Whirled of Kelly: 82 billion turtles

Friday, January 20, 2012

Girl of the Sterling North

Speaking of nameless turtles, here's a sweet strip from 1950 . . .

Time to Celebrate

Well, shet my mouf, it's time to celebrate!

In addition to our great blog friend OtherEric, we have another great blog friend, DJ David B. who 'spins comic-tunes' over at I.T.C.H. (International Team of Comics Historians). DJ David B. has generously opened his archive of very early Walt Kelly material, and most notably early Pogo Sunday strips starting as far back as 1950 (can't really go further back than that for those particular items).

Starting this Sunday I will be posting some of those treasures intermittently with the remainder of my stash, and still sharing OtherEric's treasures as well. What a win-win-win for Kelly fans, or at least the Kelly fans that has the knowledge to 'toon in here.

We'll chat some more on Sunday, but until then here is a little something that DJ David B sent over — a jpeg of original art for the very first Pogo daily. This is dated 1949 for the New York Post, but is slightly recycled from the 1948 New York Star that ceased to exist in 1949, where Kelly had been art director, drawing everything that needed to be drawn.

Note the torturous method of laying in the word balloons, with it's speedball lettering. Quoting Kelly himself, regarding this strip:

"These first Pogo drawings have him formed practically as he is now (1959), but without the dynamic torsion, the fins or the fog lights. The turtle in the strip here is not the notorious Churchy La Femme. He comes in later. This turtle and this worm are probably bit players. I have always felt that the 150 irregulars in the strip have work elsewhere, in other comic strips, on their days off, and probably fare better than we know."

See y'all on Sunday!