Let me be the first to suggest that Dave Barry Retires would make an excellent name for a rock band.
His book about traveling in Japan was funny and not a re-hash of previous columns. Maybe he should do more of that kind of stuff. Although he probably wouldn’t be as good as P.J. O’Rourke at it.
Barry’s last great piece was his 9-11 article in which he visited Pennsylvania. I liked his novels, too.
But although I’m a fan, he should have retired the column long ago. I have his columns from the '80s when I was living in Baltimore, and I still bring them out and laugh at them. I remember a Q&A in which a stewardess reported that the pilot and co-pilot during a flight would wear women’s clothing and ask for her opinion. If they didn’t like what she said, they’d sit moodily in their seats and flick the engine switches off and on. (Dave’s answer was to “tell them they both look like sluts.”)
Then there was the column that said the IRS has changed everyone’s ID number to match the popular '50s song “The Name Game” (Davedavefofavefefifofave, etc. etc.)
I don’t think he should stop writing, just that thirty years of 1,000 word essays is a pretty big legacy. He should work in other forms.
Really he should have retired the column at least five years ago. While he may never repeat the exact same jokes, he has certain forms that he decided a long time ago were funny and has recently gotten into overusing them, to the point where it almost became a fill-in-the-blank exercise. This month it’s a spider roughly as large as an Abrams tanks, last month an alligator approxamitely as large as a semi, before that a mosquito about the same size as an SUV, and so forth.
I remeber enjoying his column while I was in Middle School. I am now in grad school.
Yes. Me, for one. I loved his stuff from the '80s and early 90s, and looking for his stuff online was what lead me to discover this place.
Bloom County ended in 1989 and segued directly into Outland, which ran until 1995. However, BC was a daily strip and Outland was Sunday’s only, same as Opus.
…Sundays-only…
So was Bloom County. 
Tony Kornheiser, perhaps? I was sooo disappointed that he quit writing a column and jumped to TV.
I, too, am disappointed that Dave is retiring, although I have to say in the last few years I have gotten into the habit of scanning the column first to see if he is writing about his young daughter. If he’s not, then I’ll read it.