Shivers and Shudders the Land . . .

The Prince of Pompadoodle is toot toot tootling even in our day.

Inedit en Francais!

Okay, I'm trying to figure out how to do this. Here's the situation:

Buried in my Kelly archives is a Pogo episode that is from a booklet published in French, from a period that hasn't been compiled in English (to my knowledge, and I could be wrong). These scans are pretty good quality and even have spot color here and there. For those who don't read French, they are still fun to look at, as the storyline seems to be a bit fantastical. 

I ALSO have the same story in the original printed strips, in English, BUT the resolution is less than ideal, though not terrible.

The question I pose to you all (and please do weigh in), should I post the entire French version, page by page, all the way through? And then the English version? OR do I post a page from the French book along with the equivalent English strips so you can follow the actual story? This idea would cause me more work, because I'd have to line them up and deal with strips that don't quite match up with a page content. I think it could get complicated for me.

BUT, I'm open to either direction. Please let me know what you think. I'd like to hear from more than just a couple of you. I'll wait several days for comments and go from there. 

Or maybe none of this is a good idea, in which case, oh well.

Here's an update:
Indeed I have posted this French version back in 2013, but here's what's what: Those strips are from 1966, just prior to the Pandemonia epic arc. I've had a kind offer from Frits van der Waa to assemble the English strips in some sort of manner to match up with the booklet. Unfortunately I notice that some of the English strips are missing here and there, so there will be some English gaps. But it will be fun to see some Pogo strips that Fantagraphics is still a ways from reprinting. Thanks, Frits, the file is on its way.

Looka THAT!

Even though there was plenty of trouble in the world in 1966 (is there a year when there's not?), I have fond memories of that year, and of course Pogo was a collecting cornerstone for me, along with so many other cheap thrill treasures.

My copy of Prehysterical Pogo did go blooey, but I'm happy to report that since those blogging days I found a near-mint 1st edition replacement copy. 

Spread 2 of 7

Best Cartoon Book Cover Art Drawing Ever Made.

Many of you have seen this Simon & Schuster printed book cover before, but take a gander at the original art/original pasteup of the art in high resolution. This has got to be THE best cartoon book cover art drawing ever made.

I Love You Slobs and I'll Take Charge

These days, the state of the United States is somewhat in turmoil, due to leadership issues, starting at the top and bleeding on down. 

Kelly was universal and timeless in his assessment of politics. Read this Song of the Mole closely, and all the while keeping Mr. 45 in mind. It's kind of eerie how prescient Kelly was and eerie how more things change, things stay the same . . . or regress . . . or something.

Long Live Kelly!

Go Away, You Frighten Your Children!

 As noted by famed illustrator James Montgomery Flagg, "cartoonists make people see things!"

My favorite cartoonist, Walt Kelly, died over 40 years ago, yet he left us this Pogo story, as if in a time capsule to look at now, as a moral tale for our American society.

Polls is a Matter of Interpretation

Sorry to have dropped the posting schedule for a while. I'm awaiting more wonderful scans of vintage tear sheets and I can't be pushy when someone as generous as David Burd is making time in his busy schedule to accommodate us.

In the meantime I'll try posting some other Kelly goodness here and there. This from one of the latter day Pogo books.

There were plenty of issues in Kelly's day that are still haunting us today, making his satire just as relevant as we look at it fresh. Man, he would have had a field day with the political climate of nowadays. 

By Gorse!

Shown here is the last Sunday of 1952, still  a fantasy within a fantasy, still part of my second favorite Pogo storyline (the first being the Prehysterical Pogo saga of the mid '60s). And it's still fun to compare to the Simon & Schuster version.

Most all of these 1952 era tear sheets have been courtesy of David Burd, sharing the Tony Peters collection that he inherited, and I (and you, I assume) are ever grateful to David. David has recently started sharing some 1953 Sundays with us, which will let us continue the story into the classic Sam Handwich episode. 

THANK YOU DAVID, for these marvelous tear sheets!

December 28, 1952

Honor One Big Lovin' Cousin!

Sorry to keep running late on postings, things are even busier around here than most ever before! 

Once again, we can compare the original Sunday tear sheet with the S&S b&w reprint book to see how editing was done, taking out panels, cropping, etc. Notably the last two panels of the Sunday excised from the book, presumably not wanting to be seasonal in the book, but here seen as a lovely and cheery heart warm. Looks more and more for these gnomes being Cajun.

Vive le bon soir! Vive le merry! Vive le Christmas! 

VIVE LE WALT KELLY!

December 21, 1952

Snoor Snumma Coco Unna Wim Bimble

More stuff to compare and think about Gnomic ways.

December 14, 1952

I SWAN!

Well now we've reached a point in Pogo continuity that was a HIGH point of my childhood, having seen some of this reprinted in Pogo's Sunday Punch in black & white and edited somewhat, cutting panels, adding panels, changing formats of panels. 

