Guy Berkeley "Berke" Breathed (/ˈbrɛθɪd/; born June 21, 1957) is an American cartoonist, children's book author, director, and screenwriter, known for his comic strips Bloom County, Outland, and Opus.

This job was short-lived; he was dismissed shortly after one of his cartoons (about a busing order imposed on the local school system) caused outrage.

[2] His first comic strip published regularly was The Academia Waltz, which appeared in the Daily Texan, in 1978 while he was a student at the University of Texas.

It featured some of the characters from Academia Waltz, including former frat-boy Steve Dallas and the paraplegic Vietnam War veteran Cutter John.

[5] Breathed replaced the strip with the surreal Sunday-only cartoon Outland in 1989, which reused some of the Bloom County characters, including Opus the Penguin and Bill the Cat.

[1] Breathed explained that he felt that the United States was going to face "tough times", and that he wanted to end the saga of his most memorable character "on a lighter note".

The final panel of the strip showed Opus sleeping peacefully in the bed depicted in the classic children's book, Goodnight Moon.

[9] In July 2015 Breathed hinted at a return to the strip when he posted a photo to Facebook of him at his computer, starting a cartoon entitled "Bloom County 2015".

He produced the cartoon art for the closing credits of the Texas-based 2003 film Secondhand Lions, which featured a strip called Walter and Jasmine.

[17][18] Breathed cameos as himself in the 2004 short film Tim Warner: A Life in the Clouds, a fictional tale about an unhappy cartoonist and his unfunny strip, The Silver Lining.