Ronald-Ann Smith

Ronald-Ann Smith was a character in Berkeley Breathed's comic strips Bloom County and Outland.

Named after Ronald Reagan, Ronald-Ann was a young African American girl "from the wrong side of the trax" in Bloom County. Appearing late in the strip's run, Ronald-Ann was presented as a polar opposite of the kind of greedy materialism that the 1980s represented. During a conversation with Donald Trump in Bill the Cat's body, it was revealed that Ronald-Ann's family lived in a single broken-down room with nine beds. Her best friend was her doll Reynelda, who had no head as a result of being "caught in the crossfire during the Christmas drug turf battles".

After Bloom County ended in 1989, Ronald-Ann became the protagonist in Breathed's next syndicated strip, Outland. She is seen traveling to this realm through portals in her big city neighborhood.

Her existence in the Outland was clearly more laid-back than it had been in her Bloom County days.

Before long, though, she was overshadowed by her Bloom County compadres, such as Opus the penguin and Bill the Cat, among others. She faded away from Outland just months before it ended in 1995, leaving no clue as to her current whereabouts in Breathed's cartoon universe.

Famous quotes containing the word smith:

    Not ringed but rare, not gilled but polyp-like, having sprung up
    overnight—

    These mushrooms of the gods, resembling human organs uprooted,
    rooted only on the air,
    —William Jay Smith (b. 1918)