Sunday, November 3, 2013

That Cronks Your Hippo-Critical Oaf!

Two cartoonists of the 20th century, no, let's make that three, gave us more pleasure per panel, consistently, than any other comic stripper. Let's see, that's Winsor McCay, Harold Foster, and of course Walt Kelly. 

Loving care crafted each panel that the medium did not require. Case in point, this panel, that feels completely believable in Kelly's whirled, yet is full of detailed whimsy—the whole setup bouncing through the air, the horse with exaggerated features, an alligator and an owl and a bug in relative sizes with human postures, wheels that shouldn't be rollable, lettering on the side of the van that isn't just a simple font and contains its own gag. Kelly gave us our money's worth almost every time!

Happy Sunday, Kelly Sunday y'all!


May 23, 1971

22 comments:

  1. Sun is slowly setting in this part of the world.
    So no great merit for me in being the first one to thank you for a fine Kelly strip
    And a sincere Hippo-Critical Oaf to you ! (as the doctor said)
    Hun

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  2. It's interesting how Kelly really fell in love with adding tons of extra detail in the late '60s and early '70s. This was during the same period that he working on the 'We Have Met the Enemy' short that he was fully hand-animating on his own, so perhaps doing so much damned drawing during that period caused him to hone his craft even further (I think it would have the opposite effect on me - when I have to get a lot done at once, I tend to get a li'l sloppier!). There was an interview with Kelly's assistant Henry Shikuma in one of the '80s Pogo books (Outrageously Pogo), and he says he asked Kelly why he bothered with the extra detail. Kelly's response was "It's no trouble," and he would then proceed to bang out an ornate Sunday page in superhuman time.

    My personal theory is that Kelly was annoyed by the way newspapers were shrinking comic strips at that time, and decided to make sure his own strip was kept at full-size by ensuring that the miniaturized version would be darn near illegible!

    ~Craig

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  3. Albert was wise to scoot off - I don’t think I’d want Howland working on my plumbing either.

    I've been doing more poking around, and have discovered that the official Pogo site has been down for at least a year or so now, going into the Wayback machine. I’m not entirely sure why this is. Maybe Carolyn Kelly seems to leave it to Mark Evanier to blog most of the Pogo Awareness stuff anymore. He had at least a 100 year birthday wish for Walt (http://www.newsfromme.com/2013/08/25/happy-walt-kelly-day-centennial-edition/), and he does seem to have quite the crush on Carolyn. She and Mark were supposed to be at the 100-year Walt Kelly panel, but Carolyn had to bow out due to illness. I met them at an earlier convention in 2007 once, though.

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  4. If I was Oh-ficially in charge of the Oh-ficial Pogo site, I would throw such love and care into it. It would be a sparkling, well-serviced machine. I kid you not, I would not let Kelly's name and reputation sink into obscurity.

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    1. I've often wondered exactly how this could be achieved, I mean aside from a purely curational sense. It's been tried at least twice to keep the franchise alive - once with Selby if you count the well-intentioned limping from 1973 into 1975 and then the one orchestrated in 1989 which quite possibly was the best Pogo has ever been by committee. Frankly, if the 1989 run failed, I don't see how one can do better as it really was fairly spot on to the late period Pogo with its satire. And therein might be the problem. I figure what made Pogo famous happened in the late 40’s to early 50’s. The golden age. I’m not saying that later period Pogo is inferior in design and concept - merely that it was a refinement to its own demographic, perhaps. What often is missing from later non-Kelly incarnations of Pogo is that distinctive tactile boyhood nostalgia. Also, the cast may have gotten a tad cluttered than what usually appeals to first time readers. In short, Pogo becomes more obvious and powerful when you experience it from the beginning. It becomes this experience of watching the characters evolve from the tighter chemistry of the rougher drawn golden age comic book funny animals into the refined and sophisticated art and comedy of the syndicated strip’s larger ensemble cast. While it’s possible to become enamored with Pogo purely from late period exposure, I think it’s much more a connoisseurship of artists and critics than ordinary readers.

      - (A)

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    2. Nice to see a little love for the Doyle/Sternecky strip of the late '80s! That's how I first got introduced to the world of Pogo as a tad of 5, with my Dad (who remembered the original strip, of course) doing all the voices in probably not-quite-P.C. style. I completely fell in love with the subtle wordplay and the elaborate cause-and-effect plotting. Within a few years, I was buying whatever scant collections I could turn up of the original Kelly Pogo (I now have all of them thanks to eBay, but back then I had to rely on my local comic/collectibles store, and the "antique" book store in Nantucket where we would vacation every summer). Even as a kid of 7 or 8, I quickly realized that the Kelly original was unsurpassable, and the revivalists were engaged in a fool's errand. But I still have a soft spot for the '89-92 Pogo, particularly Sternecky's artwork, which is really a thing of beauty. I think the "sophisticated funny animal" humor is a large part of what attracted me to the strip. While a large portion of the references might have gone over my head, I saw that there was something more going on here than in the Looney Tunes or Disney cartoons, and it intrigued me...while at the same time staying accessible due to the adorable critters. I saved many of those Sunday pages as a kid, and still have them. Even looking at them now, it's hard for me to be objective about their quality because they were my introduction to this wonderful world. But whatever the failings of their attempt at aping Kelly (the primary failing being simply that NO ONE else is Walt Kelly, so why try?), I must thank Messrs. Sternecky and Doyle for introducing me to one of my greatest creative role models, and one of my favorite fictional worlds.
      ~Craig

