Walt Kelly's "Pogo" (69)

I don't actually have much to say myself about today's topic, which I happened upon thanks to my FB friend the cartoonist Brian Fies (whom I last wrote about here), who has a small collection of original comics, one of which is by Walt Kelly. But I think it's amusing enough to devote a page to. Sparked by: Friday the thirteenth, which the Pogo character Churchy LaFemme, a turtle and a bard, had a thing about. Many of the strips saw him worrying that, for example, "Friday the thirteenth is on a Tuesday this month!" But far, far worse was when Friday the thirteenth actually fell on a Friday.

As it does today. Which prompted Brian to share the comic he purchased a number of years ago :

(As he notes, the original comic would be laid out in a single row of frames. He stacked for FB. His post can be found here, and the comments, many from other cartoonists, are also elucidating. And note the blue lines on the original: guides for inking.)

There is a blog devoted to all things Walt Kelly,

and among the entries a series of Friday the thirteenth comics from 1965 are featured—a series nicely presented on yet another blog, BatesLine, which is probably the place to start if you want to explore this particular topic more fully. 

Pogo was a daily comic strip created by Walt Kelly (1913–1973) in 1948 and appearing until 1975 (the self-portrait here is from 1949). Set in the Okefenokee Swamp of Georgia, it follows an assortment of characters, including Pogo Possum, Albert Alligator, Howlan' Owl, the hound dog Beauregard Bugleboy, Porkypine, the French skunk Miz Mam'selle Hepzibah (modeled on Kelly's second wife), and on and on. It was a well-populated swamp! Pogo served as a sort of straight man to the other characters. The strip was written for both children and adults, and included layers of social and political satire targeted at the latter. For example, one character, Simple J. Malarkey, was an obvious parody of Senator Joseph McCarthy, and in 1964 the strip spoofed the presidential election with wind-up dolls that looked like Nixon, Rockefeller, and Romney, with LBJ, Eugene McCarthy, and Robert F. Kennedy added to the lineup in '68.

Kelly was an accomplished poet, and often included a song parody or nonsense poem in the strip. The best-known example was the annual send-up of "Deck the Halls":

Deck us all with Boston Charlie,
Walla Walla Wash., and Kalamazoo!
Nora's freezin' on the trolley
Swaller dollar cauliflower alleygaroo
Don't we know archaic barrel
Lullaby, lilla boy, Louisville Lou
Trolley Molly don't love Harold
Boola boola Pensacoola hullabaloo

According to Wikipedia, there are 53 stand-alone volumes of Pogo (32 of them published by Simon & Schuster), as well as other tribute collections. I managed to "inherit" two of those from my father—Positively Pogo (1957) and G.O. Fizzickle Pogo (1958, in honor of the International Geophysical Year)—and David has another nine. 

Here are the "Word to the Fore" and dedication page of Positively Pogo:

The antics which have been drawn together in this book are huddled here for mutual protection like sheep. If they had half a wit apiece each would bound off in many directions to unsimplify the target.
     These continue to be wondrous times when every man tries to find a formula for keeping the stranger's fingers from his throat. The simple expedient of holding hands will someday occur to a couple of people who will forever after be forgotten. We need to read and to think and to study the faces of our friends . . . a peaceful pursuit. But, in the light of our trial bombs bursting in air and the flash of the practice red rockets' glittering glare, the study of peace is a blinky business. This collection of strips reflects the skulking state of mind of one startled student.

Here is a clutch of Odds and Ends,
Of Staggers, Leaps and Bobs and Bends,
Foolish, fretful, feeble, fancy,
For a Kelly, name of Nancy.

Various well-known cartoonists cite Walt Kelly as a big influence on their own work, including Bill Watterson (Calvin and Hobbes), Garry Trudeau (Doonesbury), Jeff MacNelly (Shoe), Jim Henson (the Muppets), and even the French creators of Astérix, René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo. As for my friend Brian, he says: "If you want to know where I come from as a cartoonist, I'd say my DNA is at least a quarter Kelly."

Here's a half-hour tribute to Walt Kelly that focuses beautifully on his art:

When I said above that I don't have much to say about Pogo, apparently I was wrong. But I must confess: I've never actually read the books I own! Pogo has always been a part of my surroundings, and I enjoy looking at the art, and I know who the main characters are, but I have no true understanding of what Pogo really means, of the story threads or the social commentary. Maybe I should change that. I certainly have the opportunity.