Saturday, November 19, 2016

Obtuse NUMPS of Stultified Hebetude

Kelly's dialogue is delicious, like cookies and milk. 

July 27, 1952

2 comments:

  1. I notice that some of these panels get larger and some get smaller when copied to Pogo's Sunday Punch. The first panel in the second row loses everything to the right of Churchy's "goody goody goody" balloon, including Albert and nearly all of the tree. But the first panel in the third row (where Churchy goes "eyeball for eyeball") expands to both left and right, gaining a clump of long grass behind Owl and a whole tree behind Albert (Albert himself being all there instead of partly cut off by the edge of the panel). Do you suppose these alternate versions were made at the same time as the original strip, or only later when preparing the book?

    The book also leaves out a panel — namely the last one! This apparently helps run this strip right into the next one and avoids making the chapter one page longer.

    A belated comment on the earlier part of this sequence where Albert swallowed so many people and things: I just noticed recently that Walt Disney's Peter Pan movie has a similar effect involving a crocodile with rubbery insides: the bulge of a temporarily swallowed Captain Hook can be seen passing quickly from throat to tail and back out again. The movie was released in 1953 but apparently was in preparation for many years before that — possibly when Kelly was still on the staff?

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  2. You could always count on Kelly as a source of erudite insults to hurl at an uncomprehending audience.

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