ARNK

The horse keep on runnin' A-way, and Grundoon keep on sleepin'.

You folk out there keep on readin'?

My Dear Sir!

Happy Sunday, Kelly Sunday!

Blood! GACK!

Kelly's Pogo strip is jes' fine when 'nothin' is happening. But it's jes' finer when 'somethin' is happening. I love it when the strip has a storybook feeling.

And of course there's a deja vu thing here, cuz Albert went all googley-woogley some years before over the same Cock Robin lines in The Pogo Peek-a-Book.

Fierce Robins

Things startin' to pick up here.

Kelly could fit so much into any given panel and still make it look believable. Looking in closer on the panel below, the essence of Kelly is so apparent and . . . comforting.

Power Cookies

I debated with myself whether to post the below Peter Wheat News material here on Whirled of Kelly or over on the Pictorial Arts blog, just because none of this art or writing is by Walt Kelly at all. But it's a quality continuation of his earlier creation, and this viewership already has a familiarity with the series, so, here it is.

The comic book art is by Al Hubbard, a good choice for emulating Kelly's style. You may recognize his style a bit from the Mary Jane and Sniffles series in the Warner Bros franchise of comics. For completist's sake, I've included the covers, front and back, though they truly stray from Kelly.

As always, this material is brought to us with generosity by OtherEric of the Digital Comic Museum. And in fact, here are some words of introduction by him:

Here are two more issues of Peter Wheat News, this time not by Kelly, but by his replacement team of Del Connell and Al Hubbard. As a bonus, these happen to be consecutive issues, 43 and 44, so we can see how the three-parters in News tied together, as well as a look at how the books looked once Kelly left. While the new creators obviously don't live up to the standard that Kelly set, I don't think anybody really could. They do better than most people would, I think — the series remains charming and entertaining, and far better than the average 50s comic book fare. The #43 has been shared as a CBZ before this, but the #44 is new.

I wanted to give a little background on Connell and Hubbard, but ran into difficulty. Connell may have written some of the late Kelly issues of Peter Wheat, and I believe he was on staff at Western. Other than that I really don't know anything about him or his work. Hubbard, on the other hand, I could write about for pages. 99% of what I would write would just be variations of "I love Hubbard's work on Mary Jane & Sniffles", without much real content beyond that. Maybe some other time—it really is one of my favorite series and in my opinion better than any other comics based on the Warner Brothers cartoons by orders of magnitude.

Peter Wheat News #43:

Peter Wheat News #44:

Below, as another bonus, OtherEric has included this full-page back cover to FourColor #474, showcasing Al Hubbard's work on Mary Jane & Sniffles, and REALLY demonstrating the influence that Walt Kelly had on his work, in the composition, characterizations and artistic rendering.

Arrant Nonsense!

Remember, this 3-tier format has the extra panel that the tabloid format doesn't. In this case, where Albert will borry a comb.

The Very Marrow of My Mortality