Pogo

Pogo has been in my life ever since I could read, maybe before. It's probably what gave me my taste for comics and illustrated fiction of all kinds, for which I am deeply grateful. If you don't already know, Pogo is a `possum, living in a hollow tree in the Okeefenokee swamp. He's friends with Albert the cigar-chomping alligator, self-important Howland Owl, the ever-inept Churchy la Femme (turtle by trade), pup dog, and a bunch of others. There's a lot of running around, slapstick humor, and personality stereotyping, all in a deep-south-rural vein. Saying that says almost nothing, though. Pogo is always a comment on Walt Kelly's times, and the time was the early years of the Cold War. Atom bombs were on everyone's mind, as was the Soviet threat. More mundane insanity entered the swamp, too, in the form of kangaroo courts (no real kangaroos, though), overly-upright political figures and cultural standards, and lots more. Later Pogo became more pointed, but there's plenty of point here, too. It's an artifact of a different time, though - half a hundred years ago, now, and the problems always resolved happily, in a generally gentle spirit. It makes me nostalgic for times I never actually experienced. Words fail me. Walt Kelly created a wonderful family of characters, right down to the tadpole apprenticed to daddy frog's cake-stirring business. There's nothing like it being written any more, and our time is poorer for it. Pogo was topical, to a point, but is still sweet and enjoyable, and it leaves me wondering just where and when we lost the basic civility Kelly drew in these comics. Pogo and the rest are all worth knowing, even today. //wiredweird

Reading George Herriman's "Krazy Kat" can evoke the response "this is from the first half of the twentieth century?!?!" In like manner, reading Walt Kelly's "Pogo" evokes the response "this is from the 1940s!!?!?!" The reality hits home when various animals (Albert the alligator, Pogo Possum, and Chug Chug Curtis the traveling duck) discuss the Dewey/Truman election of 1948 around page 15. Then Kelly's achievment really hits home: even early "Pogo" hasn't really dated itself for almost sixty years. The jokes (and even most of the puns) still smell fresh. The characters couldn't be more intriguing and the social and political undertones (though not as prevalent in this volume) couldn't be more inspiring. It only takes a few pages to understand why "Pogo" repeatedly receives accolades such as "one of the best comic strips ever". So many highlights appear in this volume that listing them would take bajillions of words. Some of the standouts include: Albert drinks the "Frog Child"; The campaign for sherrif; Howland Owl's School (which includes the book critic "Orville the Scrooch Owl"); Porkypine's "Don't like anybody!" (which appears twice). The introduction includes a load of useful background information on Walt Kelly. It also explains why some strips seem like repeats in this volume. Fantagraphics dug back into "Pogo's" pre-syndicated days. The strips that appeared in the ill-fated "Star" newspaper provide interesting juxtaposition with Kelly's syndicated work. The artwork improves. Some of the jokes improve. Basically, sometime between January and May of 1949 Kelly polished "Pogo" and sold it to a syndicate. In the latter he reused and refined some of the strips that ran in the "Star". Fantagraphics prints them all. The introduction also helps readers sort through the morass of characters that pervade "Pogo". Apparently the cast ended up numbering into the thousands (counting all the insects and animals that appeared over the years); but the strip mainly revolves around a base set of characters. The list and promise (i.e., to continue tracking the cast throughout successive volumes) on page viii will help readers sort through some of the strip's complexities. Fantagraphics has become one of the best and most respectable publisher of classic comic strips. Not only have they continued cranking out volumes of the classic "Krazy Kat", they have taken on the Golden Fleece of comic strips, "Peanuts". The "Pogo" volumes were published throughout the 1990s and Fantagraphics made it through 11 volumes. "Pogo" well deserves its reputation. It influenced many subsequent strips such as Berke Breathed's "Bloom County", and Jeff Smith's "Bone", to name a few. In fact, "Pogo" helped to shape comics for the latter half of the twentieth century. This volume contains the seeds for what would become one of the best comic strips ever. Start here and continue on.

Witty word plays and the sagacity of swamp critters; Walt Kelly's masterpiece re-edited for our delight by the good folks at Fantagraphics (God bless'em).

OK, I guess I started reading Pogo when I was a child, way back when it was still being written by Walt Kelly. But I find it most amusing that you have catagorized this book as ages 9-12. Here I am pushing 55 and still finding it very entertaining. I didn't understand who his characters were until I was old enough to recognize our politicians in his comic strip. I got better at that after I was 12.

This review is for all the volumes in this series of reprints being created by Fantagraphics of all of the Pogo daily strips, starting right from the beginning. (As of this 9/2001 writing, they're up to vol. 11, but they're coming out wayyyy tooooo slooowwwwwwly for my taste.)R.C. Harvey has set out to chronicle the entire Pogo ouvre, and do so in a semi-academic fashion. One of the highlights (or eminently skippable, depending on your view) of all these books is the long intro by Harvey in each volume, wherein he gives some needed historical reference points (esp. in these early-50s books), for example, the pointed humiliation Kelly gives to McCarthyism (which is scattered thru vols. 6 to 9). It is in the the 1951-to-1953 period where Kelly really finds his voice in political lampooning. (One of the nice features of the intros is an ongoing compilation of the Complete Cast of Characters in the Swamp -- by vol. 11, the count is up to 142.)That is not to say this and the others are merely political cartoons. The bulk of the action is sheer joyous nonsense, repleat with cockamamie money-making schemes, confused identities, and just plain absurd nonsense. Kelly's touch with the English language was second to none (at least on the comics page), and his lush artwork puts almost all other comics to shame. His work started to take on a political tone in 1951, and he revisited the topic whenever the politics of the age got a little too silly. (Some of his best work in this arena is for the 1968 election, captured in "Equal Time for Pogo".)As far as quality comic-strips of the 20th century goes, Kelly's Pogo has only 3 serious competitors: George Herman's "Krazy Kat", Trudeau's "Doonesbury", and the all-too-short run of "Calvin and Hobbes" by Bill Watterson. (And Watterson makes it clear that his two main artistic influences were Krazy Kat and Pogo.)Now, if they could just Get On With It and publish the rest of the work (the first 11 volumes have gone from his start in 1948-1949 up to early 1954, and Kelly published until his death in 1974, so that means that they've got about another 50 volumes to go -- each one contains about 5 months of dailies), and then also do a compilation of the Sunday comics, us Pogo nuts would be all set to laugh our fool heads off well into our doddering years...btw, you can try to build your own Pogo collection by getting all the books published during Kelly's lifetime -- however, they are almost all out of print, and it would cost you a fortune...