How Far is "Up"?

Ayup, here's a nice rendering of Miggle's Market. The colors are pleasantly muted and almost registered. Altogether, a nice looking Sunday strip. Happy Sunday, Kelly Sunday!

April 23, 1972

How Human Mice Are

I think Mouse is my favorite Okefenokee character, after Albert. Over many years of the dailies, Mouse has been the most worldly of the characters, having traveled beyond Ft Mudge, and relying on his wits and charisma to survive in a harsh world. This drawing of him by Kelly is superb in its delicacy (what wonderful whiskers) and his impassioned expression. 

Mouse

In the Cool and Peaceful

This is a case of Kelly adding on a big section of art to an existing panel for use in one of the early S&S books. 

I'm posting it here in high resolution as Kelly's art deserves.

Only One Pup Like This

I'm going to start posting, once in a while, individual black and white Kelly panels that are monochromatic gems...in my view at least. These are images that could be poster size on my wall and bring great joy to my eyes (if I had any wall space left, which I don't).

I'd also like to mention that I'm going to, soon, launch a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for Pictorial Arts Journal official premiere issue. That Journal will be showcasing great art in large and detailed formats and will definitely promote cartooning greats, Kelly among them. I will give more details over the next couple of weeks, but I hope you already know how Kickstarter works. And I hope  you might be in a position to help when the time comes.

Cheers to you all and Long Live Kelly!

Kelly is ahead of his time with his www. (if you see what I mean)

A Triple Star Darb

April 16, 1972

I hate to admit ignorance on anything, but right up front I can tell you I had no idea what a darb is, or was. Doing a quick google, though, gave me this:

darb is an Americanism probably nearly obsolete today, a slang word from the 1920s meaning "something or someone very handsome, valuable, attractive, or otherwise excellent." Synonyms of darb: amazing, bizarre, boss, curious, exceptional, fab, fantastic, flash, gnarly, heavy, inconceivable, incredible, marvelous, odd, outstanding, particular, peculiar, phenomenal, primo, rare, remarkable, singular, special, strange, stupendous, surprising, terrific, uncommon, unfamiliar, unheard-of, unimaginable, unique, unprecedented, unthinkable, unusual, weird, wicked, wonderful, zero cool.

Who knew?

I can just imagine the young Kelly using the word and then saving it for 40 some years to drop into this strip.

And ayep, Howland actually got one over on Miggle.

Junk Chunkin'

Even when Kelly fell back to 'talking heads', his art was satisfying to look at. And leave it to these two lunkheads allus trying to make a cool million while Pogo remains the calm voice of sanity.

April 9, 1972

Hoo Ha Hee Haw

Friend-in-Kelly 'Alimentary' sent over a link to see the original art for the previous post, demonstrating that Kelly's ink work was still in the groove. AND we get to see the extra panel from the 3 tier format. 

Thank you Alimentary and thank you to Attempted Bloggery for posting this last year!

Hoo Hock Har Rowf!

At this point in time, Kelly's Sunday strip backgrounds were simple, if at all. The character drawings were still strong and flexible (as demonstrated by Howland's pitching technique).  In this strip, the colors were nicely varied and attractive, with even the printers finally delivering a page in virtually perfect registration. 

Okay! Play ball!

April 2, 1972