The Sunday comic strip "Opus", which stars a penguin, goes on ice after Nov. 2. Its creator, Berkeley Breathed, announced yesterday that he's ending the five-year comic strip to focus on writing children's books, novels and screenplays.

The comic, which had a political bent and drew more complaints from Post-Gazette readers than "Doonesbury," was most popular among Post-Gazette readers ages 31 to 54, according to the paper's most recent survey in 2006. In the survey of 43 comics that appeared in the paper at the time, "Opus" ranked 16th in popularity among male readers and 26th among female readers.