Opus' Dad

Tuesday, September 28th was a very exciting day for my Mom! My mom, sister and I met up at the Border's Book Store in Palo Alto for a book signing by Berkeley Breathed.

Who's Berke Breathed? Well, he's Opus' Dad, of course. He is perhaps more widely known for being the creator and artist of "Bloom County" and "Outland". However, in our family, we call him "Opus' Dad".

My Mom started to have a small collection of penguins in the early 80s. What really launched her love for penguins had to have been when Bloom County came out - she immediately fell in love with Opus.

Just to make things clear: (pretend you're taking a SAT test again)

Trina: Raggedy Ann
Barbara: Opus the penguin

get it?

Berke Breathed is known to be a very private man. I can't imagine he does many talks or book signings. I can't imagine he needs to - he has quite a following from Bloom County already. He just came out with his latest children's book titled "Flawed Dogs: The Year-End Leftovers at the Piddleton "Last Chance" Dog Pound". That was the book he was promoting.

It was the quickest book signing I've ever attended (although I've actually only attended two). He spoke for about 3 minutes, then started to sign books. I think this is because it was Noon on Tuesday afternoon, and he figured most people were there on their lunch break.

Here's a picture of my Mom meeting Mr. Breathed. She had him sign his new book, and an Opus Poster that I found on ebay for her a few years back. She was really excited. Kind of like when I had the opportunity to meet the family of the creator of Raggedy Ann for the first time! :)

Oh - keep your eyes open! his new Opus comic strip will start appearing in Sunday Papers at the end of November! they're going to be 1/2 page strips! Woo-Hoo!!!