A Photo Taken 100 Years Before Photography was UN-vented

My Old Uncle Rip Van Turkle

Old R.V.T. — Now there's an interesting character.

HARD-A-LEE, Uncle Pogo

Ancient Country Folk Dance of the Leaves

Heh-Hew-Ha! My Soul!

Loot! Liar!

I Done Dagwell Double Did Doodad Dig It!

Yep, I can't imagine accurately translating swamp talk into another langridge. Kelly was superlific American.

Thirteen Friday, the Thirteens, INDEED!

Here I is Being the Omar Khayyam of My Day

A Long-Time Sit-Downer

You Gotta Get With It

After Due Ponderation

 Okay! Let's see if we can make this work, posting Pogo en Francais on the left and Pogo en Englais on the right, hopefully big enough to read, especially if you click on them. Update: Nope, I have them side by side on my dashboard, but they post as one over the other. 
So be it, I guess.

Frits van der Waa volunteered to take the English strips and stack them equivalently to the French booklet. Thank you, Frits! Just to remind you (from a long ago post) this French version was a 30 page supplement published in Spirou magazine. These strips are from 1966, just prior to the amazing Pandemonia cycle. 

The Okefenokee parlance is perty tough to translate to any language, so by comparison you can tell throughout that the translator went for the gist and undoubtedly lost the charm of Kelly's writing. And I thought maybe some English strips were missing, but Frits points otherwise, these being his words:

"There were no strips missing - on the contrary, there's one too many.

It's interesting to see what the French translator came up with. He took his liberties (made it more sixties-ish, with 'long hair' for 'beards', for instance). But translating Pogo is as good as impossible!"

The French version was originally sent to me by Michel Francois. Thank you, Michel! I'm not sure who sent the English strips, but I have suspicions.  

It's still time consuming lining up these pages for posting, so bear with me as I do only a pair at a time. I'll post them as my schedule permits.

Long Live Kelly!

R.V.T.

Churchy has an uncle by name of Rip Van Turkle, who shows up in 1966, just prior to Kelly's Pandemonia epic. A long time ago I posted R.V.T.'s episode, en Français, but now I can show the original English version as well, which I will start doing next post — even though I only heard from two (!) of you regarding an opinion of how to do it.

Very well, I've chosen the format to do it, now to just make it so.

Long Live Kelly!

Churchy and Uncle Rip Van Turkle, 1966

Enough to Make a Man Run Away

1966 and '67 was a remarkable period of work for Kelly, with not 'just' Pandemonia, but a high water mark for his artistry throughout, with beautiful rendering and surplus of details. In the 1966 strip directly below you'll see that he didn't need to show Rackety Coon playing ball or the bird and candlestick perched above Mister 'Coon. But doing that adds to the charm of our viewing!

And it's fun to pull up a strip, below, from 10 years before, that supplied a similar gripe of Mister 'Coon.  I think most of us married mens have felt like this at one time or t'other (only for a moment, dear).

July 6, 1957

Inedit en Francais!

Okay, I'm trying to figure out how to do this. Here's the situation:

Buried in my Kelly archives is a Pogo episode that is from a booklet published in French, from a period that hasn't been compiled in English (to my knowledge, and I could be wrong). These scans are pretty good quality and even have spot color here and there. For those who don't read French, they are still fun to look at, as the storyline seems to be a bit fantastical. 

I ALSO have the same story in the original printed strips, in English, BUT the resolution is less than ideal, though not terrible.

The question I pose to you all (and please do weigh in), should I post the entire French version, page by page, all the way through? And then the English version? OR do I post a page from the French book along with the equivalent English strips so you can follow the actual story? This idea would cause me more work, because I'd have to line them up and deal with strips that don't quite match up with a page content. I think it could get complicated for me.

BUT, I'm open to either direction. Please let me know what you think. I'd like to hear from more than just a couple of you. I'll wait several days for comments and go from there. 

Or maybe none of this is a good idea, in which case, oh well.

