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Opus the Penguin Retired
garylian writes "Berkeley Breathed has announced that he has drawn the final comic containing the greatest penguin ever, Opus. The author is now going to write children's books. For those of you in your mid-30s and older, you remember Bloom County as a staple of the comic pages in a similar time frame as Calvin & Hobbes, and that time was probably the greatest the daily/Sunday comics have ever known. From running for the vice presidency to impersonating Michael Jackson, from gracing a ton of t-shirts to being one of the weirdest stuffed animals ever, from rocking in a heavy metal band 'Billy and the Boingers' to cleaning up Bill's hair balls, Opus was perfect for that time. And Bloom County would have been perfect during the Bush 2 years. Now, I'm going to pull out all my old Bloom County books and read them. After I dig through some boxes and find my old Opus dolls. I wonder what my kids are going to think of them."
When Breathed starts running out of money he'll resurrect Opus.
Just like last time.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
Using "greatest penguin ever" on a site with this many Linux users is asking for trouble.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
It's a sad day, dood. Think he'll join up soon?
It's got Avatar! It puts the O in FOSSIL!
Sniff. -- I'm not crying. I just have something in my eye.
The last time I wrote code, it was Morse
I've actually gotten annoyed with BB over the years...What's the point of getting invested in one of his strips? This is what, the third?
As much as I appreciate a newspaper comic artist who will actually let his strip die when he feels like he's gotten stale, it's irritating when he lets it die, brings it back, lets it die, brings it back, and lets it die THIS TIME FOR REAL I PROMISE!
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
I beg to differ...
Everything I needed to know about life, I learnt from Blake's Seven
From a photo caption in TFA:
Breathed's new child's book, Pete & Pickles, features Pete, a lonely pig who vacuums his wife's grave.
Yeah, I'm gonna run right out and buy that for my toddler. Granted, he says it's not directly mentioned in the text, it's just there in the pictures in case you want to point it out to your kids, but still.
I guess I shouldn't be too hard on him, since it's not like he's forcing me to buy the book. I just feel like there's a societal obsession with getting our kids to "mature" as fast as possible, rather than just letting them be kids.
It should be illegal to say that freedom of speech should be limited.
Loved Bloom County but it was stuck in time. I think I paid attention to Berkeley Breathed for about two months after he ended Bloom County. I read a couple Outland strips. Even Berkeley must have realized they sucked, because he had to save it by reintroducing Opus and friends, which he had announced he didn't want to do. But it still sucked. Other than reading someone's Bloom County anthology, and smiling with the fond memory, I haven't looked at them since.
[
Argh - I just threw away all my Bloom County books last month when I moved! The comic was great - I'm 30 so I missed some of the political references when I was younger but I read all the books later and loved those comics. I didn't pick up Opus again even after he was back the last couple of years because it didn't feel the same. I'll be sure to buy the compilation of all the latest ones and enjoy them. Opus certainly had a great run and it's probably time to put him away before he gets too old.
This is exactly what I thought.
They were right - the revolution did not get televised. It was posted on YouTube instead. All in 120 characters. SLOOSH!
"Pear pimples for hairy fish nuts?"
Aside from any reasons that may be brought up to be annoyed with Breathed, his comics or his politics, Opus and Bloom County made me laugh HYSTERICALLY at things I did not even understand or knew I should be aware of. That is what I think makes a good comic or cartoon. A mix of simple funny and satire can bring smiles to both those in the know and those who just like to watch.
Coreigh
"Waitress I need two more boat-drinks..."
...at http://news.yahoo.com/comics/bloomcounty.
I've been reading the old stuff day-by-day. Some of it is remarkably relevant to current events.
Of course, today's strip is conveniently missing - go figure. Anyway, I thought I'd share the link to a comic that's on my short list.
J
Jesus told him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me. - John 14:6 NLT
Bloom County was probably the best comic strip of the 80's. And, when Breathed started to lose steam, he ended it.
But he didn't, really. He just cut it back to Sundays under a new name. And so that pattern has continued until the series had long since become stale and forgettable. The once-great Bloom County was reduced to a great big pile of who-gives-a-shit.
