For those of you who aren't aware, Berkeley Breathed has ended his comic strip, "Opus."
To say Mr. Breathed's work was/is an influence on my own would be an understatement, and I'm going to miss that little penguin a great deal.
When I was a young lad, my family took a long trip down to California (Wally World!) and my Mother, in preparation for hours in a car with two bored kids, bought me a bunch of comic strip collection books. She had no idea what she was buying, so I got some Garfields, a Peanuts collection, and a Bloom County collection. The Bloom County book was called, "Loose Tails," and looking back on it now, I probably didn't get half of the jokes I read in that book. Yet I read it cover to cover, and then again, and again. I think I probably read that book 10 times through down to Cali and back. Getting the jokes didn't matter, as I marveled at that little penguin and his group of friends romping about the countryside.
From then on, I was hooked. I grabbed every collection as it was released and followed Opus through Bloom County and right into Outland. I grew up and began to get the jokes, and the true magic, that was Berkeley Breathed. I had a stuffed Opus in a shower cap, a shirt with Bill on it, and the Billy and the Boingers 45 got more than a couple of spins on my old record player (If you don't know by now, Bill bit the head off a cow!). Today I have a signed print of one of the "Opus" strips hanging on the wall in my office.
A few years back, when "Opus" launched, I was thrilled. Breathed was back to doing comic strips again, even if only once a week, and I drove my wife nuts as I made sure to drop whatever I was doing on Sundays and go out to get a paper, just so I could read the latest strip.
As a kid, I blatantly copied Breathed's style in one of my own early comic strips called "Harold," which was about a pet snake (I happened to have two snakes myself at the time). Many years later, when I was doing my webcomic, "Dog Complex," I again borrowed heavily from Breathed's writing style and comedic drawings. Sid really was everything I had been taught by Opus, only in dog form.
Not having Opus in my newspaper for a third, and probably final, time is a real bummer to say the least. I think more than anything, it's a very depressing reminder that nothing lasts forever, and that I'm getting older. Each time I read an Opus strip, part of me was reminded of a time of innocence in my life, on my way to Disneyland, in the company of my loving family, and reading about the adventures of a strange little flightless bird. Now with Opus taking his final bow, I realize just how long ago that was.
I'm not trying to be a downer, as I have a wonderful family of my own now, and will be taking my own Son on that very same trip one day soon, but I really do hope that Mr. Breathed understands how much he and his characters meant to some of us.
Goodnight, Opus. Sleep well.
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