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You know, I would have thought that trying to get people to believe that the end of the world was coming would have been a more difficult task than it apparently was. I mean, I would have thought that it would take someone with Oprah-esque charisma to convince people of such a fairlky whack-a-doo idea. Apparently not. Apparently, all you need is some really, really old guy who is vaguely aware of his own consciousness to spew out his theories and you've got yourself the makings of a doomsday prediction that is actually taken seriously by a lot of people.
21, 2011. He came to that particular date by using some made up mathematical formula to decipher things that he made up in the Bible. And his formula made no sense. It was something ridiculous like "Every 'thou sayeth' means fifteen" and "Always double down when talking about sin" or something equally hokey. But regardless of the unlikelihood that this guy was right, he convinced many, many people to send him money and to spread the word of the end (that never came). I figured that he must be pretty charismatic to accomplish something like that. Yeah, not so much.
. His explanation to the non-Rapture and to the questions that were asked of him by reporters were less than stellar. I don't understand. He claims now that "...he was not incorrect his in math, just his interpretation about how May 21 would play out. He calls the day "an invisible Judgment." No, no! It wasn't invisible! It was non-existent! There's a different, you old coot! A HUGE difference! Why do people listen to this guy?! That makes NO sense!
"...if he is saying that "we as humans are not capable of understanding the Bible?" Camping said yes. Then he went on to tell a Bible story about Saul. Which, I assume, that we as humans are not capable of understanding. And I'll be honest and admit that I'm not totally sure who Saul is. So that could make him kind of right on that point, but he shouldn't have told the story if that's factually the case.
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ast of Berkeley Breathed's comic strip Opus was published. That's it. He says he's done. Granted, he's done this to me twice before; once when he stopped drawing Bloom County (but I don't know if that counts because he immediately took up drawing Outland only on Sundays, so I wasn't totally deprived) and once again when he stopped drawing Outland. The latter gave me approximately eight years of naive, flightless waterfowl deprivation (and/or depravity, depends on who you ask. And what my mood was on a given day. Sometimes, it's just not pretty.). But this time feels different.
oom that is in the future awaiting us mere mortals will negatively affect his humor and his drawing and, ultimately, the deposition of the one beloved, Opus. And I'll give the guy this: He's always done what has been best for Opus and what has been the best for the strip. Without the breaks that he needed and without his different methods of artistically creating the weekly panels (he quit doing Outland so that he could learn how to paint. Good thing, too. He's fabulous at it.), the strip could have ended up in a largely unfunny rut, not unlike those of Cathy, Garfield and any other comic strip whose characters look the exact same way that they did 25 or 30 years ago. And while it pains me greatly to say this (and it only pains me greatly in this instance. It's not like I can't say this at other times. I swear!), he was right and he did the right thing both times before and :::gulp::: I guess he's doing the right thing now. Dammit!
wrote to the AP, (which I'm sure that he knew would neither appease, nor satisfy anyone) he said, "I'm destroying the village to save it. In this case, a penguin... We are about to enter a rather wicked period in our National Discourse ... bad enough to make what we're in right now seem folksy and genteel. The ranting side of my cartooning impulse will destroy the thing that makes Opus comfortable for his readers. And me....A mad penguin, like a mad cartoonist, isn't very lovable. I like him the way he is now."
s been in question for the past couple of months. Rumor had it he was going to be imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay! But I just couldn't see it. When Breathed was asked if he had a message or anything to say for folks who would miss Opus, he said, "He's me....I'd like to think he will still be found, in a sense." Yeah, see, I met Breathed once about a year ago. No way is that guy going to have himself end up in Guantanamo Bay. He's far too....cartoonist-y for that. You know, the "indoor/desk job" kind of a guy (perhaps at the Bloom Picayune). I'm not saying he looks wimpy or anything, but he sure doesn't look like he could hang at Guantanamo with Cheney and his boys, that's all. 
So considering trusting Opus with Breathed was like trusting Breathed with Breathed, I felt OK that he'd end up in a very pleasant spot, one that would be fitting for my little pear-shaped, big beaked friend. After my initial freak out session (upon learning of the ending of the Opus strip), I managed to calm my destitute state of mind by reminding myself to "never say never". And those that say "never" rarely mean "never". And while Breathed didn't exactly say "never" he did say it was over for good. "For good" is like two words that mean "never". So he'll leave himself an out, won't he? I've been reading his damn comic strips for over twenty five years! There had better be a bloody out! Sir! (Don't want to offend the only one who is capable of giving the out.)
ll about me. That's right.) Opus was safe and warm and comfy and happy and all of the things that he has always been...on the inside. Sometimes, it was hard for others (in the strip) to get that about him. Mostly they just thought of him as a big-schnozzed, turnip twaddling, dimwit with such an inflated sense of naivete about him that you wondered how he made it through each day. And while he was, in fact, a big-schnozzed, turnip twaddling, dimwit who was incredibly naive about everything around him, inside...well, inside he was this lovable little penguin who valued and appreciated his friends, longed for his family and loved those who loved him too. (And he had a thing for the women in the strip as well. The bigger the bimbette, it seemed, the more frantic the antic.) Hmmm...he sounds vaguely familiar to me.
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Only two other times in my life have I been as near to completely inconsolable as I am today. And both of the other two times? The same reason. The same damned reason. And at the moment, I'm either a little bit hopeful that things might turn out differently or I'm feeling totally screwed (and not in a good way). But after the events of the past four or five weeks, the hope is diminishing. Rapidly. Why? Because once again (dammit!) my nightmare has come true. Berkeley Breathed is retiring. And he's taking Opus with him. Dammit!
For those who have been living under a rock or just living in a land without comic strips (or naive penguins who wear bow ties, yet forgo pants), Berke Breathed (rhymes with Work Method) is the author, illustrator, God-like Creator of the comic strips Bloom County (awesome), Outland (lots of Bill the Cat) and the currently, but not for much longer, running Sunday-only strip, Opus. From these fine, oddly ingenious strips came characters such as Bill the (dead) Cat, Steve Dallas, Milo, Binkley, Oliver Wendell Jones, and of course, Opus, the beloved and naive penguin and main draw of the gravy train that Breathed came up with back in 1980.
And why, W
HY is Breathed doing this to us AGAIN? (He stopped doing Bloom County in 1989. He then immediately began doing Outland, another Sunday-only strip seemingly meant to placate those of us who were curled up in our respective corners and sobbing gently to ourselves. OK, we were hysterical and looking for ammo, but gently sobbing sounds so much more...not psychotic. He stopped doing Outland in 1995. Then in 2003 he started Opus, which he is now ready to yank from underneath our once stupidly grinning existence. Yet AGAIN!) I'll tell you why. (Like I was going to keep it a secret at this point?) The government. Wait. What?
You know, the way things are going right now, what with the Speaker of the House being
a cold blooded reptile disguised as Nancy Pelosi, and with our financial system crumbling beneath the feet of seemingly clueless members of committees that were supposed to oversee things to make sure that this very thing did not happen, and with a sitting President who one could legitimately argue is mildly retarded (at best!), and with people in other countries who want to kill us (and we, the kill-ees, responding to their hatred of us by giving them bazillions of dollars for their oil as we bend over to do so), well, it's not looking real good. Breathed sees the same thing. It all just proves my belief that too much government will eventually ruin everything. And once it has, it will ruin comic strips next. Those bastards.
According to the
folks over there at the AP (who feel the need to include a little map with every article, even if the map only points out where the AP is located), Breathed "wants to save his strip's main character, Opus, from being dragged down in the current political climate." Sooooo...wait. He's doing it to save my little pengy? Well, it would seem so. He wrote an email to The Associated Press in which he said, "I'm destroying the village to save it. In this case, a penguin ... We are about to enter a rather wicked period in our National Discourse ... bad enough to make what we're in right now seem folksy and genteel. The ranting side of my cartooning impulse will destroy the thing that makes Opus comfortable for his readers. And me. A mad penguin, like a mad cartoonist, isn't very lovable. I like him the way he is now." And that's all fine and good, but I must point out to you sir that "the way he is now" is in my G-D newspaper every Sunday!!! Whoops. Sorry about that. I'm not well. 
And here's where it starts to get depressing. Again! He says that "This time the ending is really for good, if not his own. Breathed believes the tone of America's public and political discourse is headed in a dark direction, with the next president — whoever is elected — facing problems that will 'belie palatable solutions.' Inevitably, he said that would color his art." Well, art does have to be colored if it's going to be on Sundays, but I see his point.
And while I do appreciate him trying to save the penguin and his own sanity, I just wish that there was some...other....ah, who am I kidding? There's not. There's no other way to preserve what he has created and maintained in its current form with the way that things are shaping up. You see it. I see it. He sees it. But no one's going to talk about it. And if no one talks about it and it needs to be talked about, that would leave only one left who could talk about it and that would be Opus. And then he'd turn into the equivalent of a rabid penguin, without treatment, with lots of mouth foam, and also with a bitter, bitter taste in his mouth (from all the rabidness, of course).
(You should be able to click on the strip below to see it in a larger, more readable size.)
ely. (Not that a lot of people would even know if he had. The guy is as reclusive as Howard Hughes. With the money but without the wooden airplanes, of course.) According to the AP, he'll still be writing his children's books (which are merely characters that look similar to those that I love with the same sort of thinking patterns, ie, naive, but rational, and the same humor, just toned down to the level that a small, yet intelligent child would enjoy.). The AP article also says that he'll be pursuing "writing screenplays". (The last time he was involved with a movie which would star Opus, he was working with the Weinstein brothers who were unable to grasp the concept of the talking penguin and other talking animals, needing to know how and why they talked and why humans could understand them. Apparently, "they just can" isn't good enough for the Weinsteins. Thus, that project came to a grinding halt.) 
lot of comic strips out there right now that are great. When Breathed first quit drawing Bloom County, it was really the first time that a cartoonist had wised up to the fact that he could actually STOP drawing. Until then, they all just assumed they were chained to their drawing board until grim death (which they wished for in the later years) would come and take them away. Next thing you know, you've got the most awesome comic strips ever dropping like flies because their illustrators figured if the Bloom County guy could do it (only two freaking years after he won the Pulitzer Prize), so could they. Next thing you know, my newspaper is without Bill Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes and then it was without Gary Larson's The Far Side. Yeah, thanks for that, Berke. But without any great strips out there right now, I don't foresee this to be a problem. (And if they quit, they quit. What do I care? I just said they weren't great.) 
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