Opus No. 3: 'Bloom County's' beloved penguin is back with a new comic
After an eight-year hiatus from newspaper comics, Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Berkeley Breathed will bring his big-beaked, bigger-hearted penguin, Opus, back to life in a Sunday-only comic strip. Beginning Sunday, "Opus" will appear exclusively in the Deseret Morning News, on the back page of the Travel Section.
"This could be the best thing for American cartooning in many years," says Alan Shearer, editorial director of the Washington Post Writers Group, which is syndicating the strip. "We all recall the miserable year 1995, when Gary Larsen stopped 'The Far Side,' Berkeley ended 'Outland" and Bill Watterson stopped 'Calvin and Hobbes.' These are three of the greatest cartoonists of their generation. Berkeley is one of only two strip cartoonists to win the Pulitzer."
("The Far Side" has returned for a limited engagement on Deseret Morning News comics pages with repeats of past cartoons.)
Opus and friends — such as Steve Dallas, Bill the Cat and others — first arrived on the scene in 1980 in "Bloom County." The strip was drawn by Breathed, a then 22-year-old photojournalism graduate of the University of Texas, who, although he had no formal training in art, had launched his career in 1977 with a strip done for the University of Texas Daily Texan.
Throughout its tenure, "Bloom County" made fun of politics, society and life as it took on everything from feminist issues, to the Strategic Defense Initiative, cosmetic testing on animals, celebrity flubs and foibles, Hari Krishnas and anxiety closets. Along the way, a few dandelion breaks and cloud fests were thrown in for whimsy's sake. And who can forget the sight of Opus in his flowered shower cap?
Breathed ended "Bloom County" in 1989. At the time, the strip was running in some 1,300 newspapers. He continued on with a Sunday-only strip, called "Outland," which included many of the same characters. "Outland" ended in 1995.
"He felt he had taken it about as far as it could go," says Shearer. "And he wanted to do some animated feature-length films and other things."
Breathed wrote a children's book titled "A Wish for Wings That Work," which starred Opus the penguin, in a Christmas story. It was turned into an animated TV special in 1991. Breathed has since written a number of other children's books, including "Goodnight Opus," "Red Ranger Came Calling," "Edwurd Fudwupper Fibbed Big" and the upcoming "Flawed Dogs."
Opus was not the main character in Breathed's earlier strips, but this time it's all about him, says Shearer. "Opus was always my personal favorite," he says. "I see him as Candide. He has a naive side and a big heart, and he is constantly discovering the wonder of it all. He wants to belong. He's trying to find his place. And he tells us about ourselves. We've all been in situations where we feel we don't belong."
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