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>