Milo Bloom is a fictional character in the American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 comic strip Bloom County

Bloom County

Bloom County is an American comic strip by Berkeley Breathed which 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...

. He was originally the main character, but was soon overshadowed by his best friend Michael Binkley

Michael Binkley

Michael Binkley is a fictional character in Berke Breathed's cartoon strip Bloom County.Michael, known to all simply as 'Binkley,' is a 10-year-old boy who lives at the Bloom County Boarding House with his father Tom . Binkley is in the same class as Milo Bloom, his best friend...

 and later on by Opus the penguin

Opus the Penguin

Opus the Penguin is a character in the comic strips and children's books of Berkeley Breathed, most notably the popular 1980s strip Bloom County. Breathed has described him as an "existentialist penguin" and the favorite of his many characters...

.

In Bloom County

Milo is the most worldly and cynical of all the characters; he is seemingly the only county resident who cares about politics and goings-on in the world outside his small town. He lives in the Bloom County Boarding House with his grandparents, Major Bloom and Bess Bloom. Said grandparents run the boarding house where most of the characters live.

Milo is also a reporter for the Bloom Beacon and later the Bloom Picayune, where he engages in controversial reporting (he says he graduated from the "Rupert Murdoch

Rupert Murdoch

Keith Rupert Murdoch, AC, KSG is an Australian-American business magnate. He is the founder and Chairman and CEO of , the world's second-largest media conglomerate....

 School of Exuberant Journalism"). In early strips, he regularly bothers Senator Bedfellow with ridiculous questions, asking for confirming accusations (usually about the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa

Jimmy Hoffa

James Riddle "Jimmy" Hoffa was an American labor union leader....

), and attempting to convict him for virtually anything, although Bedfellow is not his only target. A noteworthy scandal he creates (with some help from Oliver Wendell Jones

Oliver Wendell Jones

Oliver Wendell Jones is a fictional character in Bloom County, Outland and Opus, three comic strips by American cartoonist Berkeley Breathed.-Fictional character biography:...

) involved changing the front page article of the New York Times, from "Reagan

Ronald Reagan

Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....

 Calls Women 'America's Most Valuable Resource'" to "Reagan Calls Women 'America's Little Dumplins'", resulting in an attack on the White House

White House

The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...

 by angry feminists but earning praise from Phyllis Schlafly

Phyllis Schlafly

Phyllis McAlpin Stewart Schlafly is a Constitutional lawyer and an American politically conservative activist and author who founded the Eagle Forum. She is known for her opposition to modern feminism ideas and for her campaign against the proposed Equal Rights Amendment...

. He has also changed the headline of the Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

n newspaper Pravda

Pravda

Pravda was a leading newspaper of the Soviet Union and an official organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party between 1912 and 1991....

, intending for it to say "Gorbachev

Mikhail Gorbachev

Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev is a former Soviet statesman, having served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991, and as the last head of state of the USSR, having served from 1988 until its dissolution in 1991...

 urges disarmament

Nuclear disarmament

Nuclear disarmament refers to both the act of reducing or eliminating nuclear weapons and to the end state of a nuclear-free world, in which nuclear weapons are completely eliminated....

: Total! Unilateral!". Unfortunately, Oliver gets the translation wrong, resulting in the headline being "Gorbachev sings tractors: Turnip! Buttocks!"

Milo appears to be the only staff reporter on the Bloom Beacon. The only other employees seen are the editor-in-chief and Opus, who serves, at various times, as personals editor, editorial writer, ombudsman

Ombudsman

An ombudsman is a person who acts as a trusted intermediary between an organization and some internal or external constituency while representing not only but mostly the broad scope of constituent interests...

, and cartoonist (or, as he styles it, "stripper").

Post-Bloom County

Milo didn't have an active role in either of Breathed's later syndicated strips. He appeared in Outland only as a background extra on a bus headed far away a week before the feature ended. He appeared in only two frames of the weekly strip Opus

Opus (comic strip)

Opus was a Sunday strip drawn by Berkeley Breathed for a period of five years, 2003 to 2008. It was Breathed's fourth comic strip, following The Academia Waltz, Bloom County and Outland....

, both in the form of visions. The first of these, early on in the strip, was as part of Opus' vision of former "Bloom County" residents he wished to find - Milo, Binkley, Oliver, Steve Dallas

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 University of Texas's Daily Texan during 1978 and 1979...

, and Bill the Cat

Bill the Cat

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, beginning with the comic strip Bloom County in the 1980s and continuing in Outland and Opus in the following decades...

. The latter four would all reunite with Opus during the course of the strip, but not Milo. His other appearance was just prior to the strip's conclusion, as part of Steve Dallas' vision of former Bloom County residents (Milo, Binkley, Oliver, Cutter John

Cutter John

Cutter John is a fictional character in the 1980s comic strip Bloom County by Berke Breathed.Cutter, a wheelchair-user and Vietnam War veteran was one of the county's most well-liked citizens. Despite being somewhat childish and awkward at times, he was very popular with the ladies, particularly...

, Portnoy

Portnoy (Bloom County character)

Portnoy is a character in Berke Breathed's comic strip Bloom County. Portnoy was one of the critters that could talk, and was often surly mouthed and bigoted, usually leading Hodge-Podge, his best friend, to have to cover his mouth. When Bill the Cat became a televangelist denouncing "penguin...

, and Bill the Cat) waving goodbye as they rode off into the distance atop Cutter John's wheelchair.