humans begging <br>
in front of the hotel <br>
Earth simmers
Tuesday, August 25, 2026
Monday, August 24, 2026
Review of The Complete Syndicated Comic Strips volume eight
Walt Kelly, October 2022, Hijinx from the Horn of Plenty, The Complete Syndicated Comic Strips, Volume 8, Fantagraphics. A large format hardback, part of a planned 12-volume series. Color slipcover and Sunday comics reproduced in color. Edited by Mark Evanier. Forward by Lucy Caswell. <br><br>
This book contains the first of two sets of bunny rabbit strips. These were strips that were created as alternates for some with possibly too much political content for some editors or readers to stomach. The next set of bunny rabbit strips will be reprinted in volume nine.<br><br>
This volume begins with the daily strip for January 1st, 1963 and the last daily strip included is that for December 31st 1964. The color Sunday funnies begin with January 6th 1963, and end with December 27th 1964. Our story begins with secrets, secrets that are so secret, nobody knows them. Then, this problem is transformed to a reading contest, and then a seeing contest, between Albert and Pogo. <br><br>
The bats absent-mindedly eat up all their poker chips and decide that the best way to get replacements is to secede, declare war, and surrender so that they can get reparations. Sounds like a plan! Now that they have their own three-person country, they have to defend its borders. <br><br>
Kelly always made a lot of puns in Pogo, but I think the strips in this book have even more than usual. There is one sequence in which the mouse and two worms make pun after pun for days on end. <br><br>
This is followed by an interplanetary beauty contest, which ends with cheaters being run out of town. At least it didn't start a war, like the mythological beauty contest did in ancient Greece and Troy. The beauty contest was mythological, but the war was real. <br><br>
After that is the famous visit of the two-headed dog, and weeks of media mockery as a result. Kelly considered himself a newspaper man, and hung out with them in his free time. However, members of the media sometimes act like clowns, and Kelly portrays them that way at great length. He returns to this after quite a few pages of various kinds of nonsense. The swamp people are trying to get Pogo to run for President again, and the intrepid reporters from Newslife come to investigate. They ignore everything that Pogo tries to say, so they don't even know who he is. This happened every 4 years, beginning in 1952. Pogo doesn't want to be President, but plenty of other people do. And lots of people have opinions about who would be the best candidate. Candidates include Snavely the snake and Typo, the reporter from Newslife. The latter is backed by the weighty team of Deacon Mushrat and Molester Mole. PT Bridgeport is late to the polls, and he garners 0 votes. Well, you can't win them all.<br><br>
The Sunday comics are usually completely distinct from the dailies, including different stories that sometimes last for weeks and weeks. Late in 1963 Sundays contained what is at least the third parody of Little Orphan Annie that Kelly drew. And after that, one of several parodies of Chicken Little.<br><br>
This volume also contains a parody of Pogo that Walt Kelly drew for Mad Magazine, and an essay by RC Harvey about the language of Pogo. The essay focuses mainly on the numerous allusions to literature and events of the day, which the average reader might not be savvy to. He follows this up with some of his favorite quotes from this volume, and the book ends with an index.<br><br>
Walt Kelly was a really fast artist and, perhaps because of this, sometimes he forgot something. Like the stripes on Pogo's shirt, or the line on a fishing pole (see page 41). <br><br>
Sunday, August 23, 2026
Saturday, August 22, 2026
Friday, August 21, 2026
Thursday, August 20, 2026
Wednesday, August 19, 2026
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