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Walt Kelly and Pogo

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Sample file Walt Kelly and Pogo The Art of the Political Swamp

James Eric Black Foreword by Mark Burstein

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McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers Jefferson, North Carolina This book would not be possible without the gracious permission of the artists, their syndicates and estates: All Walt Kelly artwork including the comic strip Pogo, personal drawings etc. is copyright © Okefenokee Glee & Perloo, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Pearls Before Swine ©  Stephan Pastis. Reprinted by permission of Universal Uclick for UFS. All rights reserved. “The Frog and the Ox” Barnum poster is reproduced by permission of the Bridgeport Histsory Center, Bridgeport Public Library. All rights reserved. Mark Trail © North America Syndicates, Inc. World rights reserved. Gasoline Ally © Tribune Content Agency, LLC. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission. Steve Canyon is a registered trademark of the Milton Caniff Estate. Steve Canyon is owned and copyrighted ©  by the Milton Caniff Estate. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Li’l Abner copyrighted © Capp Enterprises. All rights reserved. Used by permission. “McCarthyism” ©  by Herbert Block. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGUING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA Names: Black, James Eric, author. Title: Walt Kelly and Pogo : the art of the political swamp / James Eric Black ; foreword by Mark Burstein. Description: Jefferson, North Carolina : McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, . | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN  | ISBN  (softcover : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Kelly, Walt. | Comic books, strips, etc.—United States—History and criticism. | Satire, American—History and criticism. | Cartoonists—United States. | Pogo (Comic strip) Classification: LCC PN.K Z  | DDC ./—dc LC record availableSample at http://lccn.loc.gov/ file BRITISH LIBRARY CATALOGUING DATA ARE AVAILABLE

ISBN (print) ---- ISBN (ebook) ----

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Printed in the United States of America

McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers Box , Jefferson, North Carolina  www.mcfarlandpub.com To the love of my life, Sylvia Hui Yu Chen-Black

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Acknowledgments ix Foreword by Mark Burstein  Preface 4 Introduction 7

One. Getting Back There from Here 17 Two. The Cartoon Journalist 40 Three. Making Money and Having Fun 56 Four. Everyone’s Equal in the Swamp 77 Five. The Evolution of Politics in Pogo 115 Six. The Cold War Gets Hot 167 Sample file Seven. Simple J. Malarkey 196

Epilogue 218 Chapter Notes 229 Bibliography 243 Index 253

vi Acknowledgments

It took me six years to write the first version of this book and another year and a half to “de-dissertationalize” it, as my publisher put it, for a mass audience. It was not without the help of many gracious people. This book would have been impossible without the help and encouragement of those in the “Pogo Brain Trust.” Mark Burnstein and Steve Thompson have been with me since the first few days when I was first trying to figure out what exactly I was going to write about. Their knowledge of Pogo is amazing, and I hope to continue our rela- tionship into more projects. And Mark, don’t think I haven’t forgotten that Pogo care- package you promissed me. The art of Walt Kelly will always be the heart of all things Pogo. Pete Kelly, Scott Daley and the rest of the Walt Kelly extended family at Okefenokee Glee and Perloo, Inc. have encouraged and sustained me. They made themselves available to give me direction whenever I started to stumble and answer questions that were at times difficult to ask. I found the bulk of my archival research at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum in Columbus, Ohio. It claims to be “world’s largest and most comprehensive academic research facility” and I believe them. Jenny Robb and her entire staff (including the interns) hauled boxes and boxes of information for me to examine with cloth gloves and tooth picks. Billy Ireland is the Meccah for all cartoon research pilgrimages, and curatorial assistant Susan Lib- erator is the goddess. I could not have completed thisSample project without file the inspiration of my peers at Mercer University. Frank Macke and Kevin Cummings were instrumental in keeping my mind from morphing into Jello pudding. I spent untold hours in their offices learning from my two scholarship mentors. I would hand off unfinished articles and chapters to Kevin and say, “I know I have something here, but I don’t know what it is.” Miraculously, he always did. I would walk into Frank’s office and ask, “What do you know about this?” and two hours later I would have twenty things I had to research and include. Isaac Catt, who along with Frank and Kevin turned me on to general semiotics, was my greatest cheerleader for my academic work. “I like what you’re doing there, Jay” was my first academic badge of honor. My friends Damon Wood, David Wills, and Bill Ackerman were always a phone call away when I had writer’s block. Somehow they were always there to grease the gears of my brain and keep me going. My Mercer Department of Journalism and Media Studies and Center for Collaborative Journalism colleagues and friends are the best in the business. Center Director Tim Regan- Porter has been absolutely supportive of my endeavors even though they often took me in different directions than traditional journalism studies. Cindy Gottshall taught me how to be a professor. John Chalfa taught me to be kind yet firm with students.

