Editor's Desk

Bye-bye to Opus

Posted by: John Beck

Tuesday, October 28, 2008 6:32 PM

If you haven't  heard the news, "Opus" is ending his run in the comics  this Sunday, Nov. 2. "Opus" has been in the comics section of the Sunday News-Gazette since its debut in 2003.

The creation of Pulitzer-prize winning cartoonist Berkeley Breathed, Opus the Penguin was a character in two of Breathed's earlier acclaimed strips, "Bloom County" and "Outland."

Earlier this month, Breathed announced he would discontinue all work on comic strips with the final episode of "Opus." He said he plans to focus on writing children's books.

When he began the Sunday-only "Opus" in 2003, Breathed insisted that the strip run in a half-page format or not at all. Most other Sunday comic strips are available in two or three sizes to give editors flexibility in putting together the comics pages. But Breathed noted that papers just squeezed as many comics as they could into their Sunday sections, giving short shrift to the artists' drawings.

Breathed held up his end of the bargain — I thought his work was spectacular. "Opus" was one of my favorites, often making me laugh. I'll miss it.

We're replacing "Opus" with two strips, "Red & Rover" and "Pearls Before Swine." Both will start Nov. 9, and we're going to try to figure out a way to get them on the daily pages as well.

"Red & Rover" by Brian Basset is the story of a 10-year-old and his mutt, his older brother and parents. "Pearls Before Swine" is a quirky strip featuring a pig and a rat. Created by Stephen Pastis, it  won the National Cartoonists Society's top award for newspaper cartoons in 2004 and 2007 and also had a positive reaction from News-Gazette comics fans when we sampled it on our comics pages in the summer of 2007.

We hope you like them both. Let us know.

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