Post by Sephiroth on Jan 3, 2014 11:49:48 GMT -5
Man I'm really showing my age with this one, please tell me I am not the only one who remembers these. I'd personally say Bloom County really was the best of all three strips to feature Opus; Berkely Breathed was really in his groove and the opulent 80's just provided him with so much material to satirize. Outland started off okay as something new and different, but it devolved pretty quickly when Breathed just started recycling all his old characters and material; the 90's were a whole new era and he was still trying to use the kind of social/political humor that worked so well in the 80's. When I heard Breathed was bringing Opus back in 2003 I was initially stoked, but sadly that strip just fell WAY short of expectations. It felt like Breathed just couldn't get his groove back after being out of the comic strip business for so long, and the humor was really lame. Perhaps the best translation for the final run of Opus would be its positioning in my local paper; it started out on the front page at the very top on the weekend edition, but within a year it had been moved to the interior, and by the final year it was at the bottom panel on the back page. I also loved the TV special they did way back.