Review of Pogo volume 11

Walt Kelly, June, 2000, Pogo volume 11, Fantagraphics. This book contains the daily strips from August 31, 1953 to February 12th, 1954. Sadly, this is the last volume of Fantagraphics' first attempt to reprint all of the syndicated Pogo daily newspaper strips. That left us out in the cold from early 1954 to sometime in 1973, when Walt Kelly died. Almost 20 years! The strip went on for a few years after that, with several different artists and writers, but it wasn't the same. Fantagraphics has begun again, and this time tha books are hardbacks and include color Sunday strips. The new series will include all of the strips in 12 volumes, of which 8 have been published so far. I do not know if they plan to include any of the strips that were written and drawn by other people after Walt's death.<br><br>

RC Harvey's  introduction ties the comic strip into the events of the day, and also points out particular humorous sequences that Kelly laid out and that Harvey thinks are particularly funny. Topics range from the Red scare, to assaults on academic freedom, and the baseball world series. This was also when a subcommittee of the US Senate convened hearings aimed at censoring comic books. Kelly and other comic strip artists feared that they and their work would be next. Several comic-strip artists, including Kelly, spoke at the hearing, and the result was that newspaper strips were not considered for any censoring action. According to Harvey's research, this was largely because of Kelly's skillful managing of the event.<br><br>

This book contains the story of Snavely and the apprentice cobra, the second appearance of the bug with the birthday cake, and Owl's famous attempt to start a school, in which sports seems to be the most important subject. Also, the faculty teaches a whole lot of nothing, which is what many public figures prefer schools to teach today, even as they did then. Amusingly, perhaps, while Deacon Mushrat was the main critic of this school, he later founded a school himself, which enjoyed a similar level of success.<br><br>

The old year ends, and the new year begins with a new take on how to be a new man, or at least how to resolve to be. The nonsense continues with lifetime feuds and comic books.<br><br>