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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."
I think that was the problem with his Opus strip. A previous comment mentioned how much more he liked the old Bloom County strips. The difference was that Berkley stripped out most of the other characters except for Steve and Bill the Cat (who doesn't talk). That left Opus alone in most of the situations with no other supporting characters. In the Bloom Country strips there was a series of regular characters who all had the focus on them at some point. That created a much more complex cartoon "universe" whereas Opus alone had no one to play off of and sounded like a single note enventually. I don't know why Berkley dropped most of the other characters, there really was no good reason for it.
The same thing happened to the cast of Seinfeld, they were much better playing off each other. Once the show ended and they tried to make shows with themselves as the focus they seemed like they were adrift and bland.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
That reminds me this wonderful little map of Sheffield, Britain, with "allowed to roam" overlays: http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/06_02/playgraphicDM1406_736x800.jpg
Each overlay shows where the eight year old child was allowed to cover unsupervised. Sad how much more constricted and hemmed in each generation of that family has become over the last century.
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