Pogo : the complete syndicated comic strips. Volume 1, Through the wild blue wonder

by Walt Kelly

Paper Book, 2011

Status

Available

Call number

741.5/973

Publication

Seattle, WA : Fantagraphics Books, [2011]

Description

Walt 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 c… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member mabith

I was lucky enough to grow up on Pogo and I thank my stars for it on a regular basis. As soon as I had a debit card and a job I started buying up the old books.

The trouble is that they're not really reading copies (and of course they're not complete). Some of the reprints have good paper but a lot

of the first editions are printed on that old paper that just crumbles after a while. I'll still buy the old books, because I want all the little pieces of extra art in them and the introductions by Kelly, but I am definitely collecting all of the Fantagraphics volumes.

This volume is beautiful and put together extremely well (more so than I expected). My income is very low and I'm frustratingly thrifty about most things, but this volume was worth every penny. Pogo is finally being done right.

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LibraryThing member burnit99

"Pogo" has long been my favorite comic strip. It meanders between being charming, whimsical, profound, and just plain funny - sometimes at the same time. And now Fantagraphics is finally doing a complete reprinting of the strip, slated for twelve volumes. Fantagraphics took the time to do it right,

tracking down many strips that I've never seen, and I'm a "Pogo" completist. The book is sumptuous; it begins with essays and biography of Kelly, moves on to the first two years of the daily strip, the wonderful Sunday strips, where Kelly was really free to stretch his artistic wings, the New York Star strips where the comic strip first appeared in that format, and a very welcome annotation that clears one or two things up. A sample profundity on pg. 146: For complicated reasons, a butterfly sees himself as a guardian angel in search of someone to protect. He sees Porky-Pine and joyfully jumps on him, only to discover why that's not advisable with porcupines. "WOW!" he says, "You is practical UNguardable--- you needs protection from you own self!" "Who don't?", replies Porky.

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LibraryThing member tloeffler

Volume 1 of a potential 12 volume collection of all Pogo strips by Walt Kelly. This volume contains all Daily and Sunday strips from May 16, 1949 through December 30, 1950, plus the strips from the New York Star from November 2, 1948 to January 28, 1949.
Truly some of the greatest comic strips ever

drawn.

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LibraryThing member alanthompson

A terrific series of strips dedicated to wisest citizen of the Okefenokee, Pogo Possum. This volume, and Volume Two, take the strip through 1952, before Kelly began to seriously joust with politicians of the day. There's a smidgen of that here, but these early cartoons are more about the multitude

of creatures--with human characteristics we all recognize--in the swamp. It's not until the late '50's and '60's that the hilarious political caricatures take over.

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LibraryThing member themulhern

So delightful.

Fewer