Who created Bloom County?
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"Bloom County" originated from a comic strip known as "The Academia Waltz", which Breathed produced for "The Daily Texan", the student newspaper of 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.
Bloom County
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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.
Bloom County
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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, the county contained what appeared to be a big-city ghetto ("the wrong side of the tracks", as it was known).
Bloom County
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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 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 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 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."
Bloom County
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Organization of Bloom Township was approved by the Nobles County Board on March 18, 1879. The original choice of name for the township was Afton. However, the Nobles County Board was notified by the state auditor's office that another Afton Township existed in Washington County, Minnesota. The name was then changed to Bloom Township in honor of Peter Bloom, the township's first settler. Afton Township in Washington County no longer exists, having been absorbed by the city of Afton, Minnesota, in 1971.
Bloom Township, Nobles County, Minnesota
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Louis A. Bloom (August 10, 1900 – December 18, 1988) was an American politician from Pennsylvania who served as a Republican member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives for Delaware County from 1947 to 1952. He was a judge in the Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas for Delaware County.
Louis A. Bloom
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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 was frequented by Hare Krishnas, feminists, and rock stars.
Bloom County
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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 the strips that preceded "Loose Tails". All of the daily strips have been reprinted in "Comics Revue" magazine.
Bloom County
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The setting of "Bloom County" resembled Iowa City, Iowa, in several ways; Breathed lived there during the early years of the strip. The Bloom Boarding House, for example, which appeared as a high contrast photo within the strip, is modeled after the Linsay House located at 935 East College Street in Iowa City. 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 hangs in the bookstore. An original "Bloom County" strip hangs in the Iowa City Public Library. Breathed used the call letters KRNA to refer to "Bloom County"'s rock radio station featuring "Rockin' Charmin' Harmon". 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", was lifted from University of Iowa football coach Hayden Fry's comment, infuriating feminists at the university.
Bloom County
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The mill continued to be referred to as "Filkin's mill" in land records for the rest of the century. Sometime around the Revolution, though, it became just a name, as Isaac Filkins sold the mill property to a younger man named Isaac Bloom, who may have come to Dutchess County from what is now Brooklyn. The younger man signed a 1775 deed for a nearby property as a witness, and Benson Lossing's 1852 "Pictorial History of the Revolution" records the Continental Army encamped at "Bloom's Mills." That name may be anachronistic, but by 1781 another local deed references Bloom as a nearby landowner, and in 1785 he took out a mortgage on that contained the current mill property.
Bloomvale Historic District