Sometimes, if you love something, you have to let it go. Better that it dies a dignified death than to drag it on into mediocrity. Matt Groening and Berkley Breathed are, sadly, prime examples of guys who had something truly magical, which they then beat into the ground for decades past when they should have called it quits.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Ack!!
...that's been the name of my desktop box (whichever is the current one) for the last two decades. One of my just-out-of-school co-workers asked about "the wierd-ass machine name" of my box not too long ago and I had to dig out the old strips for him. Kids these days don't have any appreciation for the classics! Sigh. Oh, and get off my lawn!
I went back and read some Bloom County books recently. They are as dated as Doonesbury from the early 70s. Not that the weren't great, but they were a product of their time.
Read your Calvin and Hobbes books instead. Those are timeless. My kids love them.
I metamoderate, therefore I am
Breathed has pulled this before. Maybe he's just burned out, who knows. But when his other ventures prove to be far less lucrative, and he gets sick of answering all of the repetitive questions about the whereabouts of Opus, the promise of easy money will bring him out of "retirement". Maybe it will last longer than Jet Li's retirement. But Opus will be back.
...at least the 2nd time around. Let's hope the kids books market is successful enough that BB doesn't have to come back to this again.
They were right - the revolution did not get televised. It was posted on YouTube instead. All in 120 characters. SLOOSH!
I always thought Opus looked like a puffin.
I loved Bloom County. Oh well. *sigh*
http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Calvin-Hobbes/dp/0740748475/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1223560779&sr=1-1
I recently purchased this and have been amazed at the strips I missed. The collection books really do leave a lot out and C&H are timeless. Frankly, I enjoy C&H much more and it both children and adults can enjoy it at the same and for different reasons
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
if only Mallard Fillmore would get the boot, that'd be great.
That comic was totally lame. It was like the Emperor's New Clothes, a guy who can't draw and who isn't funny, but it's put together in a way that sends the message "hey this is so countercultural, you'll be cool if you pretend it's funny." It's like one big in-joke, except nobody's in on the joke except the cartoonist. I'm sick of this "ironic appreciation" hipster crap, can't we have something that is actually funny, rather than "so unfunny it's funny"...?
There are plenty of excellent cartoonists who deserve space on the comics page, now that he's out of the way, maybe we'll see the next Calvin and Hobbes.
..."Hairy Fishnuts!"
"Freedom Through Vigilance"
I am a little too young to have read Bloom County when it ran, but I know that every time I read Opus, it was just annoying and non-funny. However, if so many people remember Bloom County fondly, maybe I should dig up a collection book.
Bingo.. Saying that this moronic comic should even be in the same universe as Calvin and Hobbes? What the hell are you thinking. That's so insane I can't even see the logic in the comparison.
Breathed is so far left that he had to quit just to go find himself.
Totally agree he'll be back if Obama wins to gloat. Or he is so convinced Obama is going to win he won't have any material since he can't bash the Bush administration or some random war we're in because the Savior Obama will end all that. Maybe that is why he quit.
He won't be a book MY kid reads. That's for sure.
old freaking news for crying out loud... i read about this last week.
1. A 2010 starchild moment.
2. A Matrix ending, where Opus gets to spend all his time in his own matrix illusion with the dandelions.
3. A Soprano momemt, where all the old characters meet in a restaurant, Bill the Cat can't park the car, and the last frame goes black?
4. Seinfeld, where they all end up in prison.
Use your head, can't you, use your head,
You're on earth, there's no cure for that - S. Beckett
I don't know about the rest of you Slashdotters, but I have fond memories of reading the newspaper every day to see what kind of mischief Opus and the gang in Bloom County were going to do next, such as putting Bill Gates brain inside of Bill the Cat...and Opus getting a nose job. But the best one was the first time we all met him...encountering a Hare Krishna....with the "Pear Pimples for Hairy Fishnuts" reply. Go back in time. Remember a time when politcal humor was meant to be funny and not crass and callous as it is today with people like Steven Colbert and Jon Stewart. Berke Breathed poked fun at situations, he didn't rattle the bear's cage all the time. And as for his children's books, he has made a couple of cute ones, such as "Red Rider Came Calling" and "The Last Bassalope" and one of my personal faves, "Edward Fudwupper Fibbed Big", a story about one child's lie that can cause big trouble. So its sad to see Opus go. He can have a Herrring Whopper on me, heavy mayo :)
What I think worked so well about Bloom County was the evolving social commentary in the daily strip. The Sunday strips never were my favorite part of the series, 'never seemed well suited for the weekly one liners.
