Old friends Milo, Opus, and Portnoy from back in the day.

New generations aren’t learning about Berke Breathed’s Bloom County from their schools, peers, or influencers. Comic strips in general seem a forgotten artform among The Kids These Days. Recently a young coworker looked at the Linus Van Pelt standing in the li’l Funko Pop collection on my desk and called him “Lionel”. I wept more than a little inside. But some of us olds will never forget the wisdom we picked up from the newspaper funnies.

Nearly 40 years since its original publication a couple weekends before I turned 13, I’ve never forgotten that simple quote from P. Opus, the world’s largest-nosed penguin. I’ve thought about it a lot ever since — offline and here. The voices in my head have found no reason to retire it yet, not when society keeps proving him true.

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Old friends Milo, Opus, and Portnoy from back in the day.

“If two million people do a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.”

I dived into all the old collections of Berke Breathed’s Bloom County comic strip as a teen. Some of its jokes have aged well. Some, not so much. Some political references would fly miles over my head uncaught. Not until decades later did I learn who Jeane Kirkpatrick was or what Bill the Cat might’ve seen in her.

30+ years later, I’ve never forgotten that simple quote from P. Opus, the world’s largest-nosed penguin. Even before 2020, I thought about it a lot. The voices in my head have found no reason to retire it yet.

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