Editing Bloom County (section)

===Core characters===
[[File:Bloom County characters.jpeg|thumb|right|300px|Major characters ''(from left to right)'': Oliver, Opus, Binkley, Steve Dallas, Portnoy, Milo, Bill, Hodge-Podge, and Milquetoast]]
At the very beginning of the strip (December 1980), the central setting 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:

*'''[[Milo Bloom]]''', introduced in December 1980, is a 10-year-old newspaper reporter and probably the most worldly-wise of the bunch.  Milo was the original protagonist of ''Bloom County'', and much of the strip's action during its first year takes place at the [[boarding house]] owned by his family. Initially presented as an innocent-yet-precocious ten-year-old grappling bizarrely with the hallmarks of his impending puberty (to the extent of developing an intense infatuation with [[Betty Crocker]]), Milo's 'offscreen' appointment to a journalist position for the local Bloom Beacon newspaper in January 1982 gradually modified his role to that of a 'straight man', with a number of his more absurdist earlier traits re-allocated to then-ascendant protagonist Opus. In the very earliest strips, Milo's grandfather ("The Major") was a central character; after the first year, the Major's role diminished and he eventually ceased to appear as a regular at the end of 1982, vanishing altogether after his final appearance in a July 1983 Sunday strip. 
*'''[[Steve Dallas]]''', introduced in May 1981, was (like Cutter John) originally a featured character in ''The Academia Waltz''.  Steve is Bloom County's sole defense attorney.  A machoistic and irresponsible chain smoker and former "[[frat boy]]", Dallas spends most of his free time either trying to seduce women or concocting get-rich-quick schemes, including forming and managing a [[Heavy metal music|heavy metal]] band, Billy and the Boingers (previously known as [[Metal umlaut|Deathtöngue]]). While initially introduced as a foil to Bobbi Harlow, the latter's eventual hookup with Cutter John increasingly expanded the flexibility of Dallas's role, rendering him the strip's sole major adult human character by the mid-80s. 
*'''[[Michael Binkley]]''' was also introduced in May 1981.  Binkley was a schoolmate of Milo's who lived with his father, Tom Binkley, rather than in the boarding house. Binkley is wishy-washy and overly reflective (in the mold of [[Charlie Brown]]), when not contemplating the lives of famous figures in [[popular culture|pop culture]], often at his father's bedside in the middle of the night.  His "anxiety closet", first appearing in January 1983, has been a staple of many story lines.
*'''[[Opus the Penguin|Opus]]''' is a large-nosed penguin (occasionally mistaken for a [[puffin]]) with a [[herring]] addiction who lost track of his mother during the [[Falklands War]] (they were later reunited in a closing story line at the end of the strip's first incarnation). He was originally introduced as the more realistically designed pet penguin of Michael Binkley ("A boy and his penguin!" "A penguin and his boy!") in June 1981, although he was only seen in three strips that month.  He was re-introduced as a full-time cast member in January 1982; by mid-1982, Opus had ceased to be Binkley's pet and he eventually became a boarder at the Bloom house, with his design likewise evolving into its more stylized trademark form (thus identifying him less strongly as a penguin) by the end of 1983. Opus' hopeless naïveté and optimism made him a fan favorite, and he quickly became the center of the strip, as well as the subject of two "sequel" strips (''[[Outland (comics)|Outland]]'' and ''[[Opus (comic strip)|Opus]]''), three children's books, and a television special entitled ''[[A Wish for Wings That Work]]''.
*'''[[Cutter John]]''', introduced in November 1981, is a wheelchair-using [[Vietnam War]] [[veteran]], noted for indulging in ''[[Star Trek]]'' fantasies with the meadow animals (Hodge-Podge, Portnoy and Opus), as well as [[anti-war]] protests. He is not a womanizer like Steve Dallas, but he is more popular with the ladies. His visage is nearly identical to that of Breathed himself. The character had previously appeared in Breathed's earlier comic strip, ''The Academia Waltz'', where he had been known as 'Saigon John'.
