So, we start with a new arc from 1969, the one that pays tribute of sorts to George Herriman's Krazy Kat. I say 'of sorts' because Kelly does it in his own round-about unique way. At that time in 1969, I wonder just how many people knew of Krazy Kat or had fond memories of the strip. I knew of the strip at that time, having collected book reprints, but I didn't know anyone else that had even heard of it.
But here we are, back in the land of great Kelly art. Beauregard is 'animated' nicely. I had to work a longer time than usual editing this strip to clean it up from bleed-through and mis-registration and newspaper defects. The following strips will have much of the same problems, and this arc goes on for quite a few weeks.
Such a labor of love.
June 1, 1969
UPDATE:
As per request, below is the raw scan of the above strip to show some of the deficiencies that I deal with. Looking at it you may not think it was so much. It was mostly the bleed-through that was the most time-consuming to eradicate. And personally, I don't like raw cyans and reds, so I color edit those to my liking.
And then this story arc consists of a problem of my making — that as a teenager I originally trimmed these pages right up to and over the outer lines of the panels. So I need to amend my sin now by creating a faux margin and ink lines for the outer edges of the panels. All in all it takes a while to make the page presentable (and even then I like to leave a few rough spots here and there so that it still has that newspaper look to it).
raw scan
thought I could catch you in the act 'redhanded', but missed by a few minutes...
ReplyDeleteWill be back later again after some digging into re-runs of strips.
Thanks and sleep well!
Hun
You arouse my curiosity [once more], because the reslts are always so immaculate. I'd really like to see what the original scan looked like!
ReplyDeleteMany many many thanks!
fvdwaa, shortly I will indulge your curiosity and post the raw scan of this week's strip. Your many many many thanks are deeply appreciated!
DeleteThom,
ReplyDeletehaving compared Sundays as far as my patchy archives allow I then switched to my dailies collection.
Results:
For '73 I found that up to October ALL strips are re-publications af strips previously shown in '53, '57, '58 , '59 and '63 (not in that sequence)
Starting from 73-10-15 the pics do not appear to be "Walt Kelly" anymore; (probably as noted elsewhere on the net: maybe scripted by W. but drawn by Selby K.). As an aside: I found only 2 copies of original drawings from that timeframe in the net and to my eye they surely were not drawn by WK and published after his demise.
'72: The year begins with strips featuring Agnew and J.E. Hoover and Ripe Dan Winkle. These were not copied from earlier ones. The earliest copy in '72 that I could recognise is
72-06-05 (which is a copy of 66-01-03). Following that there is any number of re-used strips from '64, '66 and '67. I cannot list them all (that would take more dedication than I'm able to give - unlike you, Thom) but I'm pretty sure every strip in the second half of '72 up to Nov. 06 is a copy from earlier years.
Nov. 06 starts a run of drawings that remind me in style, lack of quality and skill of the Sundays of the same month posted by Thom (without any Pogo-trees...). I cannot believe that WK drew them. Unfortunately: NO originals to be found on the net.
Then, Dec. '72 brings copies from '67 and the end of the year is copied from '56.
Anyone looking for the 'real' WK Pogo might as well stop before June 1972
A sad story; mais c'est la vie ...
Hun
Hun, your dedication is more than you seem to realize. I'm sure that such research and documentation is appreciated not just by me. I wonder if the choice of reprints were masterminded by the syndicate or by Selby or who...
Deleteyes, Thom, that's an interesting question I have been pondering, too, wondering about the discussions between / among the parties concerned. The syndicate at the very least must have agreed. And how did the Pogo fan community react to being fed 'old stuff'?
DeleteBemused aka Hun
I have a feeling that the fans were somewhat like me—somewhat indifferent, figuring there must be a good reason for it, and hey anyway, Kelly will be turning stuff out for decades to come and then were shocked to read Time Magazine's obituary notice in '73.
DeleteThanks for everything you do! It's very much appreciated..
ReplyDeleteThank YOU anonymous for your thank you. That's the kind of thing that keeps me motivated!
DeleteI way too seldom send in my thanks for your wonderful posts and work on this site - but know that I am grateful on a weekly (sometimes more often) basis.
ReplyDeleteAlso a hat tip to Hun for his research this week.
You may be unknown, but I thank you for sentiments!
ReplyDeleteIt's one of those things I look back upon and realized how spoiled we were with the likes of Walt Kelly. I honestly figured stuff like that would be the norm and took for granted that it would just go on forever. If anything I've learned, there are no assurances for anything in this world, and that we should do our best to show our appreciation for people we care about before that becomes impossible, and a source of regret.
ReplyDelete- (A)
-(A) / Alabaster,
Deletelast week you indicated your interest in getting hold of a copy of the microfilm newspaper archives. I still need an e-mail-address to be able to upload it via MailBigFile.
By the way, 'Your' (adopted) 'French' sequence was one of the arcs that were re-published in the '72/73 timeframe.
Hun
Sorry for failing to provide this earlier:
Deleteparuvost.gmail.com with the first period replaced with an @ sign to prevent harvesting.
Thanks in advance.
- (A)
Fine, will start uploading Friday; so pse don't be surprised to be notified by MBF that some 'sudimuell' is sending you a file sized 120 MB.
DeleteIt then should be available there for 10 days.
Hun
The Pussycat Princess that Albert is referring to is likely this one by Edward Anthony: http://www.toonopedia.com/pprinces.htm
ReplyDelete- (A)
Great restoration work, Thom. You've put in a tremendous lot of efforts and care in this. As well as in all the rest. That's truly wonderful and a huge service to the cause of visual art.
ReplyDeleteA thousand thanks!
It was soon after POGO ran the reprint strips that LITTLE ORPHAN ANNIE gave up trying to find a successor to Harold Gray and starting reprinting old Gray continuities. I wonder whether the inspiration might not have come from the earlier Kelly experiment.
ReplyDeleteAnon from 3/24: wasn't there a reference to the Pussycat Princess in a strip from early 1966? There was a female cat character with a lorgnette who was visiting POGO for a while and was called that.
Chris