Review of I Go Pogo

Walt Kelly, I Go Pogo, Simon and Schuster. This early Pogo book begins with a one-page vignette, which foreshadows the famous presidential campaign of Fremount the boy bug 8 years later. This is followed by a dissertation about the habits and job of Choo-Choo Curtis the mailman, or mailduck. Interesting to see that the notorious Wiley Catt looks quite a bit different in this early book then he does in those published later. The early version looks more like an actual wildcat. This is similar to the transformation that Pogo himself went through a few years earlier. Several other characters also had not yet acquired their final form, including Mr Mouse, the three bats (Bewitched, Bothered, and Bemildred), and Sarcophagus MacAbre. The character who looks most different from her mature form is Miss Ma'm'selle Hepzibah, but the one whose behavior changes the most in later books is Miz Beaver.<br><br>

The scene shifts, and Wiley Catt, Seminole Sam the fox, and Sarcophagus MacAbre the vulture decide they want to have turtle soup, starring Churchy La Femme the natural born turtle. Soon, turtle is on the run, and is being tried in absentia for whatever they can come up with to get him into the soup pot. It is disturbing, but also pretty realistic, how few friends turtle actually has.<br><br>

At this point, the book undergoes one of those dramatic shifts that many of them contain. Tammanany tiger shows up in the swamp looking for a candidate, whose name he can't remember. Pretty soon, many of the swamp critters settle on Pogo as the obvious choice for president. Pogo is not one of them. The book ends inconclusively, as they so often do, but we do know one thing. Pogo was not elected president in 1952.