''Outland'' is a

comic strip A comic strip is a sequence of drawings, often cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions. Traditionally, throughout the 20th and into the 21st ...

written and illustrated by Berkeley Breathed from

1989 File:1989 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The Cypress Street Viaduct, Cypress structure collapses as a result of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, killing motorists below; The proposal document for the World Wide Web is submitted; The Exxo ...

until

1995 File:1995 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: O.J. Simpson is O. J. Simpson murder case, acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman from the 1994, year prior in "The Trial of the Century" in the United States; The ...

. It was a Sunday-only

spin-off Spin-off may refer to: *Spin-off (media), a media work derived from an existing work *Corporate spin-off, a type of corporate action that forms a new company or entity * Government spin-off, civilian goods which are the result of military or gove ...

of Breathed's strip '' Bloom County'', featuring many of the same characters.

Overview

On September 3, 1989, 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, entering 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 align 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 (such as Mortimer Mouse, based on the rejected name for Disney's

Mickey Mouse Mickey Mouse is an animated cartoon Character (arts), character co-created in 1928 by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. The longtime mascot of The Walt Disney Company, Mickey is an Anthropomorphism, anthropomorphic mouse who typically wears red sho ...

) and bizarre backgrounds (many of which initially resembled those seen in ''

Krazy Kat ''Krazy Kat'' (also known as ''Krazy & Ignatz'' in some reprints and compilations) is an US, American newspaper comic strip, by cartoonist George Herriman, which ran from 1913 to 1944. It first appeared in the ''New York Journal-American, New Yor ...

''). However, Opus the Penguin returned in the strip's third installment, and

Bill the Cat Bill the Cat, or Bill D. Cat, is a fictional cat appearing in the works of cartoonist Berkeley Breathed, beginning with the comic strip ''Bloom County'' in the 1980s and continuing in '' Outland'' and ''Opus'' in the following decades. Bill also ...

appeared 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 The following are minor characters from Berkeley Breathed's comic strip ''Bloom County''. Though significant enough to have appeared multiple times in the strip, they were not crucial to the strip's overall development, and disappeared without much ...

Steve Dallas 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 Uni ...

, 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 (though 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 ''A Wish for Wings That Work: An Opus Christmas Story'' is a children's book by Berkeley Breathed that was published in 1991. It was made into an animated television special that same year. The book and special feature characters from Breathed' ...

''. 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 26, 1995, 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 Mark Sheldon Slackmeyer is a character in the comic strip ''Doonesbury''. Character biography Mark starts out as a radical at Walden College, and leads several peace rallies (in his first appearance, he referred to himself as "'Megaphone' Mark ...

from the comic strip '' Doonesbury''. Opus returned to Antarctica to live with his mother, whom he had finally located (some story arcs 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 *

* Milquetoast the Cockroach * Truffles the Pig * Oliver Wendell Jones * Michael Binkley *

* The Kiwi * The Ducks * The Chicken

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) * ''Outland: The Complete Library – Sunday Comics: 1989-1995'' (2012) 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. The whole output of ''Outland'' was collected by The Library of American Comics in their series, '' Bloom County: The Complete Library'' in 2012.

References

External links

Berkeley Breathed's website
{{Bloomcounty Bloom County 1989 comics debuts 1995 comics endings American comic strips Satirical comics Gag-a-day comics Comics spin-offs Comics about cats Comics about mice and rats Comics about penguins Comics about animals Fictional mice and rats Fictional penguins Works by Berkeley Breathed