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>