Opus Is Coming Back!

Ksyrup · 09-09-2003, 03:15 PM

Opus Is Returning to Sunday Comic Strips
Tue Sep 9,10:56 AM ET Add Entertainment - AP to My Yahoo!

WASHINGTON - Cartoonist Berkeley Breathed is resurrecting Opus the penguin from the 1980s comic strip "Bloom County" for a new series to appear in Sunday comics this November.

The Sunday-only strip, to be called "Opus," begins Nov. 23, the Washington Post reported Tuesday. It will be syndicated by The Washington Post Writers Group.

A 1987 Pulitzer Prize-winner for editorial cartooning, Breathed stopped drawing the daily "Bloom County" in 1989 when it was running in nearly 1,300 papers. He began a Sunday strip, "Outland," with many of the same characters — including the penguin's hairball-hacking sidekick, Bill the cat — but quit that in 1995.

Partly chalking it up to artistic burnout, Breathed said at the time that cartoonists "die and go to cartoon hell for working beyond that magic intersection of art and fun."

He has since written children's books and sold the rights to an Opus movie that could start filming by the end of the year.

Butter · 09-09-2003, 03:25 PM

Hmmm. I like Opus as much as the next guy, but I hope the strip isn't a disappointment as Outland was. But then, nothing could really match the brilliance of Bloom County.

For years I thought Doonesbury and Bloom County were the same thing (because they each wrote their words the same), but I was a little tyke.

JeeberD · 09-09-2003, 03:28 PM

Same here. I thought that Breathed was the was who was married to Jane Pauley for a long time...

LastWhiteSoxFanStanding · 09-09-2003, 03:37 PM

If this is any where near as good as Bloom County , I will be a very happy man. Bring back Milo too!

CamEdwards · 09-09-2003, 04:16 PM

I want a VH-1 "Where Are They Now" Bloom County special. Believe it or not, that comic strip was my introduction to politics. Bloom County's right up there with Calvin and Hobbes as the best comics ever.

... and I just found my Billy and the Boingers Bloom County book. Get to catch up on some old favorites tonight!

Abe Sargent · 09-09-2003, 06:54 PM

If its not Doonesbury it's crap.

-Anxiety

cuervo72 · 09-10-2003, 07:14 AM

Subby · 09-10-2003, 08:03 AM

I doubt anything caught the essence of the 80's like Bloom County. At its height it was probably the most brilliant mainstream cartoon out there...

Oop. Ack.

KWhit · 09-10-2003, 08:06 AM

I still read through my Bloom County book collection from time to time.

Great stuff.

Maple Leafs · 09-10-2003, 09:13 AM

Bloom Country = best comic strip of all time.
Calvin + Hobbes = Close second
Far Side = Vastly overrated

Discuss.

(By the way, as excited as I am about his new strip, I'm not convinced it will be as good as Bloom County. I think his humor really needs to be in a daily strip, to get the quick interactions between characters. I always thought Bloom County's sunday strips were its weakest, and Outland was an inspired risk that didn't quite work.)

JeeberD · 09-10-2003, 11:33 AM

There's no way that Far Side was overrated...

condors · 09-10-2003, 12:00 PM

bill cat=best frontman ever

cuervo72 · 09-10-2003, 12:53 PM

ack!!

KWhit · 09-10-2003, 12:56 PM

Bloom County = Great
Calvin and Hobbes = Great
Far Side = Great (but not as good as the other 2)

No current strip even comes close to those 3.

KWhit · 09-10-2003, 12:57 PM

Dola:

No current COMIC strip, that is. A couple of weeks ago I saw a strip at the Cheetah that blows them all away.

Honolulu Blue · 09-10-2003, 01:15 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Maple Leafs
Bloom Country = best comic strip of all time.
Calvin + Hobbes = Close second
Far Side = Vastly overrated

Discuss.

Agree, mostly. BC at its peak (the Billy & the Boingers Era, IMO) was the best there ever was. As I've noted before, C&H's Sunday strips were the best, the dailies not quite as good, and I'd rank the classic Peanuts strips ahead of it. I was never much of a fan of The Far Side.