*'''[[Bill the Cat]]''' is a filthy, scraggly, flea-bitten, orange tabby cat, introduced in June 1982 as a parody of the comic character [[Garfield]]. The humor of the character was the antithesis of Garfield: whereas the famous fat-cat was a marketing bonanza, ''Bloom County'' humorously tried desperately to present Bill in the same manner, despite his disgusting and unappealing appearance. After serving over a year as a relatively minor character largely existing 'outside' of the strip's main continuity and cast of characters (beyond sporadic appearances and background references to his merchandise), Breathed temporarily retired the character via alluding to his 'offscreen' death in September 1983 (allegedly from [[acne]]); following his resurrection in July of the following year, Bill rapidly increased in prominence to the point of assuming an ironically central role in numerous major story lines, thus solidifying him as one of the strip's most widely-known figures (alongside Opus). Following his resurrection, Bill's low intelligence and inability to articulate himself beyond his trademark responses, "Ack" and "Pbthhh" led to him becoming something of a blank slate around which various increasingly-absurd plots revolved. He has been a [[cult]] [[Rajneeshpuram|member]] ("[[Bhagwan]] Bill"), [[televangelist]] ("Fundamentally Oral Bill"), perennial [[President (government title)|Presidential]] candidate (for the National Radical Meadow Party), heavy metal rock star ("Wild Bill Catt"), nuclear power plant operator at [[Chernobyl disaster|Chernobyl]], and, in the last months of the series, had his brain surgically replaced with [[Donald Trump]]'s, alongside allegedly conducting affairs with [[Jeane Kirkpatrick]], [[Diana, Princess of Wales|Princess Diana]] and [[Socks the cat]]. He has been known to speak on occasion, most notably during the [[Red Scare|Communist witch-hunt]] trials of which he has been a subject, when he remarked on January 13, 1986, "Say, you don't suppose the 'Jury Box' is anything like a litter box, do you?". Numerous strips indicated that his persistent near-[[catatonia|catatonic]] state was the result of drug use or brain damage resulting from once being legally dead and then revived after too long a period. In the Christmas special ''A Wish for Wings That Work'', implicitly set in a differing continuity from the strip, Opus alternately recounts having rescued Bill from a university science lab where they had replaced his brains with [[Tater Tots]].
*'''{{vanchor|Hodge-Podge}}''' is a rabbit (name unknown until April 1984) who is best friends with Portnoy and Cutter John.  He is politically conservative and [[fanaticism|fanatical]] about various issues, despite the fact that he is extremely ignorant about those same issues. Both Hodge-Podge and Portnoy (below) started off in April 1982 as unnamed minor characters, and their roles gradually increased as the strip continued, coalescing into their final forms around 1984.
*'''[[Portnoy (comics)|Portnoy]]''' is a groundhog, although his [[species]] was a mystery until October 1983. Before the revelation that he was a groundhog, he was portrayed as a squirrel, gopher, porcupine and possum, with his finalized groundhog design first emerging in March 1983. Portnoy was the grouchiest and most bigoted character by far and (in a few strips) was a bully to Opus.
*'''[[Oliver Wendell Jones]]''' is a schoolmate of Milo and Binkley, introduced in September 1983.  He is a young [[Hacker (computer security)|computer hacker]] and gifted scientist. He once tried to bring an end to the [[Cold War]] by introducing onto the front page of ''[[Pravda]]'' the headline, "[[Mikhail Gorbachev|Gorbachev]] Urges Disarmament: Total! Unilateral!", but faulty translation caused the headline to read, "Gorbachev Sings Tractors: Turnip! Buttocks!"<ref>[http://i44.tinypic.com/20rl4is.jpg "Scan of actual strip"] Retrieved March 26, 2012. {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111208022250/http://i44.tinypic.com/20rl4is.jpg|date=2011-12-08}}</ref> He has a fairly extensive criminal record as a result of his numerous computer pranks.  Oliver is African-American.  [[Oliver Wendell Jones#Mothering|His mother]] has dressed her son to resemble Michael Jackson, much to Oliver's chagrin.