For me, it was WHAM! I was de-LIGHTED to see this fantasy element of human bean gnomes suddenly appear in the swamp. But now all these years later I see this great panel below and realize that it was not in the Simon & Schuster book! And the lovely tree in the first panel of this week's strip was truncated, and now we see the almost watercolor effect as well.

What a cool little episode this was, an early forewarner of Prehysterical Pogo in the mid 1960s. I've included a couple of pages from the S&S book to show comparisons of panel edits.

Happy Sunday, Kelly Sunday!

November 30, 1952

Pogo Primer for Parents

Sorry to be prolonged sporadic in posting of late, but I have an art gallery show that opens one week from today, and I'm nowhere near ready. But in the meantime, our #1 Kelly Korrespondent, Hun, sent over a link that should be of interest to you Pogoholics. A lot of you may have seen this item before, but it's nice to see the whole primer again. Thanks Hun!

Click under the picture to link to the Primer...

Click here for Pogo Primer link

Replete with Nuances an' Subtle Undershadings of Philosophy

This post (and really, posts to come) are dedicated to my good cyber-friend Loren, who, in our correspondence, was instrumental in convincing me to return to regular blogging here on Whirled of Kelly. She is a young art & animation student, whose love of animation finds great inspiration in the art and writing of Kelly. 

Her enthusiasm for Kelly's cartooning genius; her appreciation of my curation of this site; her encouragement of the benefit to art students and pros, animation students and pros, and enthusiasts of all kinds has persuaded me to keep up with the hard work of sourcing, scanning, cleaning and curating Kelly's wonderful work.

I've written previously of my (and other people's) recurring night-time dream of wandering into an old bookstore and finding a Pogo book that I had never seen before, though I thought I had completed my collection long ago.

In reality, that dream came true just a few years ago. 

I had not made a checklist of Pogo books to check off, but I really thought that I had them all. So when I saw The Pogo Sunday Book on a dusty book shelf, I did an actual double take and poked myself to see if this was one of those dreams. 

I don't think the book is all that rare, but I've not seen one before or since the day that I grabbed it up to pay only a few dollars for. It's mostly a reprint of some of the earliest Pogo Sunday strips, heavily edited and in black and white. It was only very recently that I read the intro page by Kelly to realize that the first 10 pages of the book was a 'new' story of 1956 vintage. Looking at it now, I wonder if it was slated to be a story in the Pogo comic books, or 'just' one that Kelly and his assistant George Ward did just for this book.

And it's funny. I haven't had that recurring dream since.

I show the story here for all of you, and especially for Loren!

 The back cover portrays the iconic portrait of Pogo

Welcome to the Beginning

Greetings Friends-in-Kelly! Normally I try to post a Pogo Sunday strip on Sundays, but this is my last hectic week to finish up the Walt Kelly tribute number of Delineated Life, a zine that celebrates artists and their work. The page count has risen too high for practicality, so I've made an editorial cut to some pages that I had planned for the issue. This is one cut of two, and the second one hopefully will be posted later this week.

And NEXT WEEK, will be Walt Kelly's 100th birthday, even though he left us 40 years ago. If I don't have catastrophic interference before then, we'll be providing a link on that date to view, free of charge, the Kelly tribute issue, chock full of Kelly goodness. Much of the material you may have seen before, but much of it is in a new context, so you'll probably enjoy seeing it all again. For some of you maybe the material will be brand new for you, in which case, "YAY".

The scans below came to us from Mark Fuller Dillon (way back in February) and I relaid them out to a condensed format. It's the booklet from the 1965 'Great Society' era that made its message easier to tolerate due to Kelly's lovely character renderings. This publication is available here and there on the net, but still a big thank you to Mark for scanning and taking the initiative to send it over here to share with the Whirled of Kelly. Sorry I didn't have time to post the scans at full size. Mark offers to send full-res scans of these pages to you for the asking. You can reach Mark at: 

markfullerdillon@gmail.com         

I like the "learn by asking" page.

Be here next week to celebrate! Your presence is necessary, but no presents are necessary. LLK!

In a Land Where None are Known to Neatly Knot the Gnu

I posted this pic over on The Pictorial Arts blog, but seeing as this blog is aiming to post all things Kelly, I hafta duplicate it over here for the archives.

— Dedicated to 'Hun', who eats, sleeps, and breathes Kelly.

Long live Kelly!

Walt Kelly — Songs of the Pogo — endpapers

And You, You're Aces to Me, Jus' Aces

We can't post A Frog He Would A-Wooing Go without following up with The Account of the Wooful Frog. This is one of Kelly's sweetest little morsels of a story, as fun to me now as when I was 10. The little turtle tad is one of Kelly's many high-water marks for characterization.

Walt Kelly — The Wooful Frog — 1955