Outland (comics)

Infobox Comic strip
title=Outland


caption= "Outland" header featuring Opus the Penguin
creator=Berkeley Breathed
current=
status=Cancelled
syndicate=Washington Post Writers Group
genre=Humor, Politics, Satire
first=September 3, 1989
last=March 26, 1995
preceded by=Bloom County
followed by=Opus

"Outland" was a Sunday-only comic strip written and illustrated by Berkeley Breathed from 1989 until 1995. It was a spin-off of Breathed's strip "Bloom County", featuring many of the same characters.

Overview

On September 31989, a month after retiring "Bloom County", Breathed began his second syndicated strip with a minor character from the previous strip. Ronald-Ann Smith, a little girl from the "wrong side of the tracks" in Bloom County, entered a magic doorway in a grimy alley that looked down into a cheery world of "cotton-candy trees" known as the Outland (the ground of her world did not sync up with that of Outland, so the door originally appears to be hovering in the sky above it).

In its earliest form, "Outland" had been intended to be an experimental strip for Breathed, featuring a channel for creativity in the forms of new characters (like Mortimer Mouse, based on the rejected name for Disney's Mickey Mouse) and bizarre backgrounds (many of which initially resembled those seen in "Krazy Kat"). However, Opus the penguin returned in the strip's third installment, and Bill the Cat appeared mere months after that. Before long, the premise of another world beyond a magic door had been lost completely.

Breathed wrote that the strip became "Bloom County without the continuing narrative that a daily appearance allows" in the first Outland book collection. Other characters from "Bloom County", such as Milquetoast the Cockroach, Steve Dallas, Oliver Wendell Jones, and Michael Binkley, became major players in the strip. Some characters, such as Cutter John, made an occasional guest appearance. A few prominent members of "Bloom County", such as Milo Bloom, did not make an active appearance at all (Milo did appear in the second-to-last installment of "Outland", as a background extra on a bus).

In 1991, Breathed wrote a children's Christmas book entitled "A Wish for Wings That Work". The story revolved around Opus and included several "Outland" characters (although the Outland itself was not explicitly referenced in the story). It was made into an animated television movie that same year.

Finally, on March 261995, Breathed decided to end the strip and retire from cartooning. At the strip's end, Steve Dallas came out as gay, and eloped to California with "Mark Slackmeyer" from the comic strip "Doonesbury". Opus returned to Antarctica to live with his mother, whom he had finally located (much of the original comic "Bloom County" focused on his quest to find her).

Eight years later, Breathed abandoned retirement and picked up where "Outland" had left off. The result was the Sunday-only reunion strip, "Opus".

Recurring characters

*Ronald-Ann Smith
*Mortimer Mouse
*Tim W. Forty
*Opus the Penguin
*Bill the Cat
*Milquetoast the Cockroach
*Truffles the Pig
*Oliver Wendell Jones
*Michael Binkley
*Steve Dallas

Reprints

*"Politically, Fashionably, and Aerodynamically Incorrect" (1992)
*"His Kisses are Dreamy...but Those Hairballs Down my Cleavage...!" (1994)
*"One Last Little Peek, 1980-1995: The Final Strips, the Special Hits, the Inside Tips" (1995)

Many "Outland" strips have never been reprinted in color, though all appeared in black & white in "Comics Revue" magazine.

"Outland" strips also appeared in the 2004 book "Opus: 25 Years of His Sunday Best", which reprinted strips from "Bloom County" and the new "Opus" strip as well.

External links

* [http://www.berkeleybreathed.com/ Berkeley Breathed's website]
* [http://www.toonopedia.com/outland.htm Toonopedia]