Just a clip from the cartoon as a whole. Due to its subject matter, I felt the need to post the cartoon as a whole, but I lacked the newspaper I saw it in this past weekend. I also felt like trying to see if one could get permission from the newspaper in order to post this cartoon about weblogs ON a web log. So, I sent an email to the Washington Post, requesting permission to post the complete cartoon. I had looked at Mr. Breathed’s site to see if the strip was achived there, or if there was additional information to be had…

I did recieve a timely and pleasant response, possibly even from a human named Kate;

We’re actually not giving any web rights for Opus right now at all. We’ve been keeping Opus off of the internet altogether for the strip’s first few years, as an incentive for newspapers to pick it up, and we’ve actually had to crack down a few times on people scanning and posting the strip without permission (thank you, by the way, for writing in to ask.) I’m sorry we can’t help you out — I’m glad to hear you enjoyed the strip though. You should feel free to describe the strip on your weblog…I know that is small consolation.

I look at it like this – Opus is a short, fat, often misunderstood, unappreciated, lazy and old. Who better to represent the standard web logger? Hillary Duff can represent all the LiveJournal types, but I’m thinking that Opus is a better choice for the rest of blogosphere I would bet.

On to the story itself… Our Opus hears what he believes these women said, and he preens and struts, showing off his webbed toes, and proudly displays his large belly along with required sound effect notation of ‘WOBBLE! WOBBLE WOBBLE” and action lines… big cheese eating grin. Of course, things don’t work out after his mating dance, and he is forcibly evicted from the coffee shop by the yellow skirted blogger lover. Lying in a puddle of Sardine and Eel Mocha, muffin ruined, and dignity scarred, Opus delivers the punchline;

Did she NOT say “webbed blobs?”

Cue rim shot…

As part of reviewing this strip, I understand that both the US ‘Fair Use’ and the the Canadian ‘Fair Dealing’ laws specify that pieces of the whole may be used in review and critique. I did a bit of searching for “webbed blob” on google and managed to find a coupld dozen postings of this comic, mostly very poorly scanned. I clipped the above piece out and had to adjust the contast and levels, sharpen it, etc. Those crazy comic pirates don’t know how to use their scanners it would seem.