Since Opus started appearing in the Sunday comics again I've been opening the paper every week with my fingers crossed *hoping* to recapture some of the old charm. It never happened.
After all, nothing gold can stay. I'd rather stop seeing it in the paper, than see it walk further down the same road that Garfield did.
BB is just like Bill Parcells, he moves on and does well, just not quite as well as the last time. It's a steady downhill run.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
I knew The Far Side. I worked with The Far Side. You, Berkeley Breated, are no Far Side.
On the other hand, in the hierarchy of Penguins Opus ranks pretty high, possibly higher than Tux.
Skot Nelson music is my saviour / i was maimed by rock and roll
I'm old enough to remember Bloom County (and the Far Side, for that matter) - it was a wonderful, funny, insightful, different comic strip.
Unfortunately Opus (the comic) never really fired on all cylinders. Breathed tried to do something a bit different, but it just didn't quite work. Then, when he came to realize that, he started trying to drag back a few of the Bloom County regulars; but without young Milo it just couldn't work.
I think Breathed would've been better served - as would we fans - if he'd just resurrected Bloom County the same way Trudeau did with Doonesbury. It's a comic - so there's no rule you have to age your characters in real time. (Although some of us would prefer Bil Keane did exactly that, since it'd mean little Billy would've retired years ago).
#DeleteChrome
I agree. When Bloom County first came out in the 80s, it was touted as "the new Doonesbury!" (And this was exactly when Gary Trudeau took a hiatus from Doonesbury for over a year to re-work the strip and bring the characters up-to-date.)
No. Not even close. I tried reading Bloom County when it first came out, and just hated it... and in 20+ years, my opinion of Breathed's work hasn't changed.
To this day, I have never found one of Breathed's strips funny, ever. I've never laughed once at any of them, and just find them annoying when I occasionally look over them to see if he's gotten any better.
Granted, Breathed's a much better artist than Trudeau, but his sense of "humor" leaves me completely cold.
Bloom County. The Far Side. Calvin & Hobbes.
And Zippy the Pinhead for those into, ah, more chemically-induced forms of humor.
But now we have web comics. And the golden age of comic strips is with us once again.
The comic strip is dead. Long live the comic strip.
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
Saw this on the news about a year ago about stores that sell g-strings for your girls and they interview the parents with their 10 year old girls.
Who the eff buy a g-string for a 10 year old?
And WHY?
You dont want pedophiles to see nasty underwear lines?
Problem with blaming the media is we forget that many fucktards out there shouldnt be allowed to raise pets never mind human beings.
And to the old fart above who used to walk (wat dat?), I have brothers who are cops and firemen and they can explain to you the many dangers of leaving young children alone in a house.
But just like in any forums, you feel the need to show how cool you are even though we all know you've never come close to copulating never mind have kids.
Personally, since I have boys, I have more problems with sports that show blind side hits 'best of' recaps in football/hockey and was thrilled to death when my oldest said that its 'cowardly' to hit an opponent who isnt looking and didnt take much courage or skill.
I had explained to him when he was younger that his martial arts training was meant only to be used in defense, not to attack someone and that the person who punches/hits someone who isnt looking should be embarrased to be called a man.
He took that and later applied it to something else he found similar.
Is this one, two or three sentences mangled together? And WTF does "2 years" refer to?
....for those into, ah, more chemically-induced forms of humor.
Makes me think of "The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers."
Why, without your clothes, you're naked, Miss Dudley!
Bloom County was my favourite cartoon for years, but I gradually went off it in the Outland series. I have most of the BC books and still have a couple of the T-shirts, slightly faded: "Don't blame me, I voted for Bill'n'Opus" and one with a slightly squashed Bill the Dead Cat. The T-shirts almost still fit me - I blame too many washes for making them shrink.