vii viii Acknowledgments

My dean, Lake Lambert, even kept a ﬁre under my behind by constantly asking me if my book was done every time he saw me. “How’s the book coming… How’s the book coming…” It’s getting there, dammit! I even had a couple of former students edit copy for me. Kathleen Quinlan and Erin Garner Dentmon got me through the dissertation stage. My eldest son Will and his beautiful wife Anastasia reformatted the book for me and did a pile more edits. I feel old when I realize Will was a high school senior when I started this project. His little brother Joe is seven years younger than he is and will be a college sophomore when this book goes to print. I am truly blessed to have my loving family. My wife Sylvia was my true inspiration. She cooked me late night dinners, travelled with me when I did archival work, deviously took pictures of the New York Star comics when I couldn’t ﬁnd them in any book, and didn’t kick me out of the house when I would be four hours late getting home. I don’t want to even try to imagine how impossible of a task this project would have been without her.

Sample file Foreword by Mark Burstein

Pogophiles (once numbering in the millions; then for so many years “we few, we happy few”) have been enjoying a true renaissance—one might even say “feeding frenzy”—of late. Hermes Press is reprinting the complete early comic book work; Fantagraphics the complete daily and Sunday strips. The Songs of the Pogo album was released on CD by Reaction Records a few years back. A colorful illustrated biography, Walt Kelly: The Life and Art of the Creator of Pogo, came out from Hermes in . There have been Kelly panels at Comic- Con the last two years (, ), featuring Kelly- world notables and stars of comic strips (Jeff Smith) and animation (Dave Silverman of The Simpsons). The Pogo Fan Club thrives online (www.pogo-fan-club.org), and Kelly’s original artwork continues to command respectable prices. He’s penetrated YouTube, Facebook, and perhaps even the Twitterverse. And this bac- chanalia certainly does not preclude academia. The ﬁrst academic study I was aware of, Julio Velasco Pech’s PhD thesis “‘Pogo’ de Walt Kelly: Vindicación del Comic como Literatura,” was written in  for the University of Barcelona, although I now note that Terrence L. Warburton’s doctoral thesis, “Toward a The- ory of Humor: An Analysis of the Verbal and Nonverbal Codes in ‘Pogo,’” was accepted by the University of Denver in . BrighamSample Young University file Professor Kerry D. Soper’s We Go Pogo: Walt Kelly, Politics, and American Satire from the University Press of Mississippi in  took a broad view of his art and career. And now, as P. T. Bridgeport would say, “Rejoice!” for Jay Black has penned a thorough, learned yet readable study of a crucial aspect of Kelly’s career, the deeply felt politics of the strip. Kelly, as we all know, became re- involved in journalism after the War, having previously served as a crime reporter on the Bridgeport Post. He became art director of the short- lived New York Star, a leftist daily that succeeded a paper called PM, which began in  and fea- tured the editorial cartoons of one Theodor Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss. Moving into those oversize shoes, Kelly took over the Star’s editorial cartoon duty, moving later over to a daily comic strip featuring anthropomorphic animal characters, based on his earlier comic book work for Dell. Pogo was known for its biting satire of ﬁgures all along the political spectrum, his most famous being the skewering of Sen. Joseph McCarthy (the wildcat “Simple J. Malarkey”) in  through Spiro Agnew (a hyena) in , and others, such as the John Birch (“Jack Acid”) Society, Richard Nixon (as Malarkey’s sidekick Indian Charlie, later a spider), Lyndon Johnson

