Oog, the Moon!

I hope many of you were able to go outdoors and see the Super-Blood-Wolf-Moon! Right here, right now, it's due to be in totality in about an hour.

On the Road Again.

Alimentary (nom de plumed after an obscure nephoo of Albert), is our newish and active Friend-in-Kelly. I say 'active' cuz he is taking Kelly art and running places with it, so to speak. This piece of Kelly art, to my understanding, was for a comic book cover that didn't come to be. Alimentary has taken the black & white drawing and applied some nice color to it to give us a pre-holiday treat.

Thank you A! You've got the Kelly spirit, no doubt about it.

© Walt Kelly Estate

Party Kids

Hey there, hi there, ho there, we're as happy as can be, we're back on line, everything's fine and we've got an old Sun-dee . . . er, uh, Sunday. 

Yep, functionality is a good thing, and perhaps we can stay this way for a while. I need to work on a backlog of missed deadlines, and then—look out—more wonderful Kelly/Pogo stuff will continue coming your way!

Kelly allus had a thing about critters eating other critters, showing up all throughout the run of the strip. Can't be sure if that's what tickled his ribs, or if maybe he had a therapist who could conjure up all kinds of theories for his cannibalistic shenanigans (anyone who can talk and plans to eat another being that can also talk is a cannibal in waiting, in my book).

Notice the lettering on this early, 1950 strip. It's not as bold and perfectly integrated as it later would be. Kelly is credited with incredible lettering on the strip over the years, but I believe much of it may owe calligraphic gratitude to Kelly's later assistants.

For these early, early Sundays, once again a hearty thank you to DJ David B for scans! Again, I did some art editing to clean it up, yet I left a number of existing artifacts so as to keep it authentic to newspaper printing.

Happy Sunday, Kelly Sunday!

December 17, 1950

Wored My Feets Off Up to the Cuff

Well, things are a little bit mizable over here—not being able to scan for awhile, and having the computer machine still acting up somethin' fierce. But that's no reason to keep you thirstin' for more Sunday Pogo. No sir. Not when this blog has friends like DJ David B. who has come to our rescue with  some fine examples of EARLY Pogo. I did a bit of editing and wahlah, we have a HAPPY SUNDAY, KELLY SUNDAY.

This particular strip was, I believe, in the excellent Fantagraphics volume, but shown as a 3 tier format. Happily I have some others from David that will take us a bit beyond that volume. I will get some of those up as soon as I can, but first I have to haul the computer BACK to the shop and ask them PLEase make it a reliable machine again.

Next post I'll tell you a little history of how David has come by these lovely lovely strips that he is generously sharing with us.

November 19, 1950

A Gentmin Pirate Cap'n

Still in time here for Talk Like a Pirate Day, here be Churchy La Femme's first appearance in the Okefenokee, doin' his share of talking like a pirate. He ended up wearing a semblance of that hat for a number of years, even as he grew more innocent.

And check out his boat, the Jelly Rajah.

From Animal Comics #13 (a number Churchy grew to abhor)

Reindeers is Mythological Beasts

So, this is the following Sunday strip after the previous post's strip, and again is one of my favorites, just for the coloring, if nothing else. It's dark and rich and really cool for the red moon rising that changes phase, position and coloring.

And as pointed out two posts ago, it has a slight connection to a generation before, because of the architecture of the house being quite similar to the shoe house lines (disregarding the shoe) of the Mother Goose cover. Yeah yeah I know, big deal—but really, either Kelly was looking at that cover, or he had that house imprinted on his mind.

Visit from St. Nicholas

There's been a lot of versions of this weathered old poem, but this is (I think) a genuinely funny take on it. This was published at the height (or depths) of the Cold War, but you'll love this, little Posie of Pinsk.

Visit from St. Nicholas - 2