Opus (comic strip)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Opus
Opus the Penguin
Author(s)	Berkeley Breathed
Current status / schedule	Sundays
Launch date	November 23, 2003
Syndicate(s)	Washington Post Writers Group
Genre(s)	Humor, Politics, Satire
Preceded by	Outland

Opus is a Sunday strip by Berkeley Breathed. It is Breathed's fourth comic strip, following The Academia Waltz, Bloom County and Outland.

Set in Bloom County, the strip documents the adventures of Breathed's popular character Opus the Penguin, parodying both pop culture and politics along the way. It was launched with much fanfare on November 23, 2003, and is syndicated by Washington Post Writers Group.

Contents 1 Characters 1.1 Opus 1.2 Regular characters 1.3 Other characters 1.4 Absent characters 2 Production history 3 Artwork and availability 4 The movie 5 References 6 External links

[edit] Characters

[edit] Opus

Opus is the title character and protagonist of the strip. Though he returned to Antarctica at the end of Outland, Opus has since traveled back home to Bloom County, only to find that time has changed everything and everyone he once held dear. His employment usually depends on the week's joke - since Opus began, he has so far been a political operative, a garbageman, and a newspaper ombudsman - but he is most often depicted as a syndicated cartoonist.

While his mother is no longer "long-lost," she was not all he had imagined her to be after a decades-long search, and he is frequently seeking the comfort of an ideal mother-figure.

In a 2003 interview with The A.V. Club, Breathed revealed that "Opus was named after a Kansas song." (The band's 1976 album Leftoverture includes the song "Opus Insert" and a suite called "Magnum Opus".) He also added, "If you're too young to know who Kansas was, to hell with you."^[1]

[edit] Regular characters

• Bill the Cat - the first of Opus' old friends to re-emerge (just months into the strip), Bill seems to be the only one completely unchanged by time. Still in a state of catatonia, he is occasionally tapped to run for political office but most often seen relaxing by Opus' side.

• Steve Dallas - Steve was reintroduced little more than a year in, now having appeared in all four of Breathed's comic strips. Dallas, who had come out as gay at the end of Outland, is back to his chauvinist ways apparently due to so-called "reparative therapy." Steve's lack of ability to charm women, however, remains.

• Pickles - A little girl with a little bit of "snarky energy" (she first appeared as a self-proclaimed Viking princess), Pickles immediately began tagging along with Opus and Bill. She has appeared much less frequently as of late.

• Auggie Dallas - Steve's long lost son, reunited with his father after many years. He has nothing but admiration for Steve, even though Steve is sometimes reluctant to act like a father figure.

• Michael Binkley - A longtime friend of Opus' who begins appearing in the strip after a somewhat unexplained twelve year absence (see below).

[edit] Other characters

• Senator Bedfellow - Though previously convicted on corruption charges, Bedfellow has returned of late, still usually drunk and plagued by reporters.

• Editor of the Bloom Picayune - Usually Opus' boss, the Picayune's editor is depicted as hyper-stressed and suicidal, though somewhat older than he was in Bloom County.

• Oliver Wendell Jones - For some reason, Oliver was shown, like Binkley, to be the same age as he had been in Bloom County and Outland. He reappeared on August 5, 2007.

• Lola Granola - Opus' one-time fiancée (back in the days of Bloom County), Lola reappeared on August 12, 2007 as Steve's girlfriend.

• Berkeley Breathed - On November 25, 2007, the cartoonist appeared as himself (using a likeness of Sean Connery as James Bond instead of drawing his own face) and "announced" that Jim Davis's character Garfield is gay in a parody of author J. K. Rowling's ex post facto outing of the Harry Potter character Albus Dumbledore. The strip ended with Breathed calling Rowling a "lily-livered literary chicken".^[2]

[edit] Absent characters

Early on in the strip, it was revealed that Michael Binkley had fled Bloom County to become a teenage Tibet eunuch after a disastrous first kiss. He was not heard from again until June 3, 2007, when he appeared in his child form without explanation.^[3]

At one point, Opus ponders the whereabouts of his other buddies from the past. Among those that Opus remembers are Milo Bloom, although Milo's whereabouts have not yet been discussed. Additionally, Ronald-Ann Smith, the original protagonist of Outland, has not been referenced at all in the strip.

