Sunday, March 30, 2014

Wily Skill

This strip took even longer than last week's to clean up, with lots of bleed-through from the other side. I'm amazed that it cleaned up as well as it did (with a few flaws left in intentionally). It's also amazing that newsprint survives as well as it does, seeing as how flimsy and porous as it is/was.

Hogarth, the able bodied hornet, is a great little character and he certainly seems dee-licious. That's another lovely Kelly tree, and notice that even though there's very little background in this strip the panels work beautifully because the foreground compositions are so solid. And the word balloons are perfectly integrated, as always.

Basically, an ordinary strip and a work of art!

Happy Sunday, Kelly Sunday!

June 8, 1969

4 comments:

  1. Hoo boy...,thanks!
    Thom,
    1. I'm abusing your hospitality to initiate a routine for spreading around the results of my period of bad crazyness when I went through the Google miocrofilm newspaper archives to collect a more or less
    complete series of Pogo strips (my 'crummies').
    In order not to clutter up this blog with stuff most of your followers do not care for, I am only posting the link to the first download here:
    http://mbf.me/i8WcA4 It should be availble for download for about 10 days
    The download contains my offer for strips (dailies and Sundays) for the years 1969 to 1973. It is large (~220 MB); it also has a short text file which among other things shows my e-mail-address.
    Anyone interested should download the batch, look at the contents of the unencrypted zip-file and (if still interested) let me know via e-mail. Then I can notify those wanting more, directly of future uploads
    without boring this blog and its followers.
    2. Thanks for today's posting
    3. Not everyone following this blog may be aware that Archive.org has a copy of a Kelly booklet titled 'Christmas with Mother Goose'; it is available at
    https://archive.org/details/ChristmasWithMotherGooseWaltKelly201
    Hun

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sorry, the download address is not very clear up there...
      It is
      http://mbf.me/i8WcA4

      Hun

      Delete
  2. Thanks for access to the collection. I, too, somewhat worry about the pace of releases for the 12-volume set and am glad to see archival views of the comics. One place I look for content lately is E-bay. The previews often are of serviceable quality, especially if they're for blue-pencil-and-inked originals. I generally check every 2-3 days, and you get goodies like this every so often:

    http://www.ebay.com/itm/Original-Pogo-Daily-Comic-Strip-by-Walt-Kelly-3-2-1964-Pogo-Churchy-/111313827384?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item19ead23638

    http://www.ebay.com/itm/Original-Pogo-Sunday-Comic-Strip-by-Walt-Kelly-6-13-71-Howland-Owl-Churchy-/111313833448?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item19ead24de8

    - (A)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks Thom, as usual, for your hard work. This is one of my favorite arcs. Having previously read it only in the '80s Fireside books, it's a joy to see it in vibrant full color. The compositions in this strip are indeed terrific, even by Kelly's usual standards. It's astounding how he can have such a huge cast in each panel, always imbuing each one with distinct personality, and finding a new interesting angle for each "shot." And keeping it all in perfect perspective!

    And thanks Hun, for sharing your archive! I can't speak for anyone but myself, but I imagine any of the regulars on this blog would interested in your kind offer. Nothing can approach what Thom does in quality. But in terms of quantity, the collection you're sharing will bring me many hours of joy! Especially at the slow rate Fantagraphics is moving, I'd rather have lower-res versions of strips than nothing. As a young'un coming to Pogo only through the books, so much of this stuff is brand-new to me. I think all of us have dreamed of obtaining a complete start-to-finish collection of Pogo strips, and you're helping us to make that a reality!

    (By the way, I got an email from Amazon stating that the new release date for Vol. 3 is--urgh--August 20).

    ~Craig

    ReplyDelete