bill the cat returned to comics in berkeley breathed's now canceled strip, "opus", which ran from november 23, 2003 through november 2, 2008. given bill's ostensible death and revival by tongue cloning (à la "sleeper"), his carcass was suggested as the source of the recent bse (aka "mad cow disease") epidemic. later, he was chosen as the new mayor of bloom county. he got the message when he was playing garfield at a mall promotion (the child in his lap asked her father if garfield had died). mayoral efforts for bill and opus involved forcing low-jeans teenagers to wear suspenders. bill, however, lost an election a few months later because of an affair with paris hilton.