Get in There an' Fight for Peace!

Good morning Whirled! Good morning across the Atlantic!

What's a Sunday without Kelly?

Just look at this strip. Let's think of all the other strips around it in my paper in 1971. Hi and Lois, Nancy, Kerry Drake, Circus of PT Bimbo, Tumbleweeds, Abbie & Slats, Peanuts, Alley Oop, Li'l Abner, Archie. All those strips were fun in their own way, but Pogo was 100% unique—the way it was drawn, the characters, the color, the storyline, the dialogue. No wonder I clipped and saved Pogo and let all the others dissipate.

December 19, 1971

Kandi the Cave Kid

Wow, we're really whirling up some esoteric Kelly material here on the Whirled of Kelly, thanks to several of our friends-in-Kelly. OtherEric of the Digital Comic Museum has come through once again with one of Kelly's early comic book stories.

Here's OtherEric to tell us about it:

When Dell Comics started the Looney Tunes comic book in 1941, they had a surprisingly small number of characters to actually work with; a problem that would affect them throughout the 20+ year run. Bugs Bunny had made his official debut only a year before, and mainstays such as the Road Runner would not debut for years yet. So to fill out the pages, they did a couple of different things. They either took minor characters such as Sniffles and Little Pancho Vanilla and gave them their own feature, or they went right ahead and created new characters and stuck them in as filler. The two most notable of these new features were Kandi the Cave Kid and Pat Patsy & Pete, since Walt Kelly worked on both of them.

Pat Patsy & Pete was not originally by Kelly, although he came in to do the last half-dozen stories; and they are delightful in their own way. But Kandi was apparently an original creation of Kelly's; possibly even his first for comics. Looney Tunes #3 showed up in December 1941, nearly a year before Pogo's debut in Animal Comics #1. In some ways it's a precursor to Kelly's Pandemonia; the early Pandemonia story in Animal Comics almost reads like a leftover idea from Kandi, although that story shows a clearly more experienced Kelly at work both in script and art.

As far as I can tell, there were only six Kandi stories — Overstreet says the character appeared in Looney Tunes 3-6, 8, 11, and 15, but I can verify that he wasn't actually in #6. If anybody has seen any of the other early issues, please let us know if he turns up. I hope that 7th story exists, even if the Guide got the issue wrong! I believe only the story from #5 has been seen on the web before now, courtesy of Pappy: click here.

And now we're pleased to show you the story from #8. Enjoy this look at some of Kelly's earliest comic book work.

Walt Kelly — Looney Tunes #8 — ca 1942

Doc Owl

This strip may be late in Kelly's game, but Grundoon is still the same age (and still cute), and turtle and owl are still scrapping as they had been for over 20 years by this point.

December 12, 1971

A Slew of Kelly Critters

Our friend, OtherEric, has sent over some Kelly images to share with us, bless his heart. This is an isolated image from John O'Reilly's The Glob, the book that Kelly illustrated with a pre-hysterical slant, showing off a slew of Kelly's critters.

Walt Kelly — The Glob — 1952

The Dream Perceptor

Starting a new Sunday arc here, from toward the end of Kelly's marathon run, with things getting a little fantastical.

Snbts, indeed. Happy Sunday, Kelly Sunday.

December 5, 1971

Enough to Make a Man Sick

Kelly was part of the ecology movement at this point, somewhat along the line of 'We have met the enemy' sentiment. Kelly was indeed feeling ill at this time.

Greetings to Germany, via Wiesbaden.

May 9, 1971

In the Meantime

Happy Fourth of Jooly, everyone! Be safe out there!

A Raggle Kind of Cheer

This is the last of this particular group of Sunday strips, having caught up with other 1963 strips that I've posted elsewhere. My stash of clipped Sundays is finally starting to run a little low, but we're not running on fumes yet. And still we have lot's of other Kelly kind of stuff. What a prolific creator he was.

Perhaps our friends-in-Kelly out there will be able to share some more of their collections, cuz this blog isn't about me, it's about the Whirled of Kelly!

September 29, 1963