Bill the Cat

Overview
Bill the Cat is one of the strip's most popular characters, and is most well known for running for president of the United states in 1984 and 1988.

Appearance
Bill is a large orange cat. He is commonly seen sitting down, though he is known to occasionally stand up as well. His trademark feature is his tongue and eyes, the tongue hangs out of his mouth and is known to cause Bill to hack, the eyes are both different sizes, giving him a very comical apperence. In addition, Bill is commonly seen with various hairstyles, despite the fact that his hair seems too short to stylize.



Personality
Bill's personality has never been fully established, as his standard behavior consists of lying in a partial, drug-induced coma. As such, his vocabulary consists almost solely of gagging ("Ack!"), raspberries, and all variations/combinations thereupon. However, his unseen-but-constantly-mentioned antics have established him as one of the most unpredictable characters in the strip. He is often seen as doing whatever he believes is smart, almost always ending in a painful way for him. Bill is also a very drastic person, doing extreme things randomly (for example, joining the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh cult with no warning whatsoever). Bill has at various times been (rightly) accused of being a drug addict, and is very frequently seen in the midst of love affairs with such celebrities as Jean KirkPatrick. He also appears to be quite opportunistic and even intelligent; When his career as a rock star is ruined due to reading the Bible with nun Edieth Drock, he uses it to become a TV evangelist and get even richer.

Death and Rebirth
In the three part Sunday strip entitled "THE BILL THE CAT STORY," it is revealed how the tragic circumstance of Bill's death occured. As the seductiveness of celebrity began to take a hold of him he began his slow descent into drug use. On September 30th, 1983, Bill hit a cactus at over 140 mph in his ferrari. His body was never found. Binkley and Milo Bloom publicly released his death as being caused by acne. Another three part series, released about a year later, revealed how Oliver Wendell Jones found Bill's tongue and used his "DNA doohickeys" to successfully clone Bill, just in time for his presidential election.