I think there's still potential for Breathed to extract something from the older material. The video "A Wish for Wings that Work" featuring Opus (Bill in a supporting role) with was excellent. The BC themes could also be used to inspire videos with Senator Bedfellow, Milo, Oliver, & Binkley.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
I just didn't find it that funny. It lacked any kind of subtlety as compared with Calvin & Hobbes or Mutts for example. /me ducks the stones and fish balls...
Warning: Rant from a crazy parent.
lot of the media we expose them to is highly sexualized and violent
Which is exactly why we sold our TV when our daughter was very young. We are all better off for buying a 12" TV that stayed in a cabinet. This is much harder for adults than it is for the kids. Until you do it for a few months, you won't understand.
Discontinue the cable and stick that money in the bank.
Is she some kind of Amish freak? No. She watches enough TV at her friends house and then comes home and complains that it wasn't fun.
and I feel like I'm just supposed to talk to my daughter until she accepts this as normal
It may be all around us, but it isn't normal or appropriate for children. Most adults just get passive about it and use some kind of complicated thinking to call PBS kids shows "good TV." TV is crack for kids. It's passive gratification and flashing pictures. Stick to your guns on this issue and change your way of living. Getting rid of the TV is a great start.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Breathed already has tentative plans to bring the penguin back in a short feature about discovering a certain country in Europe. It will be called "Mr. Opus's Holland.
Neocons having a sense of humor? Really! Everyone knows that upon joining the neocon movement, the sense of humor is surgically removed!
The only thing scarier than having an Opus doll is having Opus dolls.
Again?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
"The wind doth taste so bittersweet,
Like jasper wine and sugar,
It must have blown through someone's feet,
Like those of Caspar Weinberger."
Be who you are...and be it in style!
The computer humor in the original Bloom County ("Our newest model, with everything the previous model had, but now with tint control") was leading edge!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Snorting dandelions is dangerous!
Opus Crokus
http://www.gocomics.com/feature_items/share/384832?feature_id=117
(2nd row, far right panel)
I was a teen when KISS first made it big... so this was funny to me.
What about the 1950s and 1960s? Pogo was as great a strip as any of those mentioned, and it was full of political satire! And Peanuts was at its peak then.
oblig ack ack!
---------
No matter how thin you slice it, its still baloney.
I think I agree with his thinking. I think his next project should be something involving Cutter John. There was a character who was always in support so we never, ever, got a look at what his story was. And it had to be fascinating. Cutter is the warrior we need for the dark time Breathed seems to see us approaching. I think he'd make a deeply wise, but powerful foil for what he does as an artist. Opus does belong to a more simpler, sweeter time.
What would Richard Feynman do, if he were here right now? He'd do some math and he'd follow through!
Writing comics is damned if do and damned if you dont. The grind to meet deadlines is daunting. Yet if you stop for a while the creative juices may start forcing you draw again.
"After I dig through some boxes and find my old Opus dolls. I wonder what my kids are going to think of them."
Probably something like: "Man, dad sure likes than deformed sea lion doll..."
He's been doing them for years. My sister always gives me one for Christmas.
Why do we turn on great artists when they become normal people?
you can have my violent video games when you pry them from my cold, dead hands.
Prime UID Club
This is just my opinion on the guy. You're all free to agree or disagree.
Back in the late 80s I knew a guy who (at the time) had a job in the comics industry. Some of you might remember that some Bloom County strips featured a heavy metal band called Death Tongue. After a short period of time, it became Billy and the Boingers. Why? My friend told me that Breathed "got some complaints about the name Death Tongue" so he changed it. My personal take on this is that it sure didn't take much, just a few reader complaints, to make Breathed completely cave in.
He made this really big deal when he stopped Bloom County and started Outland that nobody from Bloom County would ever appear in it. His central character was Ronald-Ann, the worst character in his Bloom County strip. I'm sure the syndicate told him that his strip sucked and he better fix it, so in comes Opus to the rescue, followed by Bill the Cat and others. Integrity? Well, Breathed has always caved in when given a choice, so you can make up your own mind about whether he has integrity or not.
Breathed's post Bloom County work sucks. Big time. Read it. Most of you will agree with me. Even better, look on your favorite search engine for some interviews with him. He is one very strange dude. I don't mean eccentric. The word "eccentric" doesn't even begin to describe him. Think of crazy weird or scary weird and you will know what he's like. Again, just look for and read the interviews and decide if you really think he's somebody anyone should pay any attention to or care what he thinks.
