Opus day!

Berkeley Breathed, Salon's new Sunday cartoonist, tells us why he'd kiss Cheney if he could, why satirists can't touch Bush, and why his new children's book was flayed by the p.c. police.

Editor's note: This week Salon is proud to launch Berkeley Breathed's "Opus" as a new weekly feature.

By Douglas Wolk

Read more: Books, Douglas Wolk, Comics, Cartoons, Books Features, Berkeley Breathed, Opus by Berkeley Breathed

June 3, 2007 | It's been almost 18 years since "Bloom County" ended, but Berkeley Breathed is still cartooning full speed ahead. He made his name with that Pulitzer Prize-winning 1980-89 daily comic strip; since then, he's left and returned to the comics page twice (first with "Outland," more recently with "Opus"), sticking to full-color Sunday strips that give his artwork more room to stretch. Breathed has also branched out into other media -- especially children's books, beginning with "A Wish for Wings That Work" in 1991. His latest book for kids, "Mars Needs Moms!" unveils his new all-digital art style. It's the story of young Milo, who shares his name not only with a "Bloom County" character but with Breathed's own son. Milo doesn't see what's so special about his tyrannical, vegetable-obsessed mother until she's kidnapped by Martians; he follows them to Mars, where he discovers not only how useful a mother can be, but that his own mom is willing to sacrifice more for him than he'd ever realized.

In an e-mail conversation, Breathed discussed the hot buttons that "Mars Needs Moms!" has pushed with audiences and reviewers, as well as the state of some of his other projects and the frustrations of dealing with George W. Bush in satire.

The last time Salon interviewed you, in 2003, you said that your goal with "Opus" was "simply to have some fun." How's that been going for you? What are the fun parts of doing the strip?

Drawing Dick Cheney with a marsupial on his head, denying that it's there and blaming it on the left-wing media. What could be more fun than that?

You've recently floated the possibility of ending "Opus" and killing off the character. I realize this isn't the most appropriate figure of speech, but is the penguin an albatross for you? Does the persistence of the characters you've been following for decades make it easier or harder for you to do an ongoing comic strip?

I wouldn't be in the comic pages if not for Opus. The spiritual and comedic heart of a comic strip doesn't always appear, and you can't will one into being. A good comic strip character is born midwifed by serendipity, not design.

I was kidding about killing Opus, by the way. I'd like to walk the streets free from fears of spontaneous garroting.

What's going on with the "Opus" movie?

Good segue! He's dead. A stake through his promising cinematic heart, after five years of active development at Miramax. Animation isn't a game for the timid. There'll only be a movie if I'm writing it, which will probably keep him off the big expensive screen ... probably just as well.

You've mentioned that you've got a novel in progress. What kind of novel is it?

Everybody has a novel in progress. I hate to be left out of these trends. I have an idea that could not -- despite herculean efforts -- be squeezed into the 40 pages of a picture book. And once I train myself to write a page of text without immediately running off to paint the action, like a monkey reflexively jumping to an organ grinder, I shall begin.

Years ago, you declared that George W. Bush had "cut off our satirist balls" by being unwilling to take himself seriously, but "Opus" features some of the most vehement political satire you've ever written. What do you think is the job of a satirist at a political moment like this one?

Cartoonists -- any satirists -- are mere blowhards at the fringes of the mob, screaming at the crowd to throw the gasoline bombs at the storm troopers. Nobody pays attention to us, really, but we look amusing with our veins popping out. I think it builds confidence for the stragglers in the back.

Bush has given us a gift: far from not taking himself seriously, he's become the only human being on the planet that thinks he's not just uniquely competent ... but brilliant in his strategic, heavenly inspired prescience as to how the world works. This hilarious -- also arguably homicidal -- self-deception is what makes him a comical figure. Literally, it's as if -- I mean this with the utmost respect for both the office and the man -- my 5-year-old boy Milo was running the free world. Milo believes himself equally as shrewd in spotting who the bad guys are in any movie and declaring the complex strategy to deal with them: "Blast 'em all!"

But there's bad news for satirists. Bush has come full circle: His ridiculousness is approaching the sort of existential absurdity that is untouchable. Watch him try to string a sensible sentence together now. Anywhere. He's become one of those guys with the Marx Brothers in "A Night at the Opera" who tumble through the door in the stateroom scene. I can't make him funnier than when he's trying to explain himself in a town hall meeting. Any day now he will go with "I'm the decisioner" and we satirists will know that our balls have been cut off entirely by a very shrewd adversary. Reagan did this too by becoming senile.

Dick Cheney is a different matter. I'd kiss him if I could.

Next page: "For me, it didn't occur to me that my mother showed much love through sacrifice until I took a closer look at her life"