The only story that matters today: Berkeley Breathed discusses his decision to end the adventures of his long-running, and entirely beloved, cartoon character.
The final “Opus” will run on Sunday, November 2nd. He says it’s not going to be a downer, but I can’t imagine how it won’t be — Breathed’s strips did more to calibrate my bullshit detector and political cynicism more than any other cartoonist’s. (Yes, even more than Bill Watterson.)
I know it’s only a comic strip, and Opus himself never really existed in the first place; as Chandler once said of the death of Bambi’s mother, it’s no big deal that a guy stopped drawing a deer. But Breathed has created a marvelous character over the decades — an innocent doof with a heart as big as his schnozz.
And when an artist who’s capable of something as moving as this particular strip decides to stop doing what he does best, we should all take a moment to consider what we’re going to be missing.
This is a weird goodbye, for me. I used to be OBSESSED with Bloom County. Obsessed. I pretty much know every strip by heart. But that was a while ago and I was only dimly aware that Berke Breathed was still doing an “Opus” strip (I wasn’t too into “Outland”). Was it any good? Still, RIP.