: A New Hope was a compilation of strips from 2015 and 2016. Two more books followed in 2017 and 2018, respectively. No more books have been published since. On April 11, 2022, Breathed posted a new strip on Facebook labeled "Season 33, Episode 3" in the title panel. It featured Steve Dallas and Opus in a satire of the MeToo Movement. New installments of

2989-562: Was available only online, and the Humane Society of the United States page that displayed it was later removed. Breathed said that he had no regrets in leaving political cartooning, as he believed the atmosphere became too bitter for him to make quality cartoons. In July 2015 Breathed hinted at a return to the strip when he posted a photo to Facebook of him at his computer, starting a cartoon entitled "Bloom County 2015". He added: "A return after 25 years. Feels like going home." The strip

3050-459: Was based on a real person. Steve Dallas...a frat-boy lawyer who I knew in school. He's never written me. I suspect he was shot by an annoyed girlfriend, which saved me many legal fees The name "Steve Dallas" also appears in the classic and cynical noir film Sweet Smell of Success , wherein a cool jazz musician named Steve Dallas dates the wrong girl (kid sister of a sinister and influential columnist played by Burt Lancaster ) and gets set up for

3111-483: Was briefly the manager of Billy and the Boingers , a Def Leppard -esque glam metal band consisting of Opus, Bill the Cat , and Hodge-Podge. Steve briefly became a different person shortly after he was abducted by aliens . On board their spaceship, the aliens had originally planned to transplant Elvis Presley 's brain into Steve's head. However, after Steve threatened the aliens with a lawsuit , they decided to perform

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3172-400: Was controversial. Because the cartoon appeared on the comics page, and not on the editorial page, the win was disapproved of by many members of Association of American Editorial Cartoonists . Breathed cited the controversy over the release of Go Set a Watchman as the factor that led him to resume Bloom County . At the very beginning of the strip (December 1980), the central setting

3233-499: 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

3294-561: Was hired part-time by the Austin American-Statesman to draw editorial cartoons for the newspaper. This job was short-lived; he was dismissed shortly after one of his cartoons (about a busing order imposed on the local school system) caused outrage. His first comic strip published regularly was The Academia Waltz , which appeared in the Daily Texan , in 1978 while he was a student at the University of Texas . During his time at

3355-603: Was later posted to Facebook. He has subsequently been posting new Bloom County strips via Facebook on an almost-daily basis, as of January 2018. (In 2016, " 2015 " was dropped from the new strip's name.) In 2021, Breathed penned a series of strips featuring characters from Bill Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes . Panels featured Watterson's Calvin as Spaceman Spiff and Hobbes the Tiger. Breathed's syndicated and Facebook cartoon work has produced at least thirteen cartoon anthology books, as of January 2018. Starting in 1992, he designed

3416-496: Was lifted from University of Iowa football coach Hayden Fry 's comment, infuriating feminists at the university. On February 15, 2022, Fox announced a Bloom County television series, with Berkeley Breathed as executive producer and co-writer. Bento Box will serve as the animation studio on the project. Fox's animation company, Bento Box Entertainment , Miramax , Spyglass Media Group and Project X Entertainment are all working on it as an animated series. In September 2022, it

3477-409: Was made into the motion-capture film Mars Needs Moms ( Disney , 2011). Another animated film; Hitpig! , which Breathed himself loosely adapted from his book Pete and Pickles , was produced by Aniventure , and is set for a 2024 release. Breathed's writing has also been featured in numerous publications, including Life , Boating , and Travel and Leisure . He produced the cartoon art for

3538-422: Was published via Facebook on July 13, 2015. Breathed won the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning in 1987, making him only the second (and so far last) comic strip artist to win a Pulitzer; the other was Garry Trudeau , whose work has influenced Breathed. Bloom County originated from a comic strip known as The Academia Waltz , which Breathed produced for The Daily Texan , the student newspaper of

3599-572: Was the Bloom boarding house run by the grandparents of Milo Bloom. As the strip continued, various boarders (and/or pets) moved into the boarding house. In the order the characters debuted: For detailed summaries of all storylines, see the entries for the individual books. Breathed decided to end the strip in 1989. In keeping with the continuity of the Bill the Cat/Donald Trump storyline, Trump "buys out"

3660-787: Was the first character to have been featured in all four of Breathed's comic strips. He appeared regularly, albeit much older, in the Sunday-only Opus . On June 12, 2013, Steve Dallas made a guest appearance in Pearls Before Swine . In the early days of Bloom County , Steve was usually seen hitting on schoolteacher Bobbi Harlow , whom he briefly dated and failed to woo back once she left him for Cutter John . He frequently dated Bobbi's dimwitted cousin, Quiche Loraine, to make her jealous (the plan did not work). Most residents of Bloom County, especially women, either despised him or indifferently tolerated his presence. The one exception

3721-463: Was the most aggressive womanizer and most blatant male chauvinist of all the eligible males in the cartoon. Outside of the courts, Steve's professionalism was questionable. In one instance he attempts to collect from a past due client by saying "Attention criminal pervert, where the hell is my dough, you twisted goon?". Opus, however, who at the time is working as a paralegal , writes in the actual letter "We still await payment of your legal fee". He

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