OPUS is making me cry

[bert]

if you haven't been following the comics news, Berke Breathed has announced that he is ending the Opus comic strip in the very near future.

in the current (concluding) storyline, Opus was thrown in jail, and then when they realized he was a Penguin, he was moved to Animal Control.

he has been reminiscing with his cellmate (a dog) over the past several weeks.

knowing Breathed, this is not going to end well -- likely with Opus being put down.

but this strip from this past Sunday?

that last panel completely chokes me up.

http://www.comics.com/wash/opus/index.html

I love that a COMIC can get this reaction from me. . .

[LewisH]

http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/04_02/09penguinDM_468x638.jpg

[Sarah Beach]

I have a plush Opus. So he will always live on for me, regardless of what Breathed does.






(And I perennially KICK MYSELF for not buying the Acadamia Waltz collections back when I was at UT and he was doing that. Stupido! Because I loved that strip.)

[Buzz Dixon]

(And I perennially KICK MYSELF for not buying the Acadamia Waltz collections back when I was at UT and he was doing that. Stupido! Because I loved that strip.)It's available as a webcomic here:
http://www.gocomics.com/academiawaltz

[TCJohnson]

I don't know...it seems like whenever Breathed ends something, it is on a high note.

[Sarah Beach]

It's available as a webcomic here:
http://www.gocomics.com/academiawaltz

Bless you!

(I still have one very yellowing strip, of one of the occasional CowChip Awards, referencing the annoying Iranian Student Union -- ah those were the days!)

[EdContradictory]

if you haven't been following the comics news, Berke Breathed has announced that he is ending the Opus comic strip in the very near future.

Wow, what was that, two whole years of Sunday-only strips?

I'm finding these final strips annoying. Annoying that Breathed can't match his old ability and annoyed that he seems to throw in the towel when he realizes this (see: Outland).

[Dreadstar]

(And I perennially KICK MYSELF for not buying the Acadamia Waltz collections back when I was at UT and he was doing that. Stupido! Because I loved that strip.)

Imagine my chagrin at not having kept all the collected stuff from Jeff Smith's OSU Lantern days. I saw a collected "Thorn" going for $500 the other day.

[Buzz Dixon]

Wow, what was that, two whole years of Sunday-only strips?

I'm finding these final strips annoying. Annoying that Breathed can't match his old ability and annoyed that he seems to throw in the towel when he realizes this (see: Outland).Breathed was seriously injured during the first run of BLOOM COUNTY; I believe the strip was in re-runs for several months before he recovered and when he came back he simply abandoned the previous continuity and began moving off in a new direction. The quality of the strip seemed to falter after that.

He tried to walk away from it but came back with OUTLAND which later became just an extension of BLOOM COUNTY. Then he tried walking away from that and came back with OPUS.

I am glad he recovered from his injury, but BLOOM COUNTY should have been put to pasture way back then.

He's a great children's book writer/artist and I hope he continues working in that field.

[EdContradictory]

He's a great children's book writer/artist and I hope he continues working in that field.
So do I. I was very disappointed in Opus. Breathed just seemed bored doing it. Nothing was ever laugh out loud funny. Just mildly amusing.

[Josh S]

That was brutal.

Bloom County was one of the first strips I read (around the same time as Calvin & Hobbes). I haven't read any of his stuff in over a decade, but I always loved Opus.