Heartwarming / Bloom County

• Opus's ultimate fate: living inside Goodnight Moon.
  • To give you an idea of how heartwarming this is: Steve Dallas, of all people, took off his sunglasses and is smiling.
• The ending of "Opus".
  • Not to mention the endings of "Bloom County" and "Outland". Berkeley Breathed is good at this.
• Yaz Pistachio bemoans the fact that she doesn't fit in anywhere—not with the jockettes, cheerleaders, valley girls—nowhere. Opus says otherwise.
• Opus meets Cutter John for the first time. Heartwarming ensues.
• In the Complete Library, after oh-so-many pages of Breathed's commentary bemoaning the outdated pop-culture gags, creative missteps and overt political commentary, he gives us this gem, showing us in some small way that he doesn't think it was all bad.
  I laughed at "Elisabeth Dole's olive" 25 years later. In case some of you think me too jaded to still do so.
• In one of the earliest Outland strips, Mortimer and Tim W. Forty brave the filth and gunfire of Ronald-Ann's neighborhood to smuggle her back to Outland, where she can sleep peacefully.
• Cozy asking Milo about what the deal with Cutter John is, and we learn that the reason he pretends his wheelchair is a spaceship, and he was injured because "his co-pilot dropped him in a TIE fighter crapstorm" and that it is easier to forgive a Wookiee than Bush and Cheney. Cozy's response?
  Cozy: Am I going to need seatbelts with Spaceman Spiff?
  Milo: Buckle up.
• Opus' "Wooing service" - he and his friends are dressed as chocolates. When he finds out Cozy has already agreed to date Cutter John, he asks if there's a "Wooee-in-Waiting" to render services to. Cozy's daughter Abby volunteers. Opus, Oliver, Binkley and Bill proceed to entertain her.
• In the Christmas 2015 cartoon, Steve Dallas spends the holiday with his ex's sick son, even decorating his hospital room with the boy's Star Wars stuff. That's right - Steve Dallas.
• A recent one-panel strip crosses over with a Funny Moment: the gang pays tribute to David Bowie by dressing like him in his classic Thin White Duke persona - except Steve, who dressed like Ziggy Stardust.
• February 21, 2016, Berkley Breathed released this tribute to Harper Lee. Berkley had stated that Bloom County was largely influenced by To Kill a Mockingbird, and Harper Lee had actually written to him after he initially ended Opus, asking him to bring the strip back.
  Opus: We should prob'bly remember something about Miss Lee. Folks thought she was Scout. Nah. She was always Boo.
• The Prince tribute: Opus, Bill, and Binkley laying in the meadow, painted purple.
• The 2016 Christmas strips revolved around Opus trying to get said sick son a puppy, only to be confronted with far-too-high prices for show dogs. Opus is eventually directed to an animal shelter, and finds a puppy who's close to being put down. Who pays for him? Steve Dallas.
• The entire Calvin and Hobbes crossover.
• It's unexpectedly sweet for the normally snarky and sarcastic Milo to sincerely tell Opus he's going to miss him and that he loves him like a brother at the wrap party for the original Bloom County. Granted, Opus doesn't even know it's him until the last panel as his head's been swallowed by a python (he's landed a gig with The Far Side.)

---