Milo Bloom: "He's back! Steve: ("He's bad")

Steve Dallas is a fictional character in the American comic strips of Berke Breathed, most famously Bloom County in the 1980s. Guy Berkeley "Berke" Breathed (born June 21, 1957) is an American Cartoonist, children's book Author / Illustrator, Bloom County was an American Comic strip by Berkeley Breathed which ran from December 8, 1980 until August 6, 1989 The 1980s was the decade spanning from January 1 1980 to December 31 1989.

He was first introduced as an obnoxious frat boy in the college strip The Academia Waltz, which ran in the University of Texas's Daily Texan during 1978 and 1979 ^[1]. Fraternities and sororities (from the Latin words la frater and la soror, meaning "brother" and "sister" respectively are fraternal The Academia Waltz was Berke Breathed 's first cartoon published daily from 1978 to 1979 in The Daily Texan at The The Daily Texan is the Student newspaper of The University of Texas at Austin. Steve then reappears in Bloom County after graduation as a self-employed, unscrupulous lawyer.

At present, he is the only character that has been featured in all four of Breathed's comic strips. He now appears regularly, albeit much older, in the Sunday-only Opus. Opus was a Sunday strip drawn by Berkeley Breathed for a period of circa five years from 2003 to 2008

In Bloom County

In the early days of Bloom County, Steve was usually seen hitting on schoolteacher Bobbi Harlow, whom he briefly dated and failed to ever woo back once she left him for Cutter John. Bloom County was an American Comic strip by Berkeley Breathed which ran from December 8, 1980 until August 6, 1989 Bobbi Harlow is a fictional character in Berke Breathed 's comic strip Bloom County. Cutter John is a Fictional character in the 1980s Comic strip Bloom County by Berke Breathed. He frequently dated Bobbi's dimwitted cousin, Quiche, to make her jealous (the ploy did not work).

Most residents of Bloom County, especially women, either despised him or indifferently tolerated his presence. The one exception was Opus the Penguin, who idolized him and tagged along with him like a younger brother. Opus the Penguin ( Opus T Penguin) is a character in the Comic strips and Children's books of Berkeley Breathed, most notably the popular 1980s Steve often used Opus' hero worship to manipulate the hapless penguin into doing his dirty work (although occasionally Steve was heard to have threatened Opus into helping him instead).

As a lawyer, Steve took on hopeless cases defending psychotic criminals and murderers, much to the chagrin of his overbearing mother. Psychosis (from the Greek ψυχή "psyche" for mind or soul and -οσις "-osis" for abnormal condition with adjective psychotic A bachelor throughout the entire run of the strip, he was the most aggressive womanizer and most blatant male chauvinist of all the eligible males in the cartoon. Chauvinism (ˈʃoʊvɨnɪzəm is extreme and unreasoning Partisanship on behalf of a group to which one belongs especially when the partisanship includes malice and hatred

He was briefly the manager of Billy and the Boingers, a Def Leppard-esque glam metal band consisting of Opus, Bill the Cat, and Hodge-Podge. Billy and the Boingers is a fictional heavy metal rock band from the comic strip Bloom County, originally known as Deathtöngue. Glam metal (also known as pop metal) is a sub-genre of Heavy metal music that arose in the late 1970s and early 1980s in the United States. Bill the Cat, or Bill D Cat, according to the final Outland strip is a fictional Cat appearing in the works of Cartoonist Berkeley Breathed

Steve briefly became a different, better (albeit still annoying) person shortly after he was abducted by aliens. See also List of extraterrestrials in fiction In Popular cultures Life forms -especially intelligent life forms that are of extraterrestrial On board their spaceship, the aliens had originally planned to transplant Elvis' brain into Steve's head. However, after Steve threatened the aliens with a lawsuit, they decided to perform the "Gephardtization" process on him instead, which was the same procedure used previously on Dick Gephardt to completely reverse opinions and attitudes. Richard Andrew "Dick" Gephardt (born January 31, 1941) is a former prominent American politician of the Democratic Party. After being presumed dead by the residents of Bloom County, Steve was zapped back to earth a few days later. To the whole county's amazement, he was now a sensitive, caring liberal and feminist. Feminism is a discourse that involves various movements theories, and Philosophies which are concerned with the issue of Gender difference, advocate He also stopped wearing his trademark sunglasses, quit smoking, and got a perm^[2].

This carried on for about a year, until Steve found out that his girlfriend Gladys was cheating on him. Devastated, he resolved to forever avenge feminine betrayal, and by doing so, he put his trademark sunglasses back on. He immediately returned to his old, cantankerous self. ^[3]

During the closing down of Bloom County in the final days of the strip, Steve seeks employment in other strips. He is seen (in the strip) to land a guest spot in Cathy, much to that title character's horror, who orders him "Out! Out! Out! Forever!"

Outland and Opus

At the end of Outland in 1995, Steve came out of the closet and admitted he was gay. Cathy is a Comic strip drawn by Cathy Guisewite. Featuring a woman who struggles through the "four basic guilt groups" of life &mdash food love mom and Outland was a Sunday-only Comic strip written and illustrated by Berkeley Breathed from 1989 until 1995. Coming outThe expressions " closeted " or "in the closet " generally refer to undisclosed sexual behavior, Sexual orientation or Gender In the English language, gay is an Adjective that in modern usage refers to Homosexuality. In his final appearance in the comic, he had married a man (Doonesbury's Mark Slackmeyer, in an unlicensed cameo typical of Breathed's work) and was thinking about adopting children. Same-sex marriage (also referred to as gay marriage) is a term for a legally or Socially recognized Marriage between two people of the same Doonesbury is a Comic strip by G B Trudeau that chronicles the adventures and lives of a vast array of different characters of different ages professions Mark Slackmeyer is a character in the comic strip Doonesbury. A cameo role or cameo appearance (often shortened to just cameo) is a brief appearance of a known person in a work of the Performing arts, such as LGBT adoption refers to the Adoption of children by Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, or Transgendered people

However, in Opus nine years later, Steve was back to his babe-mongering ways after enrolling in the "Rev. Opus was a Sunday strip drawn by Berkeley Breathed for a period of circa five years from 2003 to 2008 Doogle De-Poofta Program," which used shock therapy to "cure" homosexuality. Conversion therapy has been defined by the American Psychological Association as therapy aimed at changing Sexual orientation, and by the American Psychiatric Steve is now depicted as a middle-aged man with thinning hair and a noticeable paunch.

Steve was also recently reunited with his long-lost son Auggie, and has reluctantly taken on the role of father figure. The August 26, 2007 strip implied, oddly enough, that he is romantically involved with the recently re-introduced character Lola Granola.

Notes

1. ^ Breathed, Berke (1990). Guy Berkeley "Berke" Breathed (born June 21, 1957) is an American Cartoonist, children's book Author / Illustrator, Classics of Western Literature. Boston: Little, Brown & Company, p. 2. ISBN 0-316-10754-9.  
2. ^ Breathed, Berke (1990). Guy Berkeley "Berke" Breathed (born June 21, 1957) is an American Cartoonist, children's book Author / Illustrator, Classics of Western Literature. Boston: Little, Brown & Company, pp. 133-135, 142. ISBN 0-316-10754-9.  
3. ^ Breathed, Berke (1990). Guy Berkeley "Berke" Breathed (born June 21, 1957) is an American Cartoonist, children's book Author / Illustrator, Classics of Western Literature. Boston: Little, Brown & Company, p. 240-242. ISBN 0-316-10754-9.  

References

• Breathed, Berke (1990). Classics of Western Literature. Boston: Little, Brown & Company. ISBN 0-316-10754-9.