The Football Special

What a fun strip to look at. What a beautiful opening panel. Kelly's vehicles had a character of their own, and the 'Ka-Flang' panel is so believable in its deconstruction.

Color is back to normal and effectively fun, even if Churchy's shade of green is slightly off.

A Mighty Slippery Scat Back

That fish is probably Waldo, from several years before, but they're all acting like he's a soo-prize, so maybe he's a relative of Waldo's. Can you tell that I'm thinking this stuff out too much?

Color, well yeah, fairly normal, but the shades are off just a touch. That could be the pressmen's doing, as quality control for all the comics was in flux during this time. At least Albert has his yellow abdomen back, but Howland Owl is looking darker than he used to.

Is You a Bug or a Bird?

Onward with the morphing of this arc (we can tell it's a morph, cuz Churchy is still in his knight regalia).

Other than noting that only one little area recognizes Albert's yellow belly, and that his tongue is pale white, no color notes this time . . . I said other than that.

Don'twannabelateforschool!

Color is coming back to almost normal, but just to keep us aware that something ain't right, Albert is entirely green, when normally he's got a yellow belly-side. And little Alabaster went entirely yellow for one panel. I know color errors sneak into the funnies all the time, but with the recent history of color snafus, I'm still watching it closely.

Love the red birds perched on the logo!

This strip is what I earlier thought would be the end of the current arc. But Kelly's arcs overlap and morph and I realize that I should continue on with another five Sundays. So keep comin' round.

Forward!

Kelly's latter day chaos at its finest.

During this era, no other cartoonist gave as much 'bang for the buck' as did Kelly.

Other than the green cow (which could have been deliberate for the moon reference . . . but not likely), no color notes this time.

A Bonafide Steal

From week to week, my newspaper would change formats on all the comics. You'd never know whether it'd be tabloid, 3 tier, or sometimes 2 tier, knocking off the whole top row. With this format, at least you got an extra panel than otherwise. In this case the one of Beauregard and Miggle striding along.

Color notes:

Now the brown of Howland and Beauregard is washed out.

Churchy is green again, but a different shade than all his years before.

Blue and green are dominant, not very harmoniously.

But, you know, everythin' startin' to come back to normalcy of sorts.

V — Day

Happy Valentine's Day, friends and fans of Pogo! I've zoomed in a bit so you can check out Kelly's lovely ink-work.

Pogo: Prisoner of Love

Miggle's Used Cow Lot

Looking at this strip, you might think that our arc is done. But no, we're sorta on a detour, sorta drivin' along without a map. 'At's okay, Kelly can take us wheremever he wants.

Color notes:

Well, it's lookin' a li'l more normal, but what the heck with Mr. Miggle's green gillfeathers and hands? Somebody's making executive decisions here.

Again, there's just so little harmony in the overall color palette.

The art is still really good—those cows are a hoot.

In a Trice

Color notes:

Still lots o' yellow, though that's pretty typical a lot of other times.

Howland is a light tan from beak to toe, glasses still green.

Churchy's beak is now a reddish brown (purty ugly, sez I).

Beauregard is also that reddish brown, when in years past he's been a pale brown.

In general, in my opinion, the colors are harsh and unharmonious.

I do believe that tree's 'face' is intentional, wild hair and all. Cool, sez I.

Under the Influence

What? This isn't Kelly. Isn't this blog s'posed to be about Walt Kelly? Yes, and in this case, to show you some work that was influenced by Kelly.

Howie Post, in the late 40's had a magical series in More Fun Comics that was more than a little under the influence of Kelly's art style. For those of you that don't cross over to The Pictorial Arts blog, now's a good reason to. And once again you have OtherEric of the Digital Comic Museum to thank for it!

What Ho, Pogo

Color notes:

Woof, what a lot of yellow . . . and orange . . . and green.

Howland Owl is now a full body light-orange from beak to toes, with greenish glasses.

Churchy is back to a two-tone face and his legs are the same green as the grass.

Pogo, in every panel, is in a deep shade of orange from hat to toes.

Another white background panel—a rarity prior to this arc.

Overall, the color scheme is a pret-ty jarring.

Cook Them Trolls!

This is a really pretty strip, harkening back to Kelly's love of fairy tales. And it's funny too!

Even the color oddities aren't too distracting. I think by now you can start to see that this wasn't color-blindness at work as much as color-forgetfulness.

Color notes:

Owl is starting to come back to normal, but the values of his colors are off.

Churchy is no longer two-toned, but now the same color as owl.

For once, the yellow is rather effective, contrasting well with the other colors.

The shoe house is now a different color from the last Sunday (and art-wise, the opening shot is the only one that shows it nearly surrounded by water).

That opening shot is such a winner, evoking a sense of distance, let's zoom in on it a bit:

Oh Glory Be

Here's a beauty of a Sunday strip.

Color notes:

Starting to come back to normalcy.

Howland Owl still has these weird white muttonchops and brown beak. He now has green glasses.

Churchy still has a two-tone head, and in the 3rd panel his legs are jaundiced.

Ol' Lady Rabbit brown color is a slightly harsh tone of brown, not quite harmonizing with her red apron.

But that last panel is a beaut, don'tcha think?