Gimme a Acorn, Wait Forty Years

This is our regularly scheduled Sunday continuity.

You'll have to get used to this schedule through the rest of the year: each Sunday will be this continuity with the same calendar date as 45 years ago; and in-between these Sundays will be other Kelly stuff, including Sundays from other times and storylines. Make sense? Even if it doesn't, you'll be seeing some fun Kelly stuff. So happy Sunday, Kelly Sunday!

Trigger Treat

These Halloween strips are from the period of decline for Kelly. At this point, in 1972, he was quite ill and had a year to live, during which time he made a valiant struggle to keep the strip itself alive, between reprints. In fact, at the time these Sundays were published in October of '72, Kelly's leg had to be amputated from complications of diabetes. It was a very hard time for a man who had been at the top of his game just five years before this with his yearlong Pandemonia story arc.

Open Your Doors and Hearts

UNICEF — United Nations Children's Fund — one of Kelly's favorite causes. "The driving force that helps build a world where the rights of every child are realized", started out in Philadelphia in 1946 as a Halloween project, still going strong today.

1961

Nobody Here but Me

This strip is, of course, out of sequence with our ongoing Sunday sequence, but appropriate for this time of year. From 1971, this is sorta late in the game for Kelly, and deliciously eerie.

The Biggerest Idea

Welcome back to Sunday, Kelly Sunday. This Sunday strip appeared for the first time forty-five years ago today, and today might only be the next time for it to appear since then . . . and THAT's sayin' somethin'.

'Put a Tiger in Your Tank' was a slogan building popularity since 1959. 'Put a 'Possum in Your Hearse' appeared to stay right here on this strip. Gee, with a little work it might have taken off.

Well, anyway, for a couple of weeks I think I'm going to have to keep posts minimal, thanks to heavy deadlines. You can count on a Sunday strip every week, and I'll fill in some Kelly stuff here and there. In a couple weeks I'll rethink where to go from here. Keep comin' back though, there'll be some great stuff ahead.

Madness

Dis it it. Dis is da final strip I have for dis run.

Madness, it is, but about 10 years ago I got rid of many of the Pogo dailies that I had collected. They were getting dog-eared, I was bored with them, I was lightening the load, many of them were already reprinted in the books . . . (let's see, what other rationalizing can I think of for such madness?) But the GOOD news is that I didn't succumb to any of those thoughts about the Sunday strips. I kept every one that I ever collected from 1963 to 1973 (that doesn't mean that a few aren't missing, y'know maybe the paper didn't show up that day or some such).

Somewhere in the late 60s I pasted a whole bunch of dailies in a scrapbook, and that's why I still have the strips that we've been seeing the past couple months. I still have a run from earlier that year, and various miscellaneous strips that I will share a bit down the road.

SO, I have no recollection of any closure on Natural Ghastley after the above strip. Maybe someone has access to digitized newspaper files and can tell me, but at least the strip above seems a nice place to stop.

So, come back on Sunday. I'll have the consecutive color Sunday for you, and I'll think out loud where to go from here.

Good night Charlie! Good night Schulz!

Ain't No Pied, Dagnab, Piper

Bugs are always the first to turn on you, but all the others ain't far behind.

Another rememberminder that tomorrow is the end of this particular daily regiments. I think some of you will be sad of that, others are feeling it's 'bout time. I've got mixed emotions, cuz I love seein' these strips assembled like this, but phew, it's a lot of work assembling the strips like this.

After tomorrow, I'm taking a few days off (from posting—not from work). But I'll be back on Sunday and then maybe we can do some confabulatin'.

But there's still tomorrow. Come back then!

He Wanna Be Alone

Kelly drops a rare hint of 'reality' by showing the disparate time scale of the bugs—that the papa bug was a boy just 3 months before, meaning Numblet better enjoy poorades whilst he can.

Back Into Vaudeville, Jazzbo

Well, as I've been indicating, the current run of dailies ends in just a few days, and I've wondered what to do about the Sundays of the same 1965 run. Last weeks' Sunday was the last of an arc, so I thought I'd end there for now. But I changed my mind, and I'm going to continue the run of Sundays with a new arc beginning today. It will be getting a little more interesting than some of the previous Sundays because now we have an elephant to add some weight to the strip! I believe that this is the introduction of Peanie Brickle, the fella we see throughout Pogo in Pandemonia.

So these Sundays will continue throughout the rest of this arc (which lasts until the end of the year!).

Of course this gag is based on the old vaudeville joke about numbered jokes, which even my dad used to tell.

All the Nervous Jazz

Jes' another word of warning, that this daily posting of daily strips from the summer/fall of '65 is drawing to a close this coming week. Not to worry, there will still be plenty of Sunday strips, book and comic book stuff & other very cool Whirled of Kelly stuff coming up.

STAY 'TOONED!

Pail of Tears

Man, Kelly could just let these guys ramble on and on.

A Man's Game

Most men, 'cludin' me, are too lazy to prepare foods. When I pour cereal out of a box, I want it to come out with the milk and fruit already with it. Waitin' for food, now THAT's a man's game.

Hidin'!

Friday the 13ths occur at least once a year, but no more than 3 times a year. Churchy has such a bad case of Friggatriskaidekaphobia that he gets it 12 times a year.

Dig That Note!

Even 45 years later, it seems like a lot of young people think they're geniuses and going to be instant pop stars because they can play a few notes, developing their look before they even develop their music.

Plink Plag Plink

This strip appeared just as Simon and Garfunkle's Sounds of Silence was climbing the charts in America, becoming an anthem of sorts for disenfranchised youth. Not saying that this strip is related in any way, but y'know, hello darkness my old friend . . .

The Jumpin' Cold Robbies

"Oh gimmee a loan,

On my bungalow home—

The gas and electric to pay.'

I been hummin' that all day.

Everything All Taped

Like a Lorn Baby Camel

The Ig-No-Minnies of It All

Long-Eared Free-Loader

A Hung-Ree Boy Without Any Foo

Dinner's Out of Style

I've got to put the fair warning on you, that I only have 2 weeks of dailies for this continuity left. It doesn't end conclusively for Natural's character, but still a good place to bid adieu to him. But that's 2 weeks from now. Oh, and don't worry about the Sundays. They go on and on, though I might jump around from that point, get a little more action and variety going. But you know, that's 2 weeks from now.

Too Big for His Bridges

One Fell Symbol

I have no idea where Kelly is going with this, but I don't think Kelly did either, cuz on Monday he changes direction again, doubling back to Natural Ghastley.

Subjects of Scintillating Stimulation