Review of Impollutable Pogo

Walt Kelly, 1970, Impollutable Pogo, Simon & Schuster. The book begins with breakfast. This is followed by a learned discussion about revising the calendar, and then the discussion turns to plans to reduce air pollution by cutting back on breathing. This is interrupted when a bug wakes up the groundhog, but the groundhog turns out to be a bear. The bear bears a very strong resemblance to Spiro Agnew (see the cover). Plans proceed apace for a TV interview show, via seance, with those who are gone, to get their testimonials in favor of not breathing. Meanwhile, Sarcophagus MacAbre, the natural born vulture and professional undertaker, hosts a concert of funeral marches in his digs. "Do you know the effete sorcery of sophistry is fallacious?" is not something you read in just any book.<br><br>

Albert Alligator contemplates giving up cigars as the main drawback to giving up on breathing. Meanwhile, the concert devolves into a judicial discussion of the sort one would expect from today's Supreme Court.  Churchy La Femme is identified as the long-haired rebellious sort who should be in jail. He's bald, but they solve this problem with a wig and toss him into the slammer. That's just the beginning, of the end. Soon, the nonbreathing seance TV show and the court in Sarcophagus's digs merge for a finale, which, if not grand, is certainly final.<br><br>

So on the one hand, this book is full of slapstick, just like many, really all, of the Pogo books. And it isn't overtly political, except for two things. Agnew's caricature has a prominent role, and Kelly is taking a big stick to the workings of the judiciary. Not to mention the foibles of the public, who are somehow convinced that not breathing is going to be both practical and a good cure for pollution.