Review of The Okefenokee Star

This was a fanzine published in the late '70s. There were seven issues total. I have issues 2 through 6. A lot of the material originally published in the Star was reprinted in a series of three books (The Best of Pogo, Pogo Even Better, and Outrageously Pogo). Of course, a lot of what was in the Star was previously published Pogo comic strips. Most of the rest was ephemera and interviews with people who knew Kelly. <br><br>

Volume one number two, late summer 1977. This issue contains an interview with Ray Dirgo, circus illustrator and high school friend of Walt Kelly. An interview with George Ward, one of Kelly's assistants, is particularly interesting. The book also contains Kelly high school art, and Pogo strips that were published in the short-lived newspaper The New York Star. Many of these gags were repeated from the comic books published in the 1940s, and some were repeated again, albeit in modified form, in the syndicated strips in the '50s. The book also included a few cartoons by cartoonists Kelly admired, essays about Kelly and Pogo by various people, and the text of a speech he gave at a meeting of professional cartoonists.<br><br>

Volume one number three has a cover by Selby Kelly that closely follows Walt's distinctive style. This issue includes a write-up of a 1977 show of Pogo paraphernalia and artwork that was displayed for 2 months in the Bridgeport public library. This issue also covers the notorious police riot that took place when Kelly spoke at Harvard University in the early '50s. For this and other reasons, Pogo was selected as the mascot for the 25th reunion of Harvard's class of 1953. The book contains an autobiographical essay that Kelly wrote in about 1954, interviews with friends of his, and the remainder of the daily strips from the New York Star that were not reproduced in the first two issues of The Okefenokee Star. The story ended abruptly, because so did the New York Star. To my mind, the best thing in this issue is a long essay written by John Horn, a close friend of Kelly's. There are also some of Kelly's political cartoons from the New York Star, a literary critique of Pogo translated from the French, because it was written by a Frenchman, and quite a bit more. <br><br>

Volume one number four (October 1979) includes some pre-Pogo Kelly artwork, an advertisement the syndicate sent to newspaper editors to convince them to carry the strip, accompanied by some of the funniest early sequences of daily strips (reproduced here), and much more. This includes a humorous two-page biography of Kelly, and some political cartoons that he drew in 1948 for The New York Star. He used several different illustrating techniques, which are discussed in the accompanying text. There is an essay essentially saying that Walt Kelly was the godfather of underground comics, just like Lou Reed was the godfather of punk music. And then there is an article about the MAD magazine parodies of Pogo. Which are hilarious. And that's just the beginning. Wally Wood, to whom Kelly tipped his hat in one of his books, Election Extra, or Jes Fine Says Bug, was an acquaintance who did work on multiple parodies of Pogo.<br><br>

Volume one number five, January 1980, Walt Kelly's Pogo coloring book. The first part of the book is an explanation for children of the swamp and its denizens. Next, a story to be colored, which is drawn large. One panel per page. After this, a story drawn at a more ordinary size of one Sunday comic per page, also ready to be colored. The first story is just like the Pogo comic strip, although I don't remember seeing this particular one anywhere before. The second one is familiar to me. And there is plenty more, all for small children. <br><br>

Volume one number six, summer 1980. This issue returns to the format of the first four. This issue contains a passel of political campaign memorabilia. Letters, photographs, newspaper articles, reprints of early Pogo political strips, as well as the famous alternative bunny rabbit strips, and more. Walt Kelly on a radio show with Eleanor Roosevelt?! Yes, and also some Sunday baseball strips from 1970 that were never incorporated in a book.<br><br>

071126

Request That You Reconsider<br><br>

I haven't asked for much,<br>

we've hardly spoken lately,<br>

and that's my fault, I guess,<br>

tho you have my number,<br>

but this does seem a bit much,<br>

all the wars this world has seen,<br>

and more coming every day,<br>

nuclear clock counting down,<br>

world hot as you know what,<br>

shootings on the Tik-Tok,<br>

or whatever.<br><br>

Couldn't you have sent the Rapture,<br>

saved a few sinners,<br>

before the Four Horsemen<br>

(a bit sexist now I think of it)<br>

cut loose?