Here's an update:
Indeed I have posted this French version back in 2013, but here's what's what: Those strips are from 1966, just prior to the Pandemonia epic arc. I've had a kind offer from Frits van der Waa to assemble the English strips in some sort of manner to match up with the booklet. Unfortunately I notice that some of the English strips are missing here and there, so there will be some English gaps. But it will be fun to see some Pogo strips that Fantagraphics is still a ways from reprinting. Thanks, Frits, the file is on its way.

No Doubt

I jes' loves seeing Kelly's artwork in its original state, blue pencil and lush brush strokes. There were times when some strips might have had an assistant's help here and there, but it was Kelly shining through it all!

January 31, 1954

He Usually Flies Pan Am

Another extraordinary scene, far from the Okefenokee, and outrageous exposition from Howland, speaking I would say in Kelly's voice. And yep, Kelly usually flew Pan Am, having a contract with them that put him to good use.

Spread 7 of 7

To Soar! To Sing! Take Off! Take Wing!

It's rather astonishing what Kelly was capable of creating, and as much as I appreciate what he produced in his time, I just wish he could have created so much more . . .

Spread 6 of 7

Prehysteria

Kelly, turned loose!

Spread 5 of 7

Happy Sunday!

That's a powerful scene, there on the right.

Spread 4 of 7

More Exquisite and Lush Than Usual

This 1966 period was truly a major high water mark in comic strip history. To have this kind of art delivered to my doorstep every day was exhilarating, and I've saved every one of the strips to this day.

Spread 3 of 7

Looka THAT!

Even though there was plenty of trouble in the world in 1966 (is there a year when there's not?), I have fond memories of that year, and of course Pogo was a collecting cornerstone for me, along with so many other cheap thrill treasures.

My copy of Prehysterical Pogo did go blooey, but I'm happy to report that since those blogging days I found a near-mint 1st edition replacement copy. 

Spread 2 of 7

1966 — What in the Whirled . . .

Speaking of Pogo in Pandemonia, I did a little pictorial essay about it in my Kelly 100th Birthday Tribute Zine . . . what . . . seven (!) years ago. Some of you long-term viewers prolly downloaded that zine, but for those who haven't, and new-comers, I'll post some page spreads one at a time. 

Spread 1 of 7

The Fearless Army

I know I've posted this panel some time in the past, but it's such a beauty, and I'm experimenting here with full high resolution to see if it comes across that way on your end. Please let me know in the comments if it comes in large for you. If so, I'd love to post more panels at full rez.

This is from Kelly's peak of artistic creativity from the 1966-67 Pandemonia period. Even though I have all the tear sheets from that time, I hope I live long enough to see the Fantagraphics volume covering all that, just because it will be a beautiful book!

Me is for You and You is for Me . . .

I've been doing this blog for so long, with so many posts, and now a year hiatus, that I have little idea what I've posted or not. And I'm too time-crunched right now to look backwards. So for a while I'm just posting some random panels that I really like, even if they've been posted before, just to keep a ball rolling around here.

This is a neat panel anyway, but I especially like Beauregard's intense passion. Wack wack wack wack wack

Freedom in Your Future

Kelly did a lot of public service promos in his day. If today was his time period (and I know that's pushing a premise) you could bet that he'd be having the swamp folk promoting face masks and cavorting 6 feet apart. What a whirled we're in these days!

1962

A Message from 1973

A message from 1973 to us in 2020, via the Okefenokee, drawn probably by ol' Don Morgan, but emulating Kelly oh-so-nicely. 

Let's hang in there together, folks!

1973

Well, Whaddayaknow, I Think I'm Back On

Well, it's taken me the longest time to get back on this Blog, having been locked out for almost a year. I THINK I'm back on, so I'm testing this out with this front and back cover of one of my favorite Kelly non-Pogo works, Fairy Tale Parade #3. I may have posted this before, but if I did, well, here it is again. Let's see if this works . . .

Fairy Tale Parade #3

Well, well, it seems to work. except I couldn't get the first paragraph to flush left.

This cover and others like it are so comforting to me, even in my old age, during stressful times such as we have with Covid-19. The cover is timeless, colorful and magical—just what I need to calm my anxieties.