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Opus the Penguin Retired

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the yet-garfield-lives-on dept.

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."

8 of 218 comments (clear)

  1. Never fear... by R2.0 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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
    1. Re:Never fear... by hey! · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Well, I think the difference is this. Bloom County was written by a younger, more idealistic, more hopeful man. Outland was written by man who was prone to saying things like "I'd be a Libertarian, if they weren't all a bunch of tax-dodging professional whiners." Yeah, it's funny, but not the kind of thing you look forward to reading over your morning coffee every day.

      Here's the full quote: "Liberal, shmiberal. That should be a new word. Shmiberal: one who is assumed liberal, just because he's a professional whiner in the newspaper. If you'll read the subtext for many of those old strips, you'll find the heart of an old-fashioned Libertarian. And I'd be a Libertarian, if they weren't all a bunch of tax-dodging professional whiners." Again, it's funny, but it's not true. The Breathed of Bloom County -- at least the one we see in the strips -- is a fairly standard issue political liberal. The Breathed looking back is somebody who not only thinks government can't work, but thinks thinking government can't work, can't work.

      Charles Schultz's genius gradually petered out over the years, repeating the same jokes over and over. Breathed, having stared his career during the master's twilight, knew that even the great have only so much greatness in them. Certainly not enough to fill out a daily comic every day of the year for an entire lifetime.

      In the final Bloom County strip, the iconic meadow where the characters muse about life is paved over with asphalt. It was a brutally honest way of saying the creative well was running dry. And when Breathed finally did go back to the well, with Outland, and Opus, it wasn't so much that the well was dry, as it had turned bitter.

      I really wish Breathed had Bloom County in him, even if he dribbled it out as a book every couple of years. I wish that Bill Watterson had more Calvin and Hobbes in him. But evidently, they don't. These were personal works, and people change; they move on.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  2. Mod Parent Troll/Flamebait by geoffrobinson · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.
  3. I think I'll go lie down in a field of dandelions by studpuppy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Sniff. -- I'm not crying. I just have something in my eye.

    --
    The last time I wrote code, it was Morse
  4. Re:Some Children's Book... by OriginalArlen · · Score: 5, Insightful

    there's a societal obsession with getting our kids to "mature" as fast as possible

    Wha'?! By the age of eight I was walking home from school alone, getting lost in the woods behind the old orchard, and I'd seen Star Wars ANH, in which the main father-figure / advisor to the Hiro Protagonist is chopped in half with a laser (how it looked to me at the time!) Nowadays you'd be arrested for child neglect if you leave your kid alone in the house for more than half-an-hour! Come on, if anything it's the opposite way round.

    --

    Everything I needed to know about life, I learnt from Blake's Seven
  5. Re:Some Children's Book... by crymeph0 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    As far as the freedoms we give them to act on their own, you're right, it's the other way around. I'm talking about what we put in their heads while we have them locked up in their gilded cages, though - a lot of the media we expose them to is highly sexualized and violent, and I feel like I'm just supposed to talk to my daughter until she accepts this as normal, instead of letting her go play in the flowers and be innocent for a while longer.

    --
    It should be illegal to say that freedom of speech should be limited.
  6. The only thing I can think to say is... by Yeff · · Score: 5, Funny

    ..."Hairy Fishnuts!"

    --
    "Freedom Through Vigilance"
  7. Spoiler alert by wasted · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.