This just in: The bowtie-wearing, tuba-playing, onetime vice presidential candidate on the National Radical Meadow Party ticket is headed for that great comic strip in the sky; cartoonist Berkeley Breathed announced today that he is giving up his Sunday comic strip Opus to focus on children's books instead.

That announcement signals the end of Opus, the charming penguin who has entertained comics readers for nearly 30 years, starting with Bloom County. Though Breathed has retired the character before, this time, he says, he means it.

"I'll be leaving Opus in a way that it should be very clear that this time there's no going back home," says Breathed.

Breathed says that he's not usually sentimental about his characters. Still, he found himself "unrealistically emotional" about drawing the final strip, taking pains to make sure the penguin's last pose was perfect.

Creating Opus for the last time, says Breathed, was like experiencing the passing of his kids' childhood: "As I drew him finally at the very end, I knew that that was the end — [Opus'] childhood was gone. ... It took me a few minutes. I had to pull myself back together again and face the fire."

Though he was sad to part with his longtime character, Breathed says that he has always struggled to maintain the balance between lightness and darkness in his comics — and himself.

apparently he takes it even more seriously than his few remaining fans...

I am afraid i dont know who Opus is/was.

But i am not afraid that i dont give a rats ass.

corgi37 wrote on Oct 10^th, 2008 at 5:38am:


Yet another inspiring post.

It's down to Doonesbury in the Sunday funnies for me.