I'm an expatrite American and I held up Bloom County as proof that satire and irony were indeed alive and well in the US.
Bloom County even featured as a specialist subject on Radio 4's Mastermind (transplanted from TV). The laughter from the audience still sticks in my mind. The setter of the questions, his wife. Thank you both.
(Those of you with encyclopedic memories or back copies will get the Opert tag.)
Man am I glad I recorded my Billy and the Boingers record onto CD for posterity a number of years ago. Now I can go home and mourn the greatest comic strip ever with "you really stink girl - way oh - way oh - way oh - your really stink, but I love you" with Opus on tuba and "cause I'm a boinger" with Bill on tongue. Ahhh - good times - good times. They just don't make 'em like they used to!
Back in the 80s, when Bloom County was at its height, I had a paper route delivering the Vancouver Sun - which, naturally, ran Bloom County as one of its regular strips.
The highlight of Saturday was reading the color strips - and I distinctly remember "Pear pimples for hairy fishnuts? - Just hand the dough over Mac!" incapacitating me for almost half an hour. Every time I thought I had the laughter under control, it'd hit me again, and the giggles would recommence.
OK, so I was like 14 years old and easily amused. But still... quite possibly Funniest Strip Ever.
I still have a large collection of original 80s vintage Bloom County strips saved in a filing cabinet at home.
Yes, Outland and Opus were a little bitterer; a little less fun than the halycon Bloom County days, but Breathed never lost his genius. The Outland strip "Perhaps you had better reassess what gives your lives meaning" strip is as good as any Bloom County work.
I'm sad to see Opus waddle off into the sunset... especially because I think he means it this time.
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
Not long after the Oklahoma Daily, the student paper at the University of Oklahoma, started running "Bloom County" there was a student commentary comic "Clonesbury". It had Opus going on at Milo about how their strip was so much like "Doonesbury." The final panel has Milo pulling off his Milo Mask to reveal that it was really Zonker. Now *that* was funny!
Why, without your clothes, you're naked, Miss Dudley!
... I've lost my marbles.
I've saved years worth of Family Circus comics over the years to provide myself with free toilet paper and to help recycle.
I only have one thing to say to this: "snugglebunnies snugglebunnies snugglebunnies snugglebunnies snugglebunnies snugglebunnies snugglebunnies snugglebunnies snugglebunnies SNU..." ..damn caps filter.... I found "Billy and the Boingers Bootleg" in my aunt's collection when I was a small kid. It was always entertaining and as an added bonus took on a whole new perspective to me when I was old enough to understand more of it.
Miss him, miss him.
I used to cut out BC and save them in a shoebox when he did Charles and Dianna. Then some time around 198x I threw them all out. I was shocked none of those ever surfaced after she died. The only words I remember are the baby calling her a "saucy wench". That was great stuff.
So I said "good riddance!" when I first read this story... ...and then I read that Opus is NOT Mallard Fillmore. Oops. THAT is the comic that is a waste of perfectly good ink and paper.
She's now six years old -- I gave it to her many years ago.
-- haaz.
And Bloom County would have been perfect during the Bush 2 years.
Bush has only been president for two years? Seems like almost twelve to me.
(In fact, it's more than that because the Bush family owns Bill Clinton. So it's more like 20 years of continuous Bush control.)
Wow, a guy gets modded as a troll because he dares attack a sacred geek cow?
Tough shit -- everything he said was right. I've read Doonesbury for 30+ years and laughed more times than I could count. Every time I tried to read Bloom County, I thought, "this is crap pretending that it's hip, and people are afraid to admit that it's not funny because everyone else is pretending that it is." No, it wasn't.
And what am I supposed to do until then?!
"Pffft." "Ack!"
Are you snorting dandelions again?? Don't you know what that can do you to you? Good lord, it can't be good...
My
Limekiller
That was the downfall of one of my favorite strips.
I read Bloom County for its entire run and laughed more times than I could count. I guess I was wrong, though, since it apparently wasn't funny. Thanks for pointing out the error of my ways.