Visual Arts

As a Republican president prepares to exit, so does Opus cartoonist Berkeley Breathed – again. (The GOP-bashing artist prefers to make his exits stage-left, thankyouverymuch.)

The Pulitzer Prize-winning creator of the '80s strip Bloom County, which wrapped up shortly after President Ronald Reagan's second term, says he will end his Sunday-only strip, Opus, on Nov. 2.

The Dallas Morning News has carried the strip since its inception.

"With the crisis in Wall Street and Washington, I'm suspending my comic strip to assist the nation," said Mr. Breathed, 51, through his syndicate, the Washington Post Writers Group.

Even in announcing his retirement from cartooning, he couldn't resist satirizing the campaign scene: "The best way I can help is to leave politics permanently. ... I call on John McCain to join me."

Rumors had circulated for months that Mr. Breathed might end his strip just as a fellow Texan saddles up for good. Last year, the cartoonist teased in an interview with Texas Monthly: "I'd like to see Opus go out with George Bush, both headed into the sunset."

Mr. Breathed retired from the comics pages in 1995 but returned in 2003 to sink his pen into a new wartime administration with Opus.

As the strip winds down, the ever-flappable Opus has been shipped to Gitmo, reminiscing about his heady decades and troubled love life. The Opus finale in newspapers will feature a contest asking readers to guess the orphaned penguin's fate. The answer, interestingly, will appear in an online-only version of the strip.

What's next? Mr. Breathed has his pen poised for more children's books. But what if another Republican administration comes in next year? He swears he's leaving the game permanently this time.

The Washington Post

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