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    3. When I first saw it, my gut reaction was moderately negative. Now I must say that I was being highly unfair to it - one of a very few mistakes I've made I will openly confess to. Sure, Doyle/Sternecky can't be compared to some of Kelly's more subtle charms, but it was worthy being fairly witty and occasionally pretty gosh-darn endearing. The sequence where Albert and Pogo were messing with the musical notes to create a jingle was priceless.

      ....Suddenly this place feels like an active forum, doesn't it?
      - (A)

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    4. Yes! An active forum, thanks to you and Hun and Craig and Eric and Mark!

      I'll post a couple of Doyle/Sternecky Sundays. I think they were very good efforts.

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  5. On a completely different note, it's great for a personal reason to see this and last week's strips: They bookend my personal arrival into the world; I first showed up on May 17 1971. So nice to see where the strip was at when I joined the fun (even if I don't remember seeing it until some collections in the 80's)

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  6. The 5-23 strip has a different letterer than the 5-16 strip. I think of the 5-16 letterer as the way the lettering is supposed to look for that period. Any idea who the two letterers are?

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  7. Alimentary, I have this dream where a Pogo comic book is revived, utilizing the everlovin' art of several cartoonists that have already demonstrated their affinity with Kelly and Pogo and Albert. Actually, I visualize the comic book as 'Walt Kelly Comics and Stories', to also have stories of Peter Wheat and Fairy Tales and other sprightly stuff. I would like to be its editor and keep the name of Kelly alive and well. Well, that's my dream.

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    1. A compilation of 8-12 comic page yarns done by artists who were inspired by the original series to become cartoonists? I could see that being possible with some networking - possibly a kick-starter? I'm not up on the rules of tribute works. It'd be great if they were reasonably well-known cartoonists to bring some connection to the current generation.

      The closest we ever had to a full-length comic tribute was the glorious, if abjectly heart-wrenching, "Pog" by Alan Moore covering all of Swamp Thing #32: (http://swords-and-veeblefetzers.blogspot.com/2010/01/alan-moores-pastiche-to-walt-kellys.html). I've read that one in the bonifide (and ironic considering the ecological message) dead-trees edition.
      - (A)

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  8. Eric, I'm glad you found your bookend dates. I've done the same with my dates, only a decade earlier (which was my favorite year of Kelly's artistic style).

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  9. Mark, your eyebones are better than mine in seeing the differments. But I believe you if you say so. At that late date in Pogo's existence I have no idea who Kelly's assistants and letterers were. He wasn't feeling well at that time, so he may have had a number of people chipping in time. There must still be people alive and well out there that remember that time. I wish they would contact us here at Whirled of Kelly.

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    1. I imagine when Fantagraphics gets around to the end of the syndication run with their books, there might be a lot of insightful material about those times. Course, at the rate they are coming out, that will be - at minimum - 9 years from now.
      - (A)

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    2. Sorry to barge into such an important discussion with old business.
      -(A), my attempt to translate the 'French comic' into English can be downloaded from
      http://mbf.me/tbhCvn .
      Suggest a 'native speaker turn this stutter into usable English.
      Hun
      Btw, Fantagraphics are predicting the publication of vol.3 for "March 2014 (subject to change)"

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  10. GAHRUNTEED OHFISHALL TRANSLEERATIONS!

    http://imageshack.us/a/img6/7951/o8p6.png
    http://imageshack.us/a/img266/2668/57tx.png
    http://imageshack.us/a/img203/4644/s2xh.png
    http://imageshack.us/a/img132/6673/5xt0.png
    http://imageshack.us/a/img716/3725/ye2w.png

    I apologize for any typos I missed or oddities, but I just borrowed from the above linked text and boxed them in and fancied up a few things. I think it turned out alright even if it's not from a native, and assembled by a hypothetical alligator tad.

    Add these to your collection, Thomas.

    - (A)

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    1. Nice! Thanks Alimentary, the hypo type tad.

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    2. I have some fixes planned (I bolded some text that shouldn't have been), and I just got the 'crummies' from 5 days ago now since I didn't read back to WRANG BO DIDDLEY for replies.

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    3. Here's my go at the first actual comic page using the 'crummies' for the English text. I think I have a system down that might speed up getting these together faster now.

      http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/5061/iop0.png

      - (A)

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  11. And the next.

    http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/8026/obe6.png

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  12. I'm going to stop posting them for now, mostly because I've got a good clip going, and I see no need to clutter the replies with single postings. I'm up to page 13 out of 31. Seems like about 6 pages a day average. I'm dubbing this project "Pogo - To France and Back".
    - (A)

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