  Foreword by Mark Burstein

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Hall Syndicate promotion of Pogo []. Foreword by Mark Burstein 

(a Texas Longhorn centaur), George Wallace (Prince Pompadoodle), J. Edgar Hoover (a bull- dog), and Nikita Khrushchev (in several guises, including a pig to Fidel Castro’s goat) along the way. His slogan “We have met the enemy, and he is us,” based on Commodore Oliver Haz- ard Perry’s dictum, was first said in the introduction to The Pogo Papers () and popularized on the poster for the first Earth Day in . Pogo also was (unwillingly and unwittingly) run for president several times by his friends, and characters like Senator Bulfrog; Congersman Frog and his aide Fenster Moop, who later became a Congersman “hisself ” with his own aide, Feeble E. Merely; Molester Mole; the Cowbirds; Fremount the Boy Bug; pollsters Basil Mac- Tabolism and the Bats; and Tammananny Tiger were all characters with overtly political pur- poses. Kelly was deeply committed to his political views, largely fighting against hypocrisy and corruption, and always maintaining an overwhelming interest in ecology, then called “conser- vation,” and a loving humanitarian faith in the natural goodness of mankind. His political views caused Pogo to sometimes, as was Doonesbury in later years, be relegated to the editorial page, or substituted for with what he called “Bunny Rabbit” strips. Dr. Black has done the Pogoverse a huge service in filling out the details, vastly increasing our store of knowledge, and adding his sharp perspective and lucid writing to the complex topic of Kelly’s politickle pathways.

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Mark Burstein has been adoring and collecting Pogo since ; written, edited, or contributed articles to seventeen books about Kelly or his work, the ﬁrst being Much Ado: The POGOfenokee Trivia Book for Eclipse Books in ; guest curated the POGOlden Anniversary exhibit at the Cartoon Art Museum (– ); and runs a site for Kelly artworks at CartoonArtOriginals.com. Preface

Dr. Greg Lisby had the formative task of being chair of my Ph.D. committee. After several years of driving the  miles two or three times a week from Mercer University in Macon, Georgia (where I was and still am a full time professor) to Georgia State in Atlanta (where I was working on my graduate degree in Public Communication), Greg pulled me into his office piled high with law books and paperwork and told me that it was time to start think- ing about a dissertation. I was stunned. Oh, I had some high falootin’ ideas about Digital Journalism, Public Knowledge, and the concept of Truth with a capital “T” when he stopped me dead in my tracks: “You do know you are going to have to live with your decision for about two years, don’t you?” Then, I started talking about Michel Foucault, Jean Baudrillard, Theodor Adorno, and Max Horkheimer: Greg stopped me right there with a blank look. His addictive southern drawl always made my single syllable name into two. “Jay,” he said, “I know you like dancing with those French guys, but I don’t think they’re gonna take you home. I’ve seen too many grad students complete their classwork only to go ABD for the rest of their lives because they ended up hating their topics after six months.” He said I was a story teller rather than a theory junkie and too much was riding on me completing my degree to even consider “all but dissertation” following my name for the rest of my life. Suddenly, I knew GregSample Lisby did not wantfile me to write an opus just like all the other grad students. He wanted something different from me. “What about that paper you wrote on comic strips?” he asked me. I had some success with a paper I wrote called “Amoozin’ but Confuzin’: Comic Strips as a Voice of Dissent in the s.” The paper even won the Roberta Kevelson Award from the Semiotic Society of America. The paper was about the political significance of the Shmoo in Al Capp’s Li’l Abner. One of the basic premises of the piece was that comic characters, from