At an autograph party for an Opus anthology book, Breathed revealed that the reason many of the original child characters had not returned is because in the years since the end of Outland, the child characters would have aged into teenagers, and Breathed had no interest in reviving the characters in that form.^[4]

[edit] Production history

In numerous interviews before launching Opus, Berke Breathed stated his hopes that the strip would help reinvigorate the medium of newspaper comics. He criticized many modern strips, especially Garfield, for lacking expressive artwork or original humor.^[5][6]

In an interview appearing in the April 2007 issue of Texas Monthly, Breathed announced that he planned to end the strip by killing off the main character.^[7] On April 2, 2007 the journal Editor & Publisher reported on this interview in a story titled "Will Cartoonist Berkeley Breathed Kill Off Opus the Penguin?".^[8] However, Breathed's editor has reportedly quoted him as stating, “I mentioned Opus’ literal death just for talking points on my [book] tour coming up. Not gonna kill him, but it’s good for copy.”^[9] Breathed confirmed that he was joking in an interview with Salon: "I was kidding about killing Opus, by the way. I'd like to walk the streets free from fears of spontaneous garroting."^[10]

[edit] Artwork and availability

The original syndication contract for Opus stipulated that the strip occupy an entire half of a newspaper page. According to The Washington Post Writers Group, this was to provide "space for Breathed to offer richness and depth, similar to the breathtaking imagery in his popular children's books."^[11] While this style can appear hand-painted or airbrushed, it is actually rendered by Breathed on a computer using Adobe Photoshop. The half-page requirement has since been lifted, and the strip is now scaled down by most newspapers. Its original illustration style has also been largely abandoned in favor of a more hand-drawn look, much like that of Breathed's previous strip, Outland.

Initially, in an effort to help boost physical newspaper sales, the strip was barred from appearing online; however, in 2005, that too changed and Opus became officially available on the web.^[12] Some sources initially claimed that the strip was printed in a special "unscannable" DRM ink by some papers^[13] but this is an urban legend.

On August 26, 2007, the strip featured Lola Granola wearing a headscarf, explaining that she was now a "radical Islamist." The cartoon was not printed by the Washington Post and many other papers.^[14] The following week's strip was also censored.^[15] Both strips were replaced by more innocuous strips in the printed versions, but the 'objectionable' strips relating to Lola's religious beliefs were offered in a variety of Internet comics sites, including Breathed's homepage and the "My Comics Page" site (this site now requires a paid "pro" registration for access to the censored strips, but free access to the censored strips is still available via http://www.salon.com/comics/opus/2007/08/26/opus/ and http://www.salon.com/comics/opus/2007/09/02/opus/).

[edit] The movie

In August 2006 The Weinstein Company revealed in a press release for an animated version of The Nutty Professor that it had a "CG-animated project" called "Opus" "in the works".^[16] Numerous online movie databases, including The New York Times, have entries for the movie, titled Opus: The Last Christmas, and give a release date of December 19, 2008.^[17][18] Some of these sites name Berkeley Breathed as the director,^[19] while others list Tim Bjorklund and Paul Taylor.^[20] Initially, Miramax Films was reported to have obtained the movie rights to the series,^[21] but the project migrated to The Weinstein Company with the departure of the Weinstein brothers from Disney and Miramax.^[22]

However, on May 8, 2007, during an interview^[23] by NPR radio host Diane Rehm, Mr. Breathed responded to an e-mail question regarding the existence of Opus: The Last Christmas by saying,

“

Uh, the better question is, 'Is there an Opus movie going to come out?' and the answer is 'no.' And, now I can say it's all for the better. Uh, the Weinstein brothers at Miramax tried for five years to develop an Opus movie, their first animated film, and it was, let me just say, it probably wasn't destined to be, as ... as it probably shouldn't. And the problem with developing these kinds of movies and films is that inevitably they discover that a property as idiosyncratic as a comic strip doesn't translate well unless you have the confidence of bringing the creator in and factoring him into the creation of the movie. They never, never do that. Yeah, um, they just don't trust us. So without that control there probably shouldn't be an Opus movie.

”

In a June 2007 interview with Salon.com,^[24] Breathed confirmed that the Miramax feature was "dead", but left the door open for an independently-produced Opus film:

“

There'll only be a movie if I'm writing it, which will probably keep him off the big expensive screen ... probably just as well.

”

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Berkeley Breathed official site
• Opus at Comics.com
• Opus archive at washingtonpost.com
• Eric: Ack-phhlpt. - Websnark

v • d • e Berkeley Breathed's Bloom County series Comics The Academia Waltz • Bloom County • Outland • Opus Spinoffs A Wish for Wings that Work • The Last Basselope • Goodnight Opus Characters Bill the Cat • Michael Binkley • Milo Bloom • Cutter John • Steve Dallas • Lola Granola • Bobbi Harlow • Hodge-Podge • Oliver Wendell Jones • Milquetoast the Cockroach • Opus the Penguin • Portnoy • Ronald-Ann Smith Minor characters in Bloom County