Penguin dreams, and other things: Salon.com (click-through ad of Hugh Jackman in "Oklahoma!" required) talks to "Bloom County" cartoonist Berkeley Breathed about bringing Opus back to the funny pages beginning this Sunday.

I particularly like that the reclusive Breathed conducted the interview entirely by email:

Salon: "Last we heard from you, via the Onion interview a few years back, the odds of you ever doing a strip again seemed pretty slim. What changed?"

Breathed: "The world went and got silly again. I left in 1995 with things properly, safely dull, and couldn't imagine why anyone would feel it necessary again to start behaving ridiculously. It would have been at least courteous of the Republicans to warn a few of us inclined to retire our ink-swords that they had King George waiting in his zoom-zoom jetsuit aching to start the Crusades again."

Salon: "What are the advantages of a Sunday-only strip?"

Breathed: "In my case, having a life. Ever see a seven-day-a-week cartoonist? They all look like Keith Richards at 5 a.m. I've said that cartooning, like education and sex, is wasted on the young ... but I understand why it's that way. It's wearing, corrosive, killing work. Consider Charles Schulz. Look where he is today."

And things only get better from there.

Breathed: "... I'd hate to see readers force editors to eliminate the comic strips marketed by corporations, widows and distant relatives long after their deceased creators pass on. What would happen to all the hacks hired by Jim Davis to write and draw 'Garfield' if we were to put it out of business? Remember what they did to Mel Gibson at the end of 'Braveheart'? There's an idea."