Pogo (comic Strip) - "We Have Met The Enemy and He Is Us."

"We Have Met The Enemy and He Is Us."

Probably the most famous Pogo quotation is "We have met the enemy and he is us." Perhaps more than any other words written by Kelly, it perfectly sums up his attitude towards the foibles of mankind and the nature of the human condition.

The quote was a parody of a message sent in 1813 from U.S. Navy Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry to Army General William Henry Harrison after his victory in the Battle of Lake Erie, stating, "We have met the enemy, and they are ours." It first appeared in a lengthier form in "A Word to the Fore", the foreword of the book The Pogo Papers, first published in 1953. Since the strips reprinted in Papers included the first appearances of Mole and Simple J. Malarkey, beginning Kelly's attacks on McCarthyism, Kelly used the foreword to defend his actions:

The finalized version of the quotation appeared in a 1970 anti-pollution poster for Earth Day (reproduced in the infobox), and was repeated a year later in the daily strip reprinted here. The slogan also served as the title for the last Pogo collection released before Kelly's death in 1973, and of an environmentally-themed animated short on Kelly had started work on but did not finish due to ill health.

• In the 1972 film The War Between Men and Women, Dr. Joyce Brothers misattributes the line to Charlie Brown of Peanuts.
• In 1998, OGPI (Okefenokee Glee & Perloo Incorporated, the corporation formed by the Kelly family to administer all things Pogo) dedicated a plaque in Waycross, Georgia, commemorating the quote.
• Perhaps the second best-known Walt Kelly quotation is another one of Pogo's philosophical observations: "Don't take life so serious, son. It ain't nohow permanent." Kelly's widow Selby re-used the line as a tribute, in a poignant daily strip that ran on Christmas Day, 1973—two months after Kelly's death.