...which would explain a lot.

Nooo!

Somebody hasn't read the Old Testament. Try it yourself. Wowsers!

The prophets of the Old Testament were unable to explain why bad things happen to good people. Job asked and Yahweh gave him a bad time for asking, although he could have just admitted that he had a nasty bet going with Satan. And he never did answer the question. Typical wingnut.

Nevertheless the question could not be left unanswered forever, just several hundred years. At long last a solution was obtained, and they came up with Jesus, and had him give the answer, which was

"My kingdom is not of this world."

Meaning that since bad things were always going to happen to good people (this being a dog-eat-dog world and all, where you get ahead by acquiring a taste for canine), God would allow for an afterlife where good things would happen to good people, like they're supposed to, and bad people would get what they deserve ...

Oh. "Opus" is a satire.

Never mind.

Never mind.

-- walter_map

...but your summary was about as clear as one can expect a fairly tale to be interpreted. Very nice.

Your energy to post letters here continues to astound me

I petered out on the latest nail-in-a-cracker thread at about 220, but when I looked in, I saw you chugging away at 440+

If you'll excuse the exporession, holy sh!t

Lately, BB is thinking about God instead of Obama and Hillary. Next, it will be the Olympics in China.

Less than 100 days until the election. Perhaps God is a better subject.

Why is Steve smoking in the bathtub?

Dude, methinks it's time to quit this game if the only thing Outland can talk about is itself.

The door's right over there. Don't let it hit you on the way out.

Your energy to post letters here continues to astound me

I'm on a Mission from Gawd to get people to think and laugh at the same time in preparation for the November Follies, aka the national elections. A few more warm-up tosses to heat up my fastball and I should be able to strike out the side the last few innings.

How am I looking so far coach?

Dudes, you all pale beside the master - AKA Smith. Though she seems to have packed it in since her reason for existence - Hilary, kicked the political bucket.

Why is Steve smoking in the bathtub?

It's traditional among hopeless nicotine addicts.

The real question is Why is he talking to a penguin? It's not like the penguin is ever going to give a hoot about what he says, literally.

Dudes, you all pale beside the master - AKA Smith.

I've got chunks of Smith in my stools, for she was crunchy and tasted good with ketchup.

Smith was tedious, lacked humor, lacked insight, and lied compulsively. Other than that she was one brilliant poster, and she'll be missed, mostly because she's moved out of range.

Asses and ass touching for a change. Sort of. Dude has issues.

I would like to add that we are really lucky that Steve is fully immersed whenever he and Opus share these tub side revelations.

Looks to me like you can go the distance, Ace

That's what this strip tells me. His disease is progressing, he's not getting better, Dubya sure as hell isn't going to give him medical treatment, and he's beginning to see his life and his collected works as a gigantic string of goose eggs.

I think he's about to quit, and then quietly die.

Spasmodic Torticollis isn't usually fatal.

It is debilitating, though, so I expect you could be right about the retirement.

"Paid Plenty"???

So, Rev Ike did have a direct line after all?

the Goodnight Moon panel in the frame on the wall.

I actually got a smile out of this one.

Twice.

Thanks Berke.

It was in an interview in Texas Monthly last year.

What interesting projects are on your horizon?

BB: Three: a novel; two of my books are in development at Disney; and Opus’s death, which approaches.

Has Opus, the penguin, been a fixture in all of your strips? I don’t recall, and I’ve been in Austin since your The Academia Waltz days. And, assuming you mean the death of Opus, the strip, will that be the last we see of B. Breathed, newspaper cartoonist?

BB: Opus has been in all my cartooning post Academia Waltz. I mean the death of Opus literally, as told in the comic, which means the suspension of the feature (no dates set as of yet). Newspapers may indeed fade from our lives, but childrens’ books may yet have a future.

Are you serious about killing off Opus in the strip?

BB: Yes, but my wife would leave me, she reports. I have to factor this in.

Do your publisher and newspapers know this?

BB: They know that all good things come to an end. I’d like to see Opus go out with George Bush, both headed into the sunset.

So, tomreedcartoon, this was planned well before his illness. I guess a comics blog grump like yourself si more interested in ugly quips than knowing your topic.

I wonder why tom reed is so petty to wish depression and death upon Breathed. I suspect a guy with failed sites like Off-Model has added up the "gigantic string of goose eggs" of his own life - trying to be a big time comix blogger and ending up mostly a bitter echo of Comic Book Guy.

I don't think I've ever seen such an unfunny cartoon. Where is the humor? Are we supposed to be laughing--HA HA HA--at those who believe in God? (Yes, Dubya believes in God, but so do/did Obama, the Clintons, Gandhi, Lincoln, Kierkegaard, Jefferson, Shakespeare and Milton, for starters. Voltaire too!) Breathed is no Twain or Vonnegut (i.e., among the relatively few Americans whose atheism was, at least some of the time, both funny and instructive). Does Breathed imagine that he is being radical? A modern philosophe, maybe? Does he imagine that once he is gone six feet under people will say, "That Breathed, he told it the way it is, man! He was way ahead of his time with his understanding that theists are crazies!" I just don't see the humor here, assuiming there is supposed to be some of that (in a cartoon!). But I guess I do get the "point," and I find it tedious.