Of course.
In the pages of the most gentle of places.
The final "Opus" ran in Sunday's Tulsa World, among hundreds of other papers, as well as online at places such as Salon.com. In order to know the conclusion of this little penguin's epic journey, one needs to go to HumaneSociety.org/opus.
Those of you who have happily followed Opus from his days in "Bloom County" to the present, it would probably be a good idea to have a handkerchief handy.
I've enjoyed all manner of comics through the years, still read them avidly. I joke that I modeled my career after that of Cosmo Fishhawk, the tweed coated eagle in Jeff MacNelly's "Shoe" (although there is probably more truth than humor in that characterization).
But Opus has always been the happy innocent I think most of us wish we could be, the indefatigable optimist, the inner child adjusting as well as can be expected on the outside.
Berke Breathed, Opus' creator, said he made the decision to send Opus to a final home in order to spare having to subject the little fellow to what Breathed sees as the ugly times to come. I can understand that feeling -- the empty viciousness of American politics has been on sickening display this past year. The problem is, that is all that politics has become. Thomas Jefferson once said, "When a man casts longing eyes upon offices, a rottenness begins in his soul."
That rottenness has been on gleeful display -- not just in the napalm-laced mud being slung in campaigns high and low, but in the everyday actions of most of the people who have clawed their way to some seat of public power.
Power. That's the problem. Everyone thinks politics is about power. Politics -- no, public service, something that few people in politics have much interest in -- public service is about responsibility. Politics is the artful avoidance of personal responsibility, and the equally artful placing of blame on someone -- anyone -- else.
No wonder Breathed sought to have his beloved character be tucked away within the pages of "Goodnight, Moon."
Would that the rest of us -- those outside the covers of that book -- have at least one night of such peace.
Oh yeah...don't forget to vote.