071026

Non-Poultry In Motion<br><br>

Apatosaurus<br>

I'm in love with your<br>

stupendous throat<br><br>

don't pity T. rex<br>

for its stunted two-clawed arms<br>

foreplay<br><br>

Stegosaurus<br>

I could've been a dragon<br>

hear me chirp

Review of Pogo, volume 8

In the late 1980s, through 2000, the comics publisher Fantagraphics attempted to reprint all of the Pogo newspaper strips in large format, but thin, paperback books. Eleven volumes were published, which is nothing like what would have been required to reproduce the complete run of newspaper strips. Fantagraphics seems to have run out of steam. Volume 8 was published in 1997. This volume covered half of 1952 (April 11th to October 3rd of that year, to be precise), a presidential election year, and the first year that the denizens of the Okefenokee swamp got involved in politics. This proved to be red meat for Walt Kelly. The book does not include the Sunday comics, which were thematically independent of the continuous story that played out in the daily strips. In the 2010s and 2020s, Fantagraphics did this again. However, this time the books were large format hardbacks, and they did include the Sunday strips, with color. At the time of writing, eight of these books have been published, of 12 planned. If they make it to 12, that should be all of the newspaper strips, and it would be the first time any publisher succeeded in reprinting all of them. Naturally, this is not all of Pogo. Many of the books that were published during Kelly's lifetime included material that never showed up in the newspapers, as far as I can tell.<br><br>

Review of Outrageously Pogo

Walt Kelly, 1985, Outrageously Pogo, edited by Mrs Walt Kelly and Bill Crouch Jr. Reprints from The Okefenokee Star fanzine, Fireside Books and Simon & Schuster. This is the third book reprinting material from The Okefenokee Star.<br><br>

The book contains high school Kelly art, the dailies from 1951, excerpts from Kelly's illustrated life of PT Barnum, interviews with people who knew Kelly, public service cartoons, photos of Kelly, work for another comic strip that never happened, lots and lots of Sunday strips, a cover of a popular science publication, Christmas dailies that I think never appeared in any books that came out during Kelly's lifetime, and much more. In fact, there is so much in this big thick book that I wouldn't even try to summarize the rest. Of the three reprints from The Okefenokee Star, this might be the best.<br><br>

070726

Landing <br>

the purple leaves <br>

plants edible but foul <br>

our earth seeds don't germinate here<br>

Oh God

Review of Pogo Even Better

Edited by Mrs Walt Kelly and Bill Crouch Jr, 1984, Pogo Even Better, Fireside Books and Simon and Schuster. A compilation taken from the pages of The Okefenokee Star, a professional looking fan magazine authorized by Mrs Walt Kelly. The cover says that the book contains classic cartoons, articles, photos, and special creations. This is a big book, and I had to photograph it a different way than I did all the others. Most of the ones I have not reviewed yet are also large books..<br><br>

This book is a sequel to The Best of Pogo (1982). The first book included the oldest Pogo strips, up to mid 1949. The next batch are in this book.<br><br>

The characters look a little different than they did for most of the history of the strip, but only a little. Some of the gags are repeated. The earliest strips were comic books, and all the stuff from them that Kelly thought was good showed up again in the early newspaper strips. One gag that showed up at least five times over the years was when somebody would dig a hole and find a box or trunk full of jewels, usually labeled W. Kidd or something like that. Then they would either re-bury it or toss it into the water. One example, probably the second occurrence, is in this book. Other gags used in these early strips were repeated with variations later too. In the early days, Wiley Catt and Seminole Sam decided to cook Pogo for dinner. In a later book, the two of them plus Sarcophagus MacAbre tried to cook Churchy La Femme. The two episodes were similar, but lots of details were changed in the second occurrence.<br><br>

The book contains a humorous biography of Kelly up to the age of 37. It is more or less factual, as far as I can tell. Next we find part of the illustrated life of PT Barnum, which was published in the Bridgeport Post. It was one of Kelly's first jobs as an artist. The sample is accompanied by a commentary by Kelly, reprinted from the book Ten Ever-Lovin' Blue-Eyed Years With Pogo. This is followed by a few pages of early fantasy artwork, and a bit of a complete Mother Goose book that he illustrated.<br><br>

 We next come to Pogo's origin story. He was born in 1943 in a comic book, and was syndicated in newspapers beginning in 1949. This is followed by some early Pogo comics, and then a bunch of baseball flavored Sunday pages. A primer for parents about the evils of TV, if it were written today, would probably be about the Internet. <br><br>

I note that at least some issues of The Okefenokee Star are available for sale. As far as I can see, you'll have to pay at least $15 to get one. These two compilations are financially a better bet, even though, for the true fan, the magazine is an alluring prospect. I do have a couple of issues of the Star, and will review them in due course.<br><br>

The book also contains some promotional art by Kelly, supporting UNICEF, the Salvation Army, and other such groups, weather toons for the front pages of newspapers, and more Sunday strips, these from the early '70s, which were never collected in one of Kelly's Sunday books.<br><br>

Christmas was Kelly's favorite holiday, and every year there was a lot of hoorah about it in the strip. A bunch of these are reprinted in this book. Maybe, but I believe not all, of these were previously published in various Pogo books issued during Kelly's lifetime. The book also contains newspaper strips from 1950 and various promotional materials.<br><br>