Pogo - The Complete Syndicated Comic Strips Vol. 3: "Evidence to the Contrary" by Walt Kelly

dedicated to Kim Thompson 1956-2013 a good friend of pogo

EDITORS’ NOTE e’re hoping you’ve been rereading Volume One and the Eisner Award-winning Volume Two so often that you didn’t notice the tardiness of Volume Three. While we’d love to tell you that the delay was strictly due to our exacting standards of perfection and a desire to get things just right, that’s only part of the tale, the less distressing part.

In June of 2013, our co-editor and co-publisher, Kim Thompson, passed away after a very unexpected and short bout with cancer. His absence left a big hole in the production of Pogo Volume Three, and it is with bittersweet feelings that this volume you are now finally holding is published without Kim’s name sharing editorial co-credit.

Thankfully, every volume of Pogo is ultimately a collaborative effort of indefatigable Pogo enthusiasts, and together we have assembled what we think is a seamless transition and fittingly exemplary volume in the series. That said, we have made one slight change from the previous volumes: we are replacing the extended Table of Contents and its weekly summaries of storylines with what we believe is a much more user-friendly index to the strips, painstakingly organized by Maggie Thompson and Carolyn Kelly.

We’ve also added another section. Since Walt Kelly and his critters were nothing if not quotable, it seems appropriate to create a section containing Noteworthy Quotes. This too has been compiled by Maggie and Carolyn. Our Consulting Editor has asked us to mention that his favorite Pogo line was back in Volume One. It was—and he’s sure you all remember it and quote it often—“Who flung the goo?” That’s always a good quote to know, especially these days.

This volume introduces the notorious Simple J. Malarkey, whose presence in Pogo seems to have caused a lot of people to notice that Mr. Kelly hadn’t been writing only about possums and alligators and owls. His swamp was always the swamp of the real world, but this apparently didn’t dawn on some people until they met Mr. Malarkey in the funnies section of their newspaper and realized they already knew him from the front page.

Mr. Kelly was really at the top of his form around the time he drew the strips that appear in this book, and he stayed there for a long, long time. This will be quite evident in Volume Four. We promise not to keep you waiting as long for it as you waited for this one.

— Carolyn Kelly and Eric Reynolds, Editors

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FOREWORD

By Mike Peters

alt Kelly was the Jonathan Swift of his era. Whatever he observed was fodder for Pogo. His comic strip was one long social and political editorial comment. Whatever interested him— TV advertising, newspaper editors, commercialism in Christmas —became fair game. Who does not sing “Deck us all with Boston Charlie” even if they haven’t read Pogo in a long time? There was a beat to the language, a natural rhythm, and if you got it, you absolutely loved it. And if you didn’t, Walt kept you mesmerized by the fabulous drawings and characterizations.

He was a philosopher of the first order: “We have met the enemy and he is us.” A combination of Joel Chandler Harris and Mark Twain, Albert the Alligator states, “You want to cut down air pollution? Cut down the original source…Breathing!”

Of course, of the thousand or so characters Walt created, the most effective was the treacherous wildcat who satirized Joe McCarthy. During the fifties, the scourge of our nation, McCarthy, turned lives upside down, drove artists and writers to suicide, and generally trampled the Constitution. While Edward R. Murrow and Herblock are credited with exposing the evil of McCarthyism, Walt showed him for a fool.

Even at an early age, I was blown away by the power of Pogo.

Of course, comic strips have always contained social commentary along with fun and entertainment. From the Yellow Kid to Little Orphan Annie to Li’l Abner, strips held up a mirror to society. But no one had gone up against a force as powerful as McCarthy.

And Walt did it in such a disarming way—sweet little swamp creatures threatened by a sly and sinister cat—that it is lovely, poetic…and devastating.

As a budding cartoonist, I was also taken by the amazing line work. I always tell young cartoonists that if it is fun for them to draw it, it will be fun for the reader to read it. In my life experience, there have been a handful of cartoonists who are a joy to read. Walt, of course, is one, and so are Charles Schulz and George Herriman as well as Mort Drucker and Jack Davis from MAD magazine. I remember that Jeff MacNelly (also on the list) would wax eloquent about Walt’s trees (yes, cartoonists do talk about such things).

When I first started drawing Mother Goose and Grimm, I drew the goose with a rather flat, round bill. But around five or ten years later, her nose was getting rounder and bigger, and Grimm’s nose was also big and round. So I made her nose longer, like an actual goose bill, and when I did that, I thought, “Boy, does that look great.” It felt so natural. It wasn’t until a couple of months later that I realized, “$#!%! I’m drawing Albert from Pogo!” Thanks and forgive me, Walt.

One of the few cartoonists to ever earn a Pulitzer Prize and a Reuben Award (from the National Cartoonists Society), Mike Peters has been creating the comic strip Mother Goose & Grimm since 1984.

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DAILY STRIPS

JANUARY 1-3, 1953

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DAILY STRIPS

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JANUARY 5-10, 1953

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DAILY STRIPS

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JANUARY 12-17, 1953

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DAILY STRIPS

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JANUARY 19-24, 1953

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DAILY STRIPS

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JANUARY 26-31, 1953

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DAILY STRIPS

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FEBRUARY 2-7, 1953

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DAILY STRIPS

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FEBRUARY 9-14, 1953

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DAILY STRIPS

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FEBRUARY 16-21, 1953

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DAILY STRIPS

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FEBRUARY 23-28, 1953

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DAILY STRIPS

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MARCH 2-7, 1953

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DAILY STRIPS

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MARCH 9-14, 1953

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DAILY STRIPS

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