Well, if I can't get more than a couple of encouraging hurrahs from Friends-in-Kelly for Kelly publishing ideas, I can only imagine the grand thud that would be heard from the general public. I'm moving on, with other fish to fry.
I have no time to edit this Sunday's strip for bleed-through and mis-registration. It's as good a sample as any to show a typical pre-editing image.
LLK.
August 17, 1969
unedited
In order not to trouble more discriminating followers of this blog with a silly comment, without further ado to my main issue: THANK YOU, Thom!
ReplyDeleteHun
I hope those other fish to fry are delicious catfish!
ReplyDeleteThis image highlights two things for me. First, how strange it is that such a brilliant artist ended up working in such a cookie-cutter, assembly-line medium. Kelly never phoned it in, always was painstaking and fastidious in every aspect of the strip, in contrast to the attitude of most daily cartoonists. And how was he repaid? With colorists, printers and editors who really couldn't care less about the presentation of his material. They just wanted to rush it out as quickly as possible. And yet, in spite of their best efforts to make Kelly's work look crummy and generic, his brilliance still shines through. This work is immortal.
ReplyDeleteAnd the second thing? Of course, it demonstrates the hard work you put in every week, Thom, to keep this work alive. Great art survives no matter what...but you are helping it reach a larger audience. Even for those of us who knew and loved Kelly before you started this blog, you throw coal on the fire every week. I certainly wouldn't think of Pogo and Albert and the rest nearly as often in my everyday life, if it weren't for you reminding me every week. You make Sundays special.
I feel your frustration loud and clear. And , again, please stop doing this anytime you feel your love for Kelly dwindling. There aren't enough Kelly fans in the world as it is. It would be a shame for you to leave the fold, simply because you're burned out from the grind of editing this blog. But as long as you do continue, thank you, thank you, thank you!
~Craig
Craig, I hope I haven't given ANY impression that my love for Kelly and his work has dwindled in any way. On the contrary, my burnout is from the lack of interest from all but a dozen of you that leaves me disgruntled. Under different circumstances I could carry on with this blog and all things Kelly for years to come.
DeleteI'm kind of at a loss for it myself. Is it the economy taking everyone away from being able to support artistic projects? Is the internet less able to get people to their interests now? I mean, there just seems to be fewer people actually able to to commit money and time to things now. A decade ago online, people actually were able to get people excited about things, and they'd talk to others, and it'd snowball. Now I have to practically contact each and every possible person of interest. Kickstarters I expected to succeed - not just yours - have failed because they consistently fall short of goals despite the interest. It's like middle-class art patronage has died.
DeleteUhm, yeah, what he said (the "Thank you" comment).
ReplyDeleteLooking at the unedited version really accentuates the difference between before and after. Which really makes me curious as to the process taken to do such a wonderful transformation. Perhaps you would be willing to share your clean-up method and perhaps once done, some of us might offer to do the process on future strips for you which would spread out the workload and be mutually beneficial to you and our fellow Kelly fans.
ReplyDelete