Whoosh! I got too much going on hereabouts. Not enough time to scan from the Pogo book to compare to this week's Sunday tear sheet. I'm sure you will survive.
January 11, 1953
This just in! A scan from the Pogo Sunday Book that references this Sunday tear sheet was sent over to us by Frits van der Waa, all the way from Amsterdam, since I didn't have time to mess with it this week. It's fun, once again, to compare panels and see edits.
Thanks Frits!
When I went to save this file I found I already had a file by the same name. It turns out you posted the original art for this strip on March 13, 2011. So I renamed the one I already had by inserting "_orig_art" in the filename. If anyone accidentally overwrote the older file I suppose they can get it back by going to your March 13, 2011 post.
ReplyDeleteSince the original art is in 3-tier format it includes the "extra panel," which is also in the book. After the egg complains "WRONG END!" the gnome retorts, "Which end is caboose on a egg? How'm we's gone know?" Good question!
On the other hand the book omits the whole first 3 panels, in which the gnome starts out more sympathetic to the egg before he gets annoyed at it for causing its own problems.
Further evidence for the French background of the gnomes turns up here in the last panel, where the gnome calls the egg "the most basic canard 'til yet": a French/English pun, English for "hoax," French for "duck." (Apprently even in French it's also slang for "hoax"; I don't know why.)
Good old Kelly lunacy here: "Step outside an' say that!" (when the duck's whole problem is that he's stuck inside the egg); and "Egg, kin you do talkin'?" "No!" "See?"
By the way is that a new gnome with the long beard and the barrel? He doesn't look quite like any of the gnomes we've seen so far.
Larry, thanks for the annotations and etc. It looks like I can rely on you when I run out of time for expository. Yes, I believe that gnome is Kelly's spear carrier with lines, well ... barrel carrier, just needed to make the joke more surreal.
Delete"I see my doody, an I dood it!"
ReplyDeleteWords to live by
Good line...
DeleteI feel like Pogo is one of those rare comics that look great in every format. I mostly know the newspaper versions, so it´s always interesting to look at random book versions I stumble across. Plus you get the artwork in b&w for a change.
ReplyDeleteDid Kelly do all the editing himself?
That's one of the open questions I have, regarding who edited the books. Somehow I imagine he somewhat directed which panels to excise and such but maybe one of the assistants added strokes to tree trunks and other marginal elements. But who knows? Does anybody know?
Delete