Breathed’s illustrations from Flawed Dogs, now in development with Dreamworks.
of choice is a paddleboard that he uses to head far offshore and get into a mental zone that produces the imaginative characters and situations that have populated cartoon strips, children’s books, and movies. The latest creation to emerge is Hitpig, the colorful story of a pig with steampunk style and a female elephant who form a friendship under unlikely circumstances. Recently sold to Dreamworks, the movie—for which Breathed is writing the script—is now in development. This isn’t the first time one of his works has been aimed at the silver screen. In fact, he says, “I wanted to be in film since I walked out of Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” when he was about 20. A California
“Screenwriting is about structure and efficiency. As a cartoonist, you always come up with the punch line first. Then you work backward.” native, Breathed grew up in the Los Angeles area but attended college in Texas and drew a cartoon strip for the school newspaper. He went on to publish Bloom County for a national syndicate. It won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning in 1987—though Breathed disavows the editorial description and savors the fact that the award riled a lot of other cartoonists. He followed up with Outland and later the Sundayonly Opus, named for his quizzical central character, a penguin. That strip ended in 2008, with Opus tucked safely in bed in a final panel drawn from the beloved children’s book Goodnight Moon. “I like to play with icons,” Breathed says, and “I wanted to put [Opus] in the most comforting place ever.” Meanwhile, Breathed and his then-wife had sought a sunnier climate after living in rainy Seattle. “I remembered coming to the 94
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Miramar when I was a kid,” he says, and Santa Barbara beckoned. The couple raised their two children here—Sophie, now 14, and Milo, now 12. Breathed had also started writing children’s books. The first, A Wish for Wings That Work, featured Opus and was turned into an animated Christmas special. The thought of that book prompts him to recall a Robin Williams anecdote. Breathed was going over his story with director Steven Spielberg, who would produce the special and who was on the set of Hook. Williams, in his Peter Pan costume for that movie, happened by just as Breathed described a scene where Opus attended a support group for birds who couldn’t fly. Latching onto an image of a kiwi, Williams performed an impromptu riff on the New Zealand bird that left everyone in puddles of laughter and led to an uncredited cameo in the final cartoon. Since then, several other Breathed books and stories have been filmed, though these days the author tends to forego the book stage and produce a series of gorgeously illustrated storyboards that serve as a template for a movie. “Screenwriting is about structure and efficiency,” he says. When it comes to developing a story, he starts with a specific scene, usually an emotional moment where “things come together. As a cartoonist, you always come up with the punch line first. Then you work backward.” Breathed now shares the house in Rincon with his fiancée, jewelry designer Heather Standish Wright, and several dogs. There is space, too, for her 18-year-old son, Austin, and 16-year-old daughter, Abby, as well as his children, who enjoy the water and the protective neighborhood atmosphere. “Here, I can send the kids out in the evening,” he says. “They surf under the moon.” The couple is in the process of transforming the home—a rental—from a bachelor pad to something else. But posters on the walls are vivid reminders of his work, and a series of framed vintage ray guns—yes, ray guns—from the 1930s and ’40s attest to his passion for the quirky. “It’s not only the nostalgic element,” he says, “but how they applied design to toys” that’s the attraction. He also has several motorcycles in the garage, including the “perfect adventure motorcycle” that he uses to get to remote spots where he can contemplate his next project. “A motorcycle isn’t about the experience of moving,” he says. “It delivers you to a place that others can’t get to. Motorcycles bring me to solitude.” Which returns us to the paddleboard on the ocean off Rincon. If you happen to see Berkeley Breathed there, don’t disturb him. He’s working. –JOAN TAPPER
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