History YMMV / BloomCounty

* GrowingTheBeard: Berke himself, in the 1980-1982 collection, expresses disgust with some of his early strips because the lettering was sloppy, the characters and setting were unfocused (which would explain the massive ChuckCunninghamSyndrome in the second year) and the gags derivative of ''ComicStrip/Doonesbury''. He went on to say that the strip became much better around January 1982, once he found a personality for Opus and shifted the strip's focus to Opus, Milo and Binkley.

* IconicCharacterForgottenTitle: Since Opus was more well-known than the names ''Bloom County'' or ''Outland'', Berke's third strip was titled ''Opus''.

* GrowingTheBeard: Berke himself, in the 1980-1982 collection, expresses disgust with some of his early strips because the lettering was sloppy, the characters and setting were unfocused (which would explain the massive ChuckCunninghamSyndrome in the second year) and the gags derivative of ''Doonesbury''. He went on to say that the strip became much better around January 1982, once he found a personality for Opus and shifted the strip's focus to Opus, Milo and Binkley.

** The ''ReturnOfTheJedi'' storyline ends with George Lucas telling Binkley that they should get to all the films by 1998; Binkley responds by decapitating him with his lightsaber and remarking "Jedi don't wait 15 years for sequels". He's right -- [[ThePhantomMenace they wait 16 years for prequels]]. In the collected edition, Breathed points this out by saying "I was off by one year. The funny thing is, George really did seem to lose his head."

** During the "Steve forms a heavy metal band" story arc, Steve tells Rosebud that [[Music/SimonAndGarfunkel "Sounds of Silence"]] isn't quite metal material. Guess which song heavy-metal band [[Music/{{Disturbed}}]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9Dg-g7t2l4 did a cover of]] in 2015?

* HilariousInHindsight: Three prominent examples:

** Although in one of the original strips it is explained that he was injured by a booby trap while in a Vietcong tunnel. Two fellow soldiers were wounded getting him out.

* CharacterizationMarchesOn: ''Bloom County 2015'' finally explains (sort of) how Cutter John got injured. Wooing a woman, he finally abandons his wheelchair and wears leg brace supports.

* TearJerker: [[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/TearJerker/BloomCounty Here.]]

** The storyline where Steve sues Santa for a little girl because her (equally young) brother got a ton of guns and Rambo paraphernalia on Christmas, in the light of recent stories of not only small children accidentally shooting people, but guns like e"My First Rifle" being specifically marketed at them. Especially the panel where the boy is holding new puppy at gunpoint.

* TearJerker: Pretty much everything around the end of BloomCounty. Opus' dandelion gardens are destroyed and paved over, everyone has left the comic, and the final panel of the last page is Opus slowly walking away alone into a blank nothingness as his fruit hat falls apart.

Dont forget the end of Opus oh my god I was crying so hard

** The storyline involving televangelists casting out perpetrators of the blasphemous "penguin lust" actually makes even more sense years later when two male penguins became famous across the world for choosing eachother as mates.

* ReverseShazam: Since Opus was more well-known than the names ''Bloom County'' or ''Outland'', Berke's third strip was titled ''Opus''.

* RecycledScript: Berke tended to reuse a ''ton'' of gags in his comics. Of note: The "Whopper, no bun" gag, which was used in ''Bloom County'''s [[http://john.seikdel.net/gocomics.php?date=070326&comic=blm first comic]], came from Berke's previous comic ''[[http://john.seikdel.net/gocomics.php?date=090102&comic=aw The Academia Waltz]]'', and was later reused ''again'' in ''Bloom County'' itself.
** He did it again with several ''Opus'' strips.

* TearJerker: Pretty much everything around the end of BloomCounty. Opus' dandelion gardens are destroyed and paved over, everyone has left the comic, and the final panel of the last page is Opus slowly walking away alone into a blank nothingness as his fruit hat falls apart.

** The below-mentioned strip in which Binkley states that "Jedi don't wait 15 years for a sequel." Which is completely true - they wait 16 years.

* SomeAnvilsNeedToBeDropped: The Mary Kay animal testing arc is often credited with bringing about the cessation of Mary Kay's unnecessary animal testing practices and in a larger sense sparking the 90s animal rights movements - ''because everything depicted in the arc was 100% true and done to animals'' at the time of publication.

* CharacterDerailment: This strip has ''three'' examples of TropesAreNotBad when it comes to this trope. Steve Dallas becomes effeminate and overall more sympathetic; Opus goes from a generic FunnyAnimal to a neurotic, materialistic couch potato; and Bill the Cat goes from a hacking fleabag to Donald Trump in a cat body. Steve's was subverted, though, as he later had his personality flipped back to normal (right around the time the other characters finally [[WeWantOurJerkBack got sick of his sensitive-new-age-guy schtick]]).
** Ronald Ann's last appearance has her trying to inflict white guilt on Opus, a far cry from her standard cheerful, upbeat attitude.