Pogo Vol. 1 & 2 Gift Set Author: Visit Amazon's Walt Kelly Page | Language: English | ISBN:
1606996290 | Format: PDF
Pogo Vol. 1 & 2 Gift Set Description
About the Author
Walt Kelly is the creator of the legendary Pogo comic strip. He was born in 1913 and passed away in 1973.
- Series: Walt Kelly's Pogo
- Hardcover: 688 pages
- Publisher: Fantagraphics; 1 edition (December 14, 2012)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1606996290
- ISBN-13: 978-1606996294
- Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 11.6 x 2.9 inches
- Shipping Weight: 8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Pogo, Volumes 1&2, are beautiful books. As I opened my just-arrived volumes, I was expecting just a basic hardbound book of comics. What I found was a pair of books full of love. Let me explain. As a child, I spent my summers on the family ranch, miles from anything, where reading material was pretty limited. There were, however, a small collection of Pogo books, so I read them over and over, every summer. I still have those books, though the bindings are rotting, and they are very special to me. I bought these reprints, thinking this would be a nice way to read Pogo without further damaging those old volumes. I really loved those old books, but I never figured that other people put such value on Pogo comics as I did. Why would they? It was rare that I even come across someone who recognizes Pogo quotes, such as "we have met the enemy and he is US!" or Deck us all with Boston Charlie.
So, when I opened the first volume of this set, I was unprepared for what I saw. Already the slipcover had impressed me. Beautifully done, with no advertising on it, fully covered with gorgeous color panels from Pogo. But the books themselves... Wonderful binding with embossed Walk Kelly art -- those ever present swamp trees -- opened to reveal typical Pogo endpapers, on luscious heavy paper that easily lays flat without any coaxing from the reader. The print is so crisp and perfect, you'd swear it was the original printing, maybe even better than the original. No crowding; three strips to the page, maximum. The pages are 9" tall by 11" wide, a generous format for horizontal comic strips. Everything about the books suggest that the people who got the artwork together, assembled and published them, truly love Pogo themselves. These are books that are made to please the people who made them.
Set in the Okefenokee Swamp of the southeastern United States, the strip often engages in social and political satire through the adventures of its anthropomorphic funny animal characters.
Pogo combined both sophisticated wit and slapstick physical comedy in a heady mix of allegory, Irish poetry, literary whimsy, puns and wordplay, lushly detailed artwork and broad burlesque humor.
Revisit Albert Agitator, Pogo Possum, the turtle Churchy LaFemme, and Howland Owl, among others. One of my favorites was Sarcophagus MacAbre: a buzzard and the local mortician. "Doom Looms!"
I find myself using some of Kelly's nonstop malapropisms, fractured grammar, "creative" spelling and mangled polysyllables such as "incredibobble" and "hysteriwockle," plus invented words such as the exasperated exclamations "Bazz Fazz!," "Rowrbazzle!" and "Moomph!" Nobody understands.
Or when I get the Christmas spirit and quote Kelly's popular song: Deck us all with Boston Charlie.
Deck us all with Boston Charlie,
Walla Walla, Wash., an' Kalamazoo!
Nora's freezin' on the trolley,
Swaller dollar cauliflower alley-garoo!
Then there is the political commentary with a wildcat named "Simple J. Malarkey," an obvious caricature of Senator Joseph McCarthy; communist leaders Fidel Castro, who appeared as an agitator goat named Fido, and Nikita Khrushchev, who emerged as both an unnamed Russian bear and a pig.
In the early 1970s, Kelly used a collection of characters he called "the Bulldogs" to mock the secrecy and perceived paranoia of the Nixon administration. The Bulldogs included caricatures of J.
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