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Summary
Summary
Walt Kelly started his career at age 13 in Connecticut as a cartoonist and reporter for the Bridgeport Post. In 1935, he moved to Los Angeles and joined the Walt Disney Studio, where he worked on classic animated films, including Pinocchio, Dumbo, and Fantasia. Rather than take sides in a bitter labor strike, he moved back east in 1941 and began drawing comic books.
It was during this time that Kelly created Pogo Possum. The character first appeared in Animal Comics as a secondary player in the "Albert the Alligator" feature. It didn't take long until Pogo became the comic's leading character. After WWII, Kelly became artistic director at the New York Star, where he turned Pogo into a daily strip. By late 1949, Pogo appeared in hundreds of newspapers. Until his death in 1973, Kelly produced a feature that has become widely cherished among casual readers and aficionados alike.
Kelly blended nonsense language, poetry, and political and social satire to make Pogo an essential contribution to American "intellectual" comics. As the strip progressed, it became a hilarious platform for Kelly's scathing political views in which he skewered national bogeymen like J. Edgar Hoover, Joseph McCarthy, George Wallace, and Richard Nixon.
Walt Kelly started when newspaper strips shied away from politics -- Pogo was ahead of its time and ahead of later strips (such as Doonesbury and The Boondocks) that tackled political issues. Our first (of 12) volume reprints approximately the first two years of Pogo -- dailies and (for the first time) full-color Sundays.
This first volume also introduces such enduring supporting characters as Porkypine, Churchy LaFemme, Beauregard Bugleboy, Seminole Sam, Howland Owl, and many others. And for Christmas, 1949, Kelly started his tradition of regaling his readers with his infamously and gloriously mangled Christmas carols.
Special features in this sumptuous premiere volume, which is produced with the full cooperation of Kelly's heirs, include a biographical introduction by Kelly biographer Steve Thompson, an extensive section by comics historian R. C. Harvey explaining some of the more obscure current references of the time, a foreword by legendary columnist Jimmy Breslin, and more.
Reviews (2)
Publisher's Weekly Review
This exceptional first volume of the collected adventures of Pogo Possum should remind readers of the substantial legacy left behind by Kelly. It features Kelly's daily strips (1949-1950), Sunday funnies (1950), and even his earlier New York Star dailies (1948-1949). The volume is beautifully put together, including excellent insights into Kelly and his work, and features a foreword by Jimmy Breslin and a concluding section, "Swamp Talk," featuring annotations by comics historian R.C. Harvey. One only needs to get a short way into the adventures of Pogo and his pals in Okefenokee Swamp to recognize the impact Pogo has had on so many cartoonists, with Gary Trudeau, Jeff Smith, and Bill Watterson among the most obvious. With Pogo Possum and supporting characters Albert Alligator, Howland Owl, and Churchy LaFemme, Kelly was able to blend hilarious humor, exceptional storytelling, keen political satire, and brilliant wordplay into a strip that could be appreciated both by children and adults. The more one reads this volume, the clearer picture one has of Kelly as comics' answer to Lewis Carroll, with Alice having changed into a possum and left Wonderland behind for a swamp. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
After numerous delays, this essential purchase for any collection that values comic-strip reprints is finally available. While Kelly rejiggered his strips in a series of Simon & Schuster paperbacks, modifying and adding panels to create a more seamless flow, this is the first collection of complete material presented as it originally ran in newspapers, including the Sunday strips that often existed outside of the story lines running in the dailies. In these 1949-51 strips from the first two years of Pogo's two-and-a-half-decades run, the direct political satire is mostly broadly focused (thinly masked approximations of headliners from McCarthy and Nixon to Castro and Khrushchev would all spend time in Okefenokee Swamp), but the inventive wordplay, idiosyncratic swamp patter, and goofy slapstick are all in full effect right from the start, as is the broad cast of loony critters that would eventually number upwards of 500 distinct characters. Due to run 12 volumes, this collection completes the holy trifecta, along with Charles Schulz' Peanuts and George Herriman's Krazy Kat, of comic strips whose influence cannot be overstated.--Chipman, Ian Copyright 2010 Booklist
