Berkeley Breathed

Guy Berkeley "Berke" Breathed (born June 21, 1957) is an American cartoonist, children's book author/illustrator, director, and screenwriter, best known for Bloom County, a 1980s cartoon-comic strip which dealt with socio-political issues as seen through the eyes of highly exaggerated characters (e.g. Bill the Cat and Opus the Penguin) and humorous analogies. A native of Houston, Breathed attended Westchester High School. Breathed became published when he was hired part-time by the Austin American-Statesman to draw editorial cartoons for the paper. This job was short-lived due to one cartoon causing outrage, and was fired shortly after. His first regularly published strip was The Academia Waltz, which appeared in the Daily Texan in 1978. The 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 and featured some of the characters from Academia Waltz, including...