OPUS ENDING CARTOON FATE
Berkeley Breathed has had three successive syndicated comic strips: Bloom County, Outland and Opus. It is a rare triple play for a cartoonist to have this much success over his career to have multiple comic strips that poke satire at current culture and politics. It was with some shock and remorse that the word came from Breathed that he would be discontinuing his Opus cartoon. He felt that the current state of affairs made it impossible or difficult for him to keep his psychotic talking penquin from going into the Dark Side. So he quit. But he announced to his readership that there would be a contest on how you believe the main character, Opus, would wind up at the end of the strip. Opus, was last scene in captivity at an animal control pound awaiting his fate.
Being an avid reader, I thought the last panel should have Opus being deported to Antarctica and read as follows:
Well, that's how I'd end the strip. It is cosmic timing that Breathed's announcement coincided with our own finishing of one Real News Komix strip, Rapter Agent. In the overset file is the last dozen or so episodes, including the finale. So I know what it is like to plan the demise of a comic strip, the options on how to rap up the storyline, or go out with a bang. The reason for ending this one strip instead of dangling it in the wind like dead websites is that I normally work in batches. I can sit down and crank out comic after comic if I have the time. But time is becoming increasingly short and a valuable non-internet commodity. I think that is what happens to many webmasters who have their sights updated daily, then weekly, then monthly, then sporatic, until they sit as a peeling billboard after a year.
But the creative therapy of doing cartoons will not be lost. The story arc for the other cyberbarf comic, Dr. Philistine, is also almost fully completed in the overset drawer. However, the Doc may get a second run if time is any factor. There are a lot of strange things inside the internet culture.
Even if that fails to inspire, there are scraps of paper with ideas thrown about my home desk, including a potential series that explores a dark side of the net. Comic strips are more defined that the quick hit, one panel editorial cartoons (iToons) that make a quick statement on a specific subject. Comics attempt to dwell on character development and interaction with a series of situations in order to draw out consequences. There are consequences to a creator for not developing a strong outline at the beginning, or not ending the strip before it turned on itself.
The problem with staying current in a mad world is that the real news items in the mad world is outstripping the pace of its possible satire. Newspaper and magazines that feature editorial cartoons are quickly being displaced by hit-and-run videos on YouTube or email chain jokes of the day being spammed throughout the office cubicals. You can make anything a reality in the YouTube 15 minute of fame: from dumb stunts to blistering political satire of the candidates.
Breathed said that he will now devote himself to more of his original children's books. We will continue to doodle because it is cheaper than an actual therapist.
