Oh Boy! Another One!

Some readers of this blog are jes' fine fans of all things Pogo. Some are fanatical fans of ALL things Kelly. I'm one of the latter — and if you are too, then you probably like to see the evolution of his art style, even back to the days of Kelly's general comic book work, emanating from his time at the Disney Studio.

His work on the Fairy Tale Parade series gave Walt Kelly a chance to broaden his own developing style, but his journeyman work for Dell Comics had him straddling house styles for several different features.

For Walt Disney's features he had to work within the constraints of the studio style. For Leon Schlesinger's Warner Brothers features he worked within a different set of studio style constraints. But even with those boundaries, Kelly's style was still recognizable, as here in Pat Patsy and Pete, from the June 1943 issue of Looney Tunes.

These scans were sent over by our great friend OtherEric of the Digital Comic Museum, and were touched up a bit by me. It's only two pages, but anything is a treasure for us fanatical fans of Kelly.

I pulled up the cover of this particular outing for us to enjoy, and noticed that portions of the art are reminiscent of Kelly's style as well, especially the left side border with lattice work, which Kelly utilized throughout his comic book work — but also the character portraits and the general approach to inking. I know a lot of 'funny animal' inking utilized the thick/thin brush strokes that give punch to the drawing, but I can't help but wonder if Kelly pitched in to do thankless uncredited chores throughout the Dell line.

Looney Tunes — June, 1943