Minor Characters in Bloom County - W. A. Thornhump III

W. A. Thornhump III was introduced as the fictional CEO of Bloom County Industries in 1986. Thornhump was Breathed's attempt at satirizing the perceived hypocrisy of money-grubbing corporate America, as well as the unreasonable demands of the cartoon syndicate bosses. Typical examples of this hypocrisy were his replacing characters with scab workers when they decided to go on strike and a Sunday strip that showed the results of drug tests of employees of the cartoons and even Berke Breathed himself, who Thornhump thinks should be executed because the drug test revealed that he ate "one marijuana brownie six years ago." Thornhump's test, of course, reveals that he is a serious alcoholic. This point is driven home when Opus appears with his six-martini lunch. Nevertheless, the final verdict of his test declares him to be "drug free."

Thornhump was always prepared to pander to whomever he felt the need to pander to. He also did whatever he could to make a quick buck or rating point, regardless of legal, moral, or ethical issues, even going so low as to schedule a field trip to the "Acme Stewardess Academy" during a "Nudeness Week" in the strip.

Thornhump was not present when Bloom County was "sold" to Donald Trump in Bill the Cat's body, although he was later parodied in an editorial cartoon by Calvin and Hobbes creator Bill Watterson that attacked Breathed's penchant for allowing merchandising rights for his creations.