Little Cheerful Charlie Chums

This page is a little bit rough, but it gives you a pretty good view of the Sunday strip published on this date in 1962. I love that first panel line-up . . . well, heck . . . I love all the panels.

April 29, 1962

A Happy New Year

Heart-felt wishes for a good year of 2019 to you all!

I hand-colored this beautiful Kelly art several years ago as part of my tribute to his 100th birthday, and, well, it kinda says it all.

Not Needing Words

Must-keep-continuity-going-for-1952 . . . even though this and next post have been posted before here on WoK (just in case some newbies haven't dug into the archived stuff). Kelly did a bunch of wordless pieces like this for the comic books. His drawing is always so much fun to look at, not needing words.

October 5, 1952

Can't Execute the Green Dog Razzle Dazzle Hipper Super Dip and Fade Away

This Sunday strip isn't the most interesting, or graphically pleasing of Kelly's work, but it's the start to a run of strips that get a bit better. Hang in there.

October 18, 1970

Speechless

Every once in a while Kelly would drop in a wordless filler strip, looking much like his comic book art, and in fact may have been recycled from the idea pile that outlived the Dell comic book. Simplistic stuff, but Kelly makes the art delicious.

October 5, 1952

Launching

I'm relaunching a feature, starting today, showcasing individual panels and vignettes of Kelly art. These will be fairly large, fairly high-res so as to concentrate purely on the wonderbobbleness of Kelly's delineations. These kind of posts will help to randomly fill the vacuum between regular posts.

Along the way we can peer into the details that we sometimes miss when the dialogue distracts us . . . such as that little bird investigating the lunch basket.

You'll see the art in pretty good detail when you click it.

The Birds and Bees Convention

Well, at this point I'm losing track of continuity. I went into the Army in early 1972, so I'm amazed I have any strips from that year or the next, as I was busy learning to lay waste to people who didn't believe in the western ways of Democracy. I think my mother may have been saving Sunday sections for me, but I'm not even sure of that. Somehow I have a selection from those last two years of Kelly's creation, but evidently not all.

Now this guy, below, is a real oddity. It has two characters that are totally unknown to me. I have a couple of Sunday strips just prior to this one, but I'm hesitant to share them with you, because they're, well, truth to tell—lame. Either Kelly was very sick, or his assistants were not very good. This pirate guy shows up in at least one of them, but with no explanation as to who he is. And that bird with Churchy's visage is just plain creepy. I seem to be missing some strips from a month or two before this, so maybe there will still be an explanation yet to be discovered (Hun, I've tried to access the archives that you've sent me, but they don't seem to cover this time period. Do you have records of this arc, however poor their condition may be?).

This particular strip seems solidly Kelly, whereas the previous two that I have are painful to look at. Do any of you Pogo fans want to see them anyway, out of continuity, or just allow them to hibernate?

December 12, 1972

In the Cool and Peaceful

This is a case of Kelly adding on a big section of art to an existing panel for use in one of the early S&S books. 

I'm posting it here in high resolution as Kelly's art deserves.

Hoo Hock Har Rowf!

At this point in time, Kelly's Sunday strip backgrounds were simple, if at all. The character drawings were still strong and flexible (as demonstrated by Howland's pitching technique).  In this strip, the colors were nicely varied and attractive, with even the printers finally delivering a page in virtually perfect registration. 

Okay! Play ball!

April 2, 1972

That's What This Country's All About

I don't blame Owl for wondering just what Albert is doing to his unicorn. No other strip in the comic section came close to matching Kelly's Boorawp.

 July 4, 1971

Above, a close-up view of a sort-of complex panel made even MORE complex by having another partially seen Pogo marching behind Seminole Sam. It's the same pose as the seen Pogo, making it seem like it's maybe a paste-up? Anyone have access to a scan of the original art to see what that's all about?

Behole! Lunch!

That little bird is still hanging around, seemingly for no purpose, because, well, because Kelly is that kinda kartoonist. Even when the action subsides over the horizon, Kelly still keeps our interest. And that opening panel tree has some nice rendering, with faces almost emerging, storybook style.

Hey, we've got some swell chatter going on in the comments. It's so nice to have that going on without my having to initiate it. Please feel free to join in—your 'voice' is always welcome here.

June 13, 1971

The Gumbo Birthright

Silliness ala Kelly.

 March 12, 1972

This detail deserves a closer look. Long Live Kelly!

The Talk of Growed-Up Intellectuals

Sorry for getting distracted and delayed (I've been working on the Kelly tribute zine). It's still Sunday, so Happy Sunday, Kelly Sunday! 

February 27, 1972

EGG!

Here's another Kandi the Cave Kid by Kelly. Two different sets of scans showed up here, one from OtherEric and the other from Barry, both great friends of this blog. Each set had something different and better than the other, so I combined them in editing to come up with 4 pretty pages. Kelly has drawn quite a few monkeys, birds and dinosaurs over the years, and these are some of his earliest.

As I've said, some of the items that show up on Whirled of Kelly have been seen elsewhere on the net or in books at one time and place or another, but I want to have most all of Kelly's stuff to ultimately end up here on this site, and with high quality scans at that!

Thank you OtherEric and Barry!

Walt Kelly — Kandi — Looney Tunes #11 — September, 1942

Squatter's Rights

Every Saturday night about 9:00 I suddenly sit up straight and think, "geez, it's Saturday night about 9:00! I better scan and prepare the next Pogo Sunday", which takes between 60 and 90 minutes to scan and 'process' — getting rid of major bleed through, major yellowing, making color corrections, etc, etc — whether I feel like it or not.

Why do I do it? Cuz then I can wish you Happy Sunday, Kelly Sunday!

September 15, 1963

The Ol' Sniffolio

Here we are again. It seems like Sundays come around every 3 days anymore, or am I just being a numpskull . . .

September 8, 1963

The Un-Natural Born Truan' Officer

Another early Sunday strip, generously provided by DJ David B.

October 8, 1950

Corpse and Robbers

By popular demand (well, nine of you—but there were so many 'please please pleases' that counted for more), I give you Muckey Spleen's The Bloody Drip. Some of you may have seen this a millyum times (as I have), and still it's enjoyable. So, turn the lights low, cozy up to your computer and enjoy this publication of The New National Treasury of World Culture:

Paradigm of the EX-plicit and/or IM-plicit Exigencies of Parabolic Thought

This arc is finally and rapidly coming to a close—one more week, I think. Then we'll move on to something else. But until then, today is Christmas and I'd like to wish you a merry one!

First Review

Yay, we got our first review for the long awaited Pogo book:

I got my preordered copy in the mail yesterday, and it was well worth the wait. It's absolutely gorgeous. The strips look great, and the colorful dust jacket is far superior to the one in the early ads. I've read about a quarter of it so far, and it's pure gold. I'd only ever read Pogo in a few collections from the sixties, so, it's great to see his art and humor was as advanced at the beginning as it was at the end. I especially enjoyed reading the introduction of Beauregard the hound dog. like I said, pure gold. Highly recommended for Kelly fans, Pogo fans, comic strip fans, fans of beautiful ink lines, people who like perfection, people who like to laugh, people who can read, hell, everyone should get a copy! — Anonymous

Would love to hear from anyone else with a review, even if it's similar!