Opus the Penguin
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Opus the Penguin is a character in the comic strips and children's books of Berke Breathed, most notably the popular 1980s strip Bloom County. Breathed has described him as an "existentialist penguin" and the favorite of his many characters. He currently appears in the Sunday-only strip Opus.
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[edit] Introduction and Appearance
Opus was originally introduced as a one-time gag about hapless Mike Binkley bringing home what he thought was a German Shepherd, which turned out to be a penguin, much to the disappointment of his father. However, Opus' popularity quickly grew until he became the signature character of Breathed's comic strips.
Opus' appearance has changed dramatically since his inception - he originally looked like a common penguin, but between 1982 and 1986 his nose grew dramatically (developing its signature bump in the middle, of which Opus is very self-conscious). Mike Binkley, during one Sunday strip, points out the fact that Opus more closely resembles a puffin. (In the final panel of the same strip, Opus responds by telling Binkley that he looks like a carrot.)
He is usually seen wearing a bow tie and collar, though he sometimes switches to a diagonally striped necktie when running for public office. Beginning in Outland during the 1990s, he is also occasionally seen inexplicably wearing white briefs. This may have been inspired by Disney forcing Marvel to put Howard the Duck into trousers, so he stopped resembling - Disney claimed - Donald Duck.
[edit] Notable Storylines
Over the years, Opus has served as Steve Dallas' legal secretary; journeyed to Antarctica in search of his mother; played the tuba in heavy metal group Deathtöngue (later renamed Billy and the Boingers); wooed an abstract sculptor named Lola Granola; worked as a newspaper personals editor, lifestyle columnist and comic strip writer; had brief, experimental stints employed as a farmer, garbageman and even a stripper; and run for vice president on the National Radical Meadow Party ticket, along with his running mate Bill the Cat.
In the tradition of many other popular characters, Opus apparently died (while unwillingly brought along on a balloon expedition to Washington, DC to zap the ambassador from apartheid-era South Africa with a ray that would temporarily turn him black) only to return with amnesia. He later regained his memory after being in a state of intense and total shock; he heard an erroneous report that Diane Sawyer (on whom he had an enormous crush) had married Eddie Murphy. Another storyline led Opus, in search of his mother, to a Mary Kay Cosmetics testing building, which he was shocked to find out was cruelly using animals as test subjects for various cosmetics. Another memorable storyline featured Opus being the subject of moral scorn as a perpetrator of "penguin lust" (an allegory for homosexuality). Opus' scandalous memoirs, entitled Naked Came I, became a bestseller in the Bloom County universe, leading Opus to even more notoriety than he had as Bill the Cat's running mate.
In addition, Opus has a very amusing (but somewhat unfortunate) history of "losing parts"; on several occasions, his "fanny" has fallen off (often with a clanking sound on the floor), and he has also had instances where his nose droops or is taken completely off as a result of sneezing while using dental floss and so on. Sometimes these are combined; he has had either his nose and rear end fall off, or his nose droop while his rear end has fallen off, and so on. He eventually learned that his navel was in fact the screw which attached his rear end to his body.
[edit] Post Bloom County
Opus was the first Bloom County regular to appear in the Sunday-only Outland strip (aside from Outland's original protagonist, Ronald-Ann Smith). He also appeared in some of Breathed's children's books, including A Wish for Wings That Work and Goodnight Opus.
Eight years after Outland ended, Opus returned in a second Sunday-only strip simply titled Opus, in 2003. The first few strips showed Opus's discontent living in Antarctica with his overbearing mother. A misdirected Mars probe happened to give him the means to return to Bloom County, where he set about looking for his old friends. To date, he has been reunited with three (Bill the Cat, Steve Dallas, and Milo Bloom).
According to the July 10, 2005 edition of the Opus comic strip, Opus currently lives at 996 Melba Lane, presumably in Bloom County.
[edit] Species
Opus is apparently a king penguin (Milo said he was an Aptenodytes patagonica in one strip) or possibly an Emperor penguin, although one strip has him labeled as a "red-nosed magellanic flatfanny." King penguin seems more likely, as its natural habitat is the Falkland Islands which is where Opus is originally from. It has previously been noted in Breathed's comics that Opus looks more like a puffin than a penguin, something which horrified Opus.
[edit] External links
- Berkeley Breathed's website
- Opus archive at washingtonpost.com
