Sunday, June 1, 2014

Smearcase This Guy

Kelly has turned this whole Krazy Kat homage inside out and wandered down the street with it. The general public would have no idea what Kelly was sourcing, and so what? With Kelly, we enjoy the journey, not the point of departure nor the destination. The G. Moth steals the show, even as the show goes on.

August 10, 1969

Thank you again, to those who have taken time to share your words of encouragement for continuation of this blog. Later this week, I'll have an important question for you and other members and readers of the Whirled of Kelly. Please check back in a few days...

9 comments:

  1. Just want to give you a thumbs up so you know I am reading this every week, nothing else to say, really (which is why I didn't say it earlier!)

    Grew up with my dad's Pogo books, and Kelly's odd twists of phrase pepper my speech to this day. Learned to play all the songs in the song book. Glad to have this blog. Keep posting when you can!

    thanks,
    -eric

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  2. I keep wondering: can this Butch-type of cat be the same one that Beauregard met sometime back in the Ft. Mudge dump, which carried a lorgnette and went by the name of Pussitwat Pwincess (or something similar)? Seems a bit out of character; but then Mouse talking about having worked in a strip featuring a cat-and-mouse team with one of them chucking bricks at the other might have given her ideas.
    Thank you, my favourite provider of Sunday fun!
    Hun

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    1. Hun,

      Hmm, interesting theory. Sort of reminds me of one of the stranger bits of Pogo continuity - Solid MacHogany, the jazz-playing pig. After a few weeks' stretch in 1951, Solid took off for fame and fortune in N'Orleans, presumably vanishing into the realm of obscure one-shot Kelly guest stars. But then in 1962, Kelly attempted to explain the discrepancy in Krushchev's various appearances (sometimes as a bear, sometimes as a pig) by revealing that Pig-Krushchev was actually, of all people, Solid MacHogany in disguise! The sweet, music-loving S.M. of '51 must have fallen on some truly hard times to have ended up as such a megalomaniac. Anyone writing a Kelly fan fiction might consider telling the story of Solid's lost years!

      ~Craig

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  3. Tom,

    I do appreciate your efforts as well, though I don't comment as often as some folks.

    Chris

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  4. The general public would have no idea what Kelly was sourcing, and so what? With Kelly, we enjoy the journey, not the point of departure nor the destination.

    Comics need to go back to this I feel.

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    1. Reinventing the bicycle seems to be the common belief in comics, instead of building on the foundations laid by the greats. There's a value to innovation, but innovation shouldn't just be 'edgy' for the sake of it.

      This is some of what drove me into starting my own comic strip, was the feeling that no one was picking up on what I felt was 'the peripheries of friendly but unexplored territory. In short, there's never enough semi-amicable cartoon alligators out there.

      - GG

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  5. I had a well mis-spent childhood. One of the books my parents took along with them on our year+ long road trip in '70 - '71 was Ten Ever-Lovin' Blue-Eyed Years of Pogo. My first catalog reading was the Pogo Puce Book. My language has been permanently impacted. And now I write software manuals--we may all be doomed. But as ol' Porky Pine say, "Don't take life too serious, it ain't nohow permanent."
    All of which is to say: Thank you.
    -Kevin

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  6. Tom,

    I know that this cat character got "involved" with Miss Ma'amselle at some point, making Pogo intensely jealous. But I never knew how that whole conflict was resolved, or perhaps Kelly simply dropped it after a while.

    Chris

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    1. Chris, we'll find out when the Fantagraphics volume gets there....in, what....2050?

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