You Kin Smile an' Smile an' YET Be a Villain

Original art by Walt Kelly is wonderful to behold. Between the blue under-penciling and the lush inking (not to mention the art style itself, the joke, oh, and the lettering), each original is a joy to study.

Here are two such originals, courtesy of Richard Davidson, friend of this blog, who has sent over a number of items, and I'm just now getting around to these. More to come from Richard, as well as our other great friends who have sent over Kelly goodies.

Happy Sunday, Kelly Sunday!

 November 29, 1955

February 21, 1950

Party Kids

Hey there, hi there, ho there, we're as happy as can be, we're back on line, everything's fine and we've got an old Sun-dee . . . er, uh, Sunday. 

Yep, functionality is a good thing, and perhaps we can stay this way for a while. I need to work on a backlog of missed deadlines, and then—look out—more wonderful Kelly/Pogo stuff will continue coming your way!

Kelly allus had a thing about critters eating other critters, showing up all throughout the run of the strip. Can't be sure if that's what tickled his ribs, or if maybe he had a therapist who could conjure up all kinds of theories for his cannibalistic shenanigans (anyone who can talk and plans to eat another being that can also talk is a cannibal in waiting, in my book).

Notice the lettering on this early, 1950 strip. It's not as bold and perfectly integrated as it later would be. Kelly is credited with incredible lettering on the strip over the years, but I believe much of it may owe calligraphic gratitude to Kelly's later assistants.

For these early, early Sundays, once again a hearty thank you to DJ David B for scans! Again, I did some art editing to clean it up, yet I left a number of existing artifacts so as to keep it authentic to newspaper printing.

Happy Sunday, Kelly Sunday!

December 17, 1950

Wored My Feets Off Up to the Cuff

Well, things are a little bit mizable over here—not being able to scan for awhile, and having the computer machine still acting up somethin' fierce. But that's no reason to keep you thirstin' for more Sunday Pogo. No sir. Not when this blog has friends like DJ David B. who has come to our rescue with  some fine examples of EARLY Pogo. I did a bit of editing and wahlah, we have a HAPPY SUNDAY, KELLY SUNDAY.

This particular strip was, I believe, in the excellent Fantagraphics volume, but shown as a 3 tier format. Happily I have some others from David that will take us a bit beyond that volume. I will get some of those up as soon as I can, but first I have to haul the computer BACK to the shop and ask them PLEase make it a reliable machine again.

Next post I'll tell you a little history of how David has come by these lovely lovely strips that he is generously sharing with us.

November 19, 1950

Fowl Mood

Seeing covers like this comic cheer me up no matter what foul mood I'm in. And of course Walt Kelly is responsible for this particular one.

In fact, it was Kelly and Carl Barks and a few other geniuses that were responsible for keeping the Golden Age of Comics alive for another few years into the '50s, bless their hearts and souls.

Walt Kelly — Walt Disney Comics and Stories — February 1950

A Genuine Bare Nose

Another beauty from 1950, that is also in the new Fantagraphics collection, but is scanned from DJ David B.'s wonderful collection.

This is Kelly just wandering around his characters and having fun.

August 13, 1950

Ree-Juvenated

Here we go, the first of some very early Pogo Sunday strips, courtesy of DJ David B., digging deep into his Kelly Kollection, sending over raw scans where I then jump in to give them a round of processing.

A note about that: David B. is supplying excellent high resolution scans, but they have to be in two pieces and are in raw condition. After stitching the two pieces together, I spend up to an hour on each strip, attempting to give them the look that I think Kelly intended them to have, knowing the limitations of newsprint printing. The colors should be bright and cheerful, but not garish or too contrasty—yet contrasted enough that the printing seems crisp and clean. I have removed obvious imperfections of the printing process, like blobs of ink, or too much mis-registration of colors, or bleed-through from the other side. I'm trying to keep the nature of the newsprint paper intact, as well as a few imperfections so that it feels like it's right out of the Sunday paper.

These first few strips will be familiar to any Kelly fan who has recently purchased the excellent Fantagraphics first volume of The Complete Syndicated Comic Strips, Pogo: Through the Wild Blue Wonder. But these that we're showing are scanned from the original strips, not from the book. Anyone who doesn't have the book, should go purchase it, and future volumes for your collection. But it's fun to see these newsprint versions and if all goes well, you'll see strips that will not be collected in the books for some time to come.

I'm very grateful to DJ David B. and I hope you are too. We'll still romp around in my collection as well, but these early gems will spice up our view of the Whirled of Kelly!

Oh, and later this week we'll have another Peter Wheat installment, courtesy of our friend OtherEric. Please tell friends to become followers here so that more Kelly fans can enjoy his cartooning genius, and spread the word even further.

June 18, 1950

I'm going to start dating strips so you can appreciate the context of its time

Above is a detail of a panel, so as to appreciate Kelly's cartooning technique, and likewise below from the original art as published in the Fantagraphics Volume 1 collection.

Girl of the Sterling North

Speaking of nameless turtles, here's a sweet strip from 1950 . . .