Did you see the dig at the new Opus strip in today’s [Sunday, Dec 28] Non Sequitur comic?
http://www.ucomics.com/nonsequitur/index.phtml
Burn, or whatever the kids say today.
Ouch!
Haw-Haw!
As Teddy Roosevelt woulda said: “Bully”!
I saw it as a tip of the hat to Berkeley Breathed. The only comic-in-comic reference I’ve seen as a slam was when Bruce Tinsley’s Mallard Fillmore raked Doonesbury over the coals. Opus has such a low opinion of himself that it’s hard to imagine any harm coming from somebody else insulting him.
That was supposed to be Opus? Looks like a gigantic whale stuffed-animal, or something. Doesn’t look particularly penguiny to me…
… the statement that the “new toy” is a classic and better in quality and craftsmanship than anything else on the market “according to the designer, anyway” seemed more like a dig at Breathed than a “tip of the hat” to him. Could just be me, though.
(oh, and if you follow the link in the OP, you need to go to “previous date” to see the 12-28 edition of Non Sequitor)
I could barely tell it was meant to be Opus, either. Non Sequitur is so hideously drawn and generally unfunny that I would have just figured it for another strip with no punchline.
And IMHO, the new Opus strip sucks rocks.
Amen, George. Breathed is spending way too much time on the visuals and not nearly enough time making the strip interesting. Bloom County rocked because the of the ensemble of characters and the cutting edge humor- Opus makes even Outland seem tolerable.
Actually, the creator of Non-Sequitor has been using that flying penguin/hummingbird graphic since the strip’s inception years ago. I actually made a shirt with that design stencilled on it, in high school.
Here’s the permanent URL:
http://www.ucomics.com/nonsequitur/2003/12/28/
For those others who don’t get it, Breathed insisted that his Sunday strip be printed in a larger size or not at all, thereby squishing all the other comics to make room for it. That, the reference to cool hype, the sarcastic comment that according to the designer it surpasses anything on the market now, and the rejoinder that it’s actually just “different” instead of “better” make the strip one slam on Breathed after another.
Non Sequitur is normally either stupid or incomprehensible, true. But this strip was a gem.
If Wiley really is talking about Opus, I have to agree with him. The strip just really ain’t that good. It seems like “Stuff all the current events/pop culture references you can.” The most recent was especially strange (Schwarzengger destroying the Mars Lander?)