Letters to the Editor
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Opus for President...Why not?
Yep, he looks good in his Penguin tux. He's very brave and naive. He always looks before he leaps. He knows a big hole when he sees one. He can take the hit. He ain't afraid to ask for advice. He often ignores the advice. He is very stubborn and persistent. And by golly, some people really just like him. I wonder if chicken-fried penguin with cream gravy tastes good...
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In Response to Garry Owen
I respect your criticism but feel compelled to speak up in Berkeley Breathed’s defense. What Mr. Breathed has managed to do for decades now is infiltrate the mainstream Sunday rags with a subtle and ongoing progressive critique. There are plenty of sources for sharper satire—click next door on Tom Tomorrow. The genius of Breathed is that his satire slips in beneath the radar. By sugarcoating a bitter pill in the soft exterior of a cute penguin, Breathed has managed to sidestep the progressive ghetto of alternative weeklies and the opinions section, and infiltrated the living rooms and headspace of a younger, more mainstream and/or more conservative audience. As a child of Bloom County now in his 30s, I recall that Bloom County was the first place I heard names like Jeane Kirkpatrick and saw critiques of Reagan era politics—critiques that stayed with me as I began to develop my own political consciousness. You, Mr. Owen, are not his target audience. His target is the very “26 percent” (and their kids) who wouldn’t otherwise entertain criticism of the Iraq War.
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Philly
"You, Mr. Owen, are not his target audience. His target is the very “26 percent” (and their kids) who wouldn’t otherwise entertain criticism of the Iraq War." -- Philly Peef
That was a very well-thought-out response and I agree with everything you said. If the 26 percent of American mush-heads get their eyes cracked open just a little bit through an innocuous fat little penguin with a bulbous nose, then there is some good in this.
But I am not Breathed's target audience. Thank you.
So what is it doing on Salon? Surely they are not trying to reach the 26 percent Bush-loving dead-enders. I don't know what Salon's demographic is, but I'd be shocked to find out that the 26 percenters and their impressionable kids were coming to Salon.
Apparently, I'm getting the subtle message indirectly that I am not Salon's target audience either. I used to be. It pains me to say this, but more and more, I'm wondering just where is Salon going.
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How fucking stupid are you, Gary-the-Vet?
Opus is a tedious strip, a sequel to a dippy ripoff of Garry Trudeau's most Zonker-ish yeeshiness. But sop for the Fox Newsies? Pabulum for Bushfans? Do you think that numskullery signifies?
I know: You live for combat--that smell of napalm in the morning, that itchy feeling you get when somebody responds.
Dude, you are predictable. You are a stone freakin' bore.
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"wondering just where is Salon going."
It's going where the rest of the country has been going for years, to a place where financial success and the comfort and status it brings is much more important then suffering for principles.
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(Leopold) Bloom Stephen Dedalus Opus= James Joyceisms
Dear Ones who do not get Bloom County
Ever wonder why the aging Boomer is named Steve D. Dallas?
How about Milo Bloom? How about the Opus character and the mirror writing and the anxiety closets and all the rest?
Mr. Breathed is a miniairplane pilot (at least an ex) AND a Joycean.
I'll bet even the Salon Editors did not know that!
Brush up on Tou alls' James Joyce, Ya hear?
Or else go back to watching FOX NEWS.
P.S. Dedalus built the labyrinth for Minos.
Guy had a son named Icarus.
Icarus crashed. So did Breathed.
Bill the Cat= ...
Oh, no I'll let you all find that one your own darn selves.
You all fly right, now,
minnesinger5
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I HATE THIS STRIP
But only because it ripped off a joke Bloom County did decades ago.
Garry, I fear you are correct about the direction Salon has taken in recent months. But Breathed gets a lot of slack from me. I don't think he's resting on his laurels, but the same deeds that win accolades become normalized and quaint. He needs to become a little more agitative if we're to enjoy his work beyond the (very) pretty pictures.
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Not what it was
Garry Owen is an asshole to whom I wouldn't toss a life jacket.
Having said that, I have to admit he's pretty much right re: Opus. Breathed has long since lost the edge that made such an impression on me at a young age. He once tightwalked the line between cute and cutting better than anyone, and it was precisely that well-balanced act that gave his strip its punch.
I own every Opus-related comic Breathed has published, and I've read them all countless times. The man has lost his bite. It's really that simple. The new strip is a rice cake version of what it was, and that's a shame, because when he was most disgruntled Berkeley Breathed was at his best.
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Gar-Gar
I have been looking for those non-existent plush toys. Straw man, you lying crapsack.
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Not his best.
Breathead have drawn some dynamite strips. Unfortunately this is not one of them.
And downright unfair to 'the Generals'. There are lot of indications and reports of the DoD chafing under the Rumsfeldt rule and counteracting it as best they could without directly ubdercutting their Commander in Chief. Still that torture memo did get retracted, And the nr of newly retired generals speaking out is remarkable.
BTW, lets keep this civil please.
regards JakobA
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Philly, Gary and JacobA
Thanks, I enjoyed the thoughts and the civil (JacobA,thank you) discourse. If only civil discourse was the norm in this unsettling world of our Net. Every time I go to the boards, blogs and comment areas I am unsettled by the vicious comments that unfortunately tend to dominate to some degree.
Anyway, thanks again, you three.
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JakobA
Sorry, JakobA. Not JacobA.
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Sorry, JakobA
Please refer to Mr. Owen's letters to see how he has turned every Sunday's Opus into a pretext for preening displays of overblown rage.
He is tedious, an anger junkie who, as he himself has said, simply loves to fight. He has thereby surrendered any right to civil disportment.