Today, I'd like to update you on a poll we're conducting on our daily comics and bid adieu to a longtime comics pal.
Berkeley Breathed has decided to pull the plug on "Opus." Today is its last day.
In an article in Friday's Living Here: Style section, Breathed told The Bee's Blair Anthony Robertson that he will continue producing picture books – "Pete & Pickles" is his latest – and developing film projects.
"I needed to tell stories in a more expansive fashion than comics would allow," Breathed said.
Let's hope that means we haven't seen the last of Opus, the orphan penguin.
But his goodbye brings up a question: What comic strip will replace it?
We've decided to test two for several weeks. Starting next Sunday, you can check out Darrin Bell's "Candorville" and Tak Toyoshima's "Secret Asian Man."
I'll provide a more detailed description next week, but here's a snippet from the syndicates:
"Candorville": An educated underachiever, Lemont Brown is an aspiring writer. Socially conscious, he wants to work at changing the world and infusing it with wisdom and justice – if only he could pay his rent.
The strip appears in the Chicago Tribune, the San Francisco Chronicle and the Washington Post, among other newspapers.
"Secret Asian Man": Osamu "Sam" Takahashi is a struggling comic strip artist who dreams of hitting the big time. A second- generation Japanese American who grew up in a big city surrounded by people from all walks of life, Sam is fascinated by what makes us the same as well as different.
The strip appears in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and the San Jose Mercury News, among other papers.
Want to tell us what you think? Go to www.sacbee.com/forums and scroll down to the Comics Forum. There, I can compile your opinions and respond to queries.
Finally, we are still tallying the mail-in ballots from our comics poll, but here's how the strips fared in online voting. The tally reflects the number of respondents who put the strip in their top 20.
"Zits" (7,425)
"Luann" (6,961)
"Pickles" (6,845)
"Crankshaft" (6,087)
"Baby Blues" (5,847)
"Grand Avenue" (5,488)
"Sally Forth" (5,281)
"Drabble" (5,167)
"Dilbert" (5,000)
"Blondie" (4,764)
"For Better or for Worse" (4,748)
"Bizarro" (4,570)
"Classic Peanuts" (4,488)
"Beetle Bailey" (4,406)
"Garfield" (4,229)
"Frank & Ernest" (4,258)
"Hi & Lois" (4,199)
"Pearls Before Swine" (4,247)
"Non Sequitur" (4,198)
"Rose Is Rose" (4,136)
"Doonesbury" (3,806)
"Family Circus" (3,659)
"Mutts" (3,646)
"Dennis" (3,513)
"Rubes" (3,478)
"The Pajama Diaries" (3,469)
"Get Fuzzy" (3,110)
"Marmaduke" (3,061)
"Jumpstart" (3,003)
"Tundra" (2,743)
"Lio" (2,621)
"Mark Trail" (2,500)
"F Minus" (2,228)
When online voting closed Thursday, we had heard from 8,805 readers. We'll use the survey results to help us determine how we proceed.
Want to comment on comics? Go to www.sacbee.com/ forums and scroll down to the Comics Forum.
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