I Go Pogo

In my mind "Pogo" was the greatest of all comic strips. I remember as a kid hearing about how great it was and never really understanding, although I did like the fairy-tale parodies that appeared on Sundays. The problem was that I was born too late, because the golden age of Pogo was in the 1950s. I discovered this in college when I found some book reprints from that period. Like most great comic strips, Pogo had about ten years of brilliance before burning out into repetition and trying too hard. Of all the great strips, only "Peanuts" seemed to avoid this downfall, and that may have been because it was less about being fall-down funny and more about wry comment on the human condition.

Walt Kelly, a brilliant satirist, poet and artist, wrote and drew "Pogo." He had spent years working in newspapers and had been an animator with Disney, working on "Dumbo" and "Fantasia" (IMDB also gives him a writing credit for a Bugs Bunny cartoon.) He was incredibly generous with his work, giving away untold hundreds of his strips, and loved to travel. He apparently was also a two-fisted drinker and something of a womanizer. Late in his life diabetes hit him hard and just before he died he had pretty much lost his sight, and both legs had been amputated. But, as all artists hope, his legacy lies in the brilliance of his work, though it be but a tissue of paper reveries.