I miss Bloom County but I've never really liked either Outland or Opus. They just never seemed to click, the satire was pretty toothless and neither of them were very funny.

Opus has been great but damn, I still miss Bloom County. That strip was honestly a formative influence on how I see the world... comedy bordering on farce. Tragedy that also makes you laugh.

I agree that Outland and Opus never ever hit the Bloom County level but I still liked them more than a lot of the other clumsy stuff in the funny papers and I will miss that goofy looking bird.

Opus has been painful and I was relieved to hear it's coming to an end.

Bloom County was awesome! Me too, BP, me too. I still have my Bloom County books. I'm giving them to my nephew in hopes they'll influence him, too.

Yes, Opus is a delightful character but Bloom County was at such a high level of funny for so long. . .it's been impossible to match it.

Plus, an Obama Presidency is going to be boring. ..delightfully, healingly, boring. No news here, just the nation under repair, move on by.

I have a semi-personal attachment to that penguin, having earned my first bucks freelancing for the Web by doing an "interview" with the character when the revival comic began five years ago. It also earned me some email correspondence with Berkeley Breathed in which he feigned outrage at my literary appropriation but also gave me some seriously encouraging words.

I can't be harshly critical of the way the new strip worked out. It held together better than the "Outland" weekly but still suffered from a lack of room for more content, yet B.B. really didn't want to make it a full-time job. From all I've read about him and my one direct contact, he's a complicated character.

From the Salon interview, it was clear that he does not expect the near future to be, as danf says, "healingly boring" and I must semi-agree. My own professional writing/blogging is on hold until I get a better feel for things; what flavor of Wendell will be most valuable and in what quantities. In the meantime, I Twitter... I Twitter my little tweets off.

But after reading that interview, it struck me... the answer to the big "How Will Opus End" mystery (and 18 hours too late to enter the contest where I could've won some $$ for my local animal shelters - which really need it right now).

The multiple references to Charles Schulz and "Peanuts" (and his live appearance today at the Schulz Museum), his incarceration in an Animal Shelter with a poignant pup who is white with black markings, kind of like... yep, I think the wacky waddling waterfowl is going to end up sharing a doghouse with Snoopy. Of all the possibilities in Berk Breathed's brain, it's the one that feels the most right.