Opus lives!

Right before Star Wars: The Phantom Menace came out, I remember overhearing a conversation between two guys who were two young to have seen the original Star Wars in theaters. The conversation was dripping with irony until it turned to the imminent arrival of The Phantom Menace, at which point one of them said in as earnest a tone as possible, “I just hope it doesn’t suck.” I’m sure that guy has been embracing his inner core of bitterness ever since. I raise this because of the combination of excitement and dread I’m feeling at the moment. Eight years after Outland and fourteen years after Bloom County, Berkeley Breathed is bringing back Opus!! Breathed will be penning a Sundays-only strip à la Outland. Here’s what appears on Breathed’s web site:

On November 23rd, after an absence of almost ten years, Opus returns to the nation’s Sunday comic pages. We can’t, at this time, go into detail as to what he’s been doing during his mysterious missing decade, although Opus is deeply embarrassed about the rumors, especially the one naming him as the catalyst behind the unfortunate break-up of J Lo and Ben. It will all become clear soon.

For more, check out this MSNBC interview with Opus himself, and Breathed’s e-mail interview with Salon this past week. As someone who remembers breaking out in fits of hysterical laughter reading the first Bloom County compilation while sitting in my freshman physics class in high school, I’ll confess to some nervousness here — how can I be sure that what happened to George Lucas won’t happen to Berkeley Breathed? Fortunately, this Washington Post discussion with Breathed suggests he’s still got game — which is to say, he’s still got the refined sense of whimsy that made Bloom County a must read when it was around. Some highlights:

I’m not the same knucklehead I was in 1989. I’m an all new knucklehead. A knucklehead with small children — which, you know, is the worst kind. Look what happened to Dave Barry. Opus will be at once, new and the same. Like each of us as we glide down the different hallways of time in the labyrinth of our lives. It’s incredible just how poetic one can be when there isn’t time to edit it out…. Washington, D.C. What do you think of today’s political comics such as “The Boondocks“? Berkeley Breathed: Aaron McGruder cites me as a major influence, which is always flattering of course. He’s a terrific talent and his graphics sing… but I wonder, sometimes, if he misses a delicate lesson from Bloom County… one that I learned after painful missteps with… uh, outspokenness. Let’s just say that if a comic strip tree falls hard in the forest and no [one] hears it because they’re wincing… does the Pope, then, you know, poop in the woods. Okay, the metaphor collapsed but you get my meaning…. Harrisburg, Pa.: Children read the news section; adults read the comics. Opus has to appeal to adults, at least initially. Most 10-year-olds had diminished reading skills when Opus last appeared. How do you intend to reach out to the young and get their minds off of reading for current events classes? Berkeley Breathed: Nudity. It works for Hollywood.

Please, God, just be funny. That’s all I ask. P.S. For those wondering about Breathed’s political orientation, he gave a pretty funny interview to The Onion in 2001, in which his political views were somewhat de-mystified:

O: Is the liberal stance of the early strips indicative of your own personal politics? BB: Liberal, shmiberal. That should be a new word. Shmiberal: one who is assumed liberal, just because he’s a professional whiner in the newspaper. If you’ll read the subtext for many of those old strips, you’ll find the heart of an old-fashioned Libertarian. And I’d be a Libertarian, if they weren’t all a bunch of tax-dodging professional whiners.