Quote:

(By the way, as excited as I am about his new strip, I'm not convinced it will be as good as Bloom County. I think his humor really needs to be in a daily strip, to get the quick interactions between characters. I always thought Bloom County's sunday strips were its weakest, and Outland was an inspired risk that didn't quite work.)

Agree in every way. You must have read my mind.

condors · 09-10-2003, 01:52 PM

is there any way to tell what papers will be included in this?

vtbub · 09-10-2003, 01:54 PM

FoxTrot fan myself...looking forward to the return of opus.

Non Sequiter is very funny and political too,

GrantDawg · 09-10-2003, 02:05 PM

Ack!

It has been too long.

WSUCougar · 11-24-2003, 09:19 AM

Nice to see the ol' regurgitated squid boy back!

And The Far Side was epic.

Bonegavel · 11-24-2003, 09:30 AM

Here is his homepage: BerkeBreathed.com

and a great onion interview to read is here:

Onion interview

[EDITED to make the links clickable]

Maple Leafs · 11-24-2003, 09:38 AM

Did anyone see the first strip? I thought it was supposed to run this weekend.

He did an interview with salon.com last week that was quite good.

WSUCougar · 11-24-2003, 09:46 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Maple Leafs
Did anyone see the first strip? I thought it was supposed to run this weekend.

I did. It had him fantasizing about a bikini-clad model kissing him and calling him to eat, and then it turns out to be another penguin out in the snow and ice with him, discussing regurgitated squid. Opus then looks toward the reader and says something like: "I suppose you'd be better off after 10 years?"

CamEdwards · 11-24-2003, 10:07 AM

too bad my newspaper hasn't picked it up. But yet they still run Peanuts, Mary Worth, Judge Parker, Apartment 3-G...

I hate "The Oklahoman"'s comics page.

Buccaneer · 11-24-2003, 10:10 AM

To me, Bloom County, Far Side and Calvin were the best triumvarite of all time. I am glad Opus is back (as long as it doesn't go Outland on us) but I am also heartened that Frazz has become the grown-up Calvin.

This is from a person who thinks the comic pages are the best part of a newspaper.

Fidatelo · 11-24-2003, 12:28 PM

Calvin & Hobbes will forever remain my favorite comic strip of all time. Nothing even comes close. I'll have to check out this "Frazz" you speak of.

Bloom County was very good, but I was a little too young at the time to appreciate some of it. It's a lot of fun to re-read now though. Outland was decent.

Far Side was great, but totally hit or miss. 75% of them were hilarious, the other 25% confusing at best.

FoxTrot was good at its inception, but it seemed to get stale after a few years. That said, it's still the first one I read when I buy a newspaper (not often enough!).

Kodos · 11-24-2003, 01:03 PM

My rankings:

1. The Far Side (funniest, although admittedly hit or miss)
2. Calvin & Hobbes (funny, beautifully drawn, and characters that actually brought you to care about them)
3. Bloom County (great cast of zany characters, wonderful interaction within the cast - this is the closest a strip has come to being the Simpsons in comic strip form)

To me, no other strips current or past can hold a candle to these three. I just wish they didn't all burn out. Peanuts was around for so long. It's a shame these guys all burned out in a relatively short time.

Maple Leafs · 11-24-2003, 01:06 PM

If you get a chance, read the Salon interview with Breathed. The guy is just relentless in his criticism of current day comics, especially Jim Davis and the Garfield franchise. Just brutal, and very entertaining.

Qwikshot · 11-24-2003, 01:10 PM

"Opus," a new strip by "Bloom County" and "Outland" creator Berkeley Breathed, will appear in The Washington Post on Sunday's beginning Nov. 23. The comic will be available only in newspapers.

This sucks...and I couldn't find it in my Inquirer.

Bloom County is the best, I believe I have all the anthologies, though I have got to find them.

I like Get Fuzzy and Sherman's Lagoon...but mainly it's all the same. Bloom County and Calvin and Hobbes really were challenging the mainstream...they were more for adults than the kiddies...

I liked the Far Side, but there is only so much you can do with one frame...I think Larson had a lot of work cut out for him to do such funny stuff (or lack thereof) in just one frame...sometimes I didn't get the joke, but then again, that was kind of the challenge sometimes...figuring it out.

Franklinnoble · 11-24-2003, 03:06 PM

I think Calvin and Hobbes was the greatest strip of all time.

That said, I'm shocked there's no love for Dilbert around here...

Fidatelo · 11-24-2003, 03:29 PM

Dilbert got old for me relatively fast. I'm not sure if that's because I have to live the life it mocks (and it's all too real), or if it's because the jokes are all basically the same. Either way, it ranks slightly below the others mentioned here.

Kodos · 11-24-2003, 03:44 PM

Dilbert is the best of the current strips, along with Foxtrot. However, I don't miss them if I don't read them. If Calvin or either of the other two were back with new strips, I would make a point of not missing them ever.

CubsFan915 · 11-24-2003, 04:35 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by CamEdwards
I want a VH-1 "Where Are They Now" Bloom County special. Believe it or not, that comic strip was my introduction to politics. Bloom County's right up there with Calvin and Hobbes as the best comics ever.

... and I just found my Billy and the Boingers Bloom County book. Get to catch up on some old favorites tonight!

Yes, yes, Cam. Bloom County and Calvin and Hobbes are my two all-time favorites as well. I will not discuss this.

thesloppy · 11-24-2003, 04:41 PM

where is the love?

kurtism · 11-24-2003, 07:56 PM

While on the subject of top comic strips, I wanted to throw out my two cents for the best daily out there - pVp. It's a relatively recent discovery, but very funny, and rather topical for the folks at this board. I admit to losing a fair number of hours going back into the archives and reading the entire run, back into the 90s...

Maple Leafs · 11-24-2003, 08:31 PM

Two other comics worth mentioning:

Tom the Dancing Bug - it's typical left-wing propaganda, but it's funny left wing propoganda. At it's best, one of the funniest strips out there. Happy Fun Pack Comix is as good as it gets. Almost enough to turn this cold-hearted conservative into a bleeding heart liberal.

Heart of the City - not the funniest, but this one is actually growing on me. It's very well drawn, and it captures some of the childhood innocence and imagination of Calvin and Hobbes. And it gets bonus points for mentioning Opus this Sunday.

09-09-2003, 03:25 PM	#2
Butter Coordinator Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Dayton, OH	Hmmm. I like Opus as much as the next guy, but I hope the strip isn't a disappointment as Outland was. But then, nothing could really match the brilliance of Bloom County. For years I thought Doonesbury and Bloom County were the same thing (because they each wrote their words the same), but I was a little tyke. __________________ My listening habits

09-09-2003, 03:28 PM	#3
JeeberD General Manager Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: The Town of Flower Mound	Same here. I thought that Breathed was the was who was married to Jane Pauley for a long time... __________________ UTEP Miners!!! I solemnly swear to never cheer for TO

09-09-2003, 04:16 PM	#5
CamEdwards Stadium Announcer Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Burke, VA	I want a VH-1 "Where Are They Now" Bloom County special. Believe it or not, that comic strip was my introduction to politics. Bloom County's right up there with Calvin and Hobbes as the best comics ever. ... and I just found my Billy and the Boingers Bloom County book. Get to catch up on some old favorites tonight! __________________ I don't want the world. I just want your half.

09-09-2003, 06:54 PM	#6
Abe Sargent Hall Of Famer Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Catonsville, MD	If its not Doonesbury it's crap. -Anxiety __________________ Check out my two current weekly Magic columns! https://www.coolstuffinc.com/a/?action=search&page=1&author[]=Abe%20Sargent

09-10-2003, 07:14 AM	#7
cuervo72 Head Coach Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Maryland	__________________ null

09-09-2003, 03:37 PM	#4
LastWhiteSoxFanStanding College Starter Join Date: Jun 2003	If this is any where near as good as Bloom County , I will be a very happy man. Bring back Milo too!

09-10-2003, 08:03 AM	#8
Subby lolzcat Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: sans pants	I doubt anything caught the essence of the 80's like Bloom County. At its height it was probably the most brilliant mainstream cartoon out there... Oop. Ack. __________________ Superman was flying around and saw Wonder Woman getting a tan in the nude on her balcony. Superman said I going to hit that real fast. So he flys down toward Wonder Woman to hit it and their is a loud scream. The Invincible Man scream what just hit me in the ass!!!!! I do shit, I take pictures, I write about it: chrisshue.com

09-10-2003, 08:06 AM	#9
KWhit Coordinator Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Conyers GA	I still read through my Bloom County book collection from time to time. Great stuff.

09-10-2003, 09:13 AM	#10
Maple Leafs Coordinator Join Date: Jan 2002	Bloom Country = best comic strip of all time. Calvin + Hobbes = Close second Far Side = Vastly overrated Discuss. (By the way, as excited as I am about his new strip, I'm not convinced it will be as good as Bloom County. I think his humor really needs to be in a daily strip, to get the quick interactions between characters. I always thought Bloom County's sunday strips were its weakest, and Outland was an inspired risk that didn't quite work.)

09-10-2003, 11:33 AM	#11
JeeberD General Manager Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: The Town of Flower Mound	There's no way that Far Side was overrated... __________________ UTEP Miners!!! I solemnly swear to never cheer for TO

09-10-2003, 12:00 PM	#12
condors College Starter Join Date: Oct 2000	bill cat=best frontman ever

09-10-2003, 12:53 PM	#13
cuervo72 Head Coach Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Maryland	ack!! __________________ null

09-10-2003, 12:56 PM	#14
KWhit Coordinator Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Conyers GA	Bloom County = Great Calvin and Hobbes = Great Far Side = Great (but not as good as the other 2) No current strip even comes close to those 3.

09-10-2003, 12:57 PM	#15
KWhit Coordinator Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Conyers GA	Dola: No current COMIC strip, that is. A couple of weeks ago I saw a strip at the Cheetah that blows them all away.

09-10-2003, 01:52 PM	#17
condors College Starter Join Date: Oct 2000	is there any way to tell what papers will be included in this?

09-10-2003, 01:54 PM	#18
vtbub College Starter Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Burlington, VT USA	FoxTrot fan myself...looking forward to the return of opus. Non Sequiter is very funny and political too, __________________

09-10-2003, 02:05 PM	#19
GrantDawg World Champion Mis-speller Join Date: Nov 2000 Location: Covington, Ga.	Ack! It has been too long.

11-24-2003, 09:19 AM	#20
WSUCougar Rider Of Rohan Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: Port Angeles, WA or Helm's Deep	Nice to see the ol' regurgitated squid boy back! And The Far Side was epic. __________________ It's not the years...it's the mileage.

11-24-2003, 09:30 AM	#21
Bonegavel Awaiting Further Instructions... Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: Macungie, PA	Here is his homepage: BerkeBreathed.com and a great onion interview to read is here: Onion interview [EDITED to make the links clickable] __________________ Last edited by Bonegavel : 11-24-2003 at 09:33 AM.

11-24-2003, 09:38 AM	#22
Maple Leafs Coordinator Join Date: Jan 2002	Did anyone see the first strip? I thought it was supposed to run this weekend. He did an interview with salon.com last week that was quite good.

11-24-2003, 10:07 AM	#24
CamEdwards Stadium Announcer Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Burke, VA	too bad my newspaper hasn't picked it up. But yet they still run Peanuts, Mary Worth, Judge Parker, Apartment 3-G... I hate "The Oklahoman"'s comics page. __________________ I don't want the world. I just want your half.

11-24-2003, 10:10 AM	#25
Buccaneer Head Coach Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Colorado	To me, Bloom County, Far Side and Calvin were the best triumvarite of all time. I am glad Opus is back (as long as it doesn't go Outland on us) but I am also heartened that Frazz has become the grown-up Calvin. This is from a person who thinks the comic pages are the best part of a newspaper.

11-24-2003, 12:28 PM	#26
Fidatelo Pro Starter Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Winnipeg, MB	Calvin & Hobbes will forever remain my favorite comic strip of all time. Nothing even comes close. I'll have to check out this "Frazz" you speak of. Bloom County was very good, but I was a little too young at the time to appreciate some of it. It's a lot of fun to re-read now though. Outland was decent. Far Side was great, but totally hit or miss. 75% of them were hilarious, the other 25% confusing at best. FoxTrot was good at its inception, but it seemed to get stale after a few years. That said, it's still the first one I read when I buy a newspaper (not often enough!). __________________ "Breakfast? Breakfast schmekfast, look at the score for God's sake. It's only the second period and I'm winning 12-2. Breakfasts come and go, Rene, but Hartford, the Whale, they only beat Vancouver maybe once or twice in a lifetime."

11-24-2003, 01:03 PM	#27
Kodos Resident Alien Join Date: Jun 2001	My rankings: 1. The Far Side (funniest, although admittedly hit or miss) 2. Calvin & Hobbes (funny, beautifully drawn, and characters that actually brought you to care about them) 3. Bloom County (great cast of zany characters, wonderful interaction within the cast - this is the closest a strip has come to being the Simpsons in comic strip form) To me, no other strips current or past can hold a candle to these three. I just wish they didn't all burn out. Peanuts was around for so long. It's a shame these guys all burned out in a relatively short time.

11-24-2003, 01:06 PM	#28
Maple Leafs Coordinator Join Date: Jan 2002	If you get a chance, read the Salon interview with Breathed. The guy is just relentless in his criticism of current day comics, especially Jim Davis and the Garfield franchise. Just brutal, and very entertaining.

11-24-2003, 01:10 PM	#29
Qwikshot Pro Starter Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: ...down the gravity well	"Opus," a new strip by "Bloom County" and "Outland" creator Berkeley Breathed, will appear in The Washington Post on Sunday's beginning Nov. 23. The comic will be available only in newspapers. This sucks...and I couldn't find it in my Inquirer. Bloom County is the best, I believe I have all the anthologies, though I have got to find them. I like Get Fuzzy and Sherman's Lagoon...but mainly it's all the same. Bloom County and Calvin and Hobbes really were challenging the mainstream...they were more for adults than the kiddies... I liked the Far Side, but there is only so much you can do with one frame...I think Larson had a lot of work cut out for him to do such funny stuff (or lack thereof) in just one frame...sometimes I didn't get the joke, but then again, that was kind of the challenge sometimes...figuring it out. __________________ "General Woundwort's body was never found. It could be that he still lives his fierce life somewhere else, but from that day on, mother rabbits would tell their kittens that if they did not do as they were told, the General would get them. Such was Woundwort's monument, and perhaps it would not have displeased him." Watership Down, Richard Adams

11-24-2003, 03:06 PM	#30
Franklinnoble Banned Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Placerville, CA	I think Calvin and Hobbes was the greatest strip of all time. That said, I'm shocked there's no love for Dilbert around here...

11-24-2003, 03:29 PM	#31
Fidatelo Pro Starter Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Winnipeg, MB	Dilbert got old for me relatively fast. I'm not sure if that's because I have to live the life it mocks (and it's all too real), or if it's because the jokes are all basically the same. Either way, it ranks slightly below the others mentioned here. __________________ "Breakfast? Breakfast schmekfast, look at the score for God's sake. It's only the second period and I'm winning 12-2. Breakfasts come and go, Rene, but Hartford, the Whale, they only beat Vancouver maybe once or twice in a lifetime."

11-24-2003, 03:44 PM	#32
Kodos Resident Alien Join Date: Jun 2001	Dilbert is the best of the current strips, along with Foxtrot. However, I don't miss them if I don't read them. If Calvin or either of the other two were back with new strips, I would make a point of not missing them ever.

11-24-2003, 04:41 PM	#34
thesloppy Pro Starter Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: PDX	where is the love?

11-24-2003, 07:56 PM	#35
kurtism High School Varsity Join Date: Mar 2001 Location: Noblesville	While on the subject of top comic strips, I wanted to throw out my two cents for the best daily out there - pVp. It's a relatively recent discovery, but very funny, and rather topical for the folks at this board. I admit to losing a fair number of hours going back into the archives and reading the entire run, back into the 90s... Last edited by kurtism : 11-24-2003 at 07:56 PM.

11-24-2003, 08:31 PM	#36
Maple Leafs Coordinator Join Date: Jan 2002	Two other comics worth mentioning: Tom the Dancing Bug - it's typical left-wing propaganda, but it's funny left wing propoganda. At it's best, one of the funniest strips out there. Happy Fun Pack Comix is as good as it gets. Almost enough to turn this cold-hearted conservative into a bleeding heart liberal. Heart of the City - not the funniest, but this one is actually growing on me. It's very well drawn, and it captures some of the childhood innocence and imagination of Calvin and Hobbes. And it gets bonus points for mentioning Opus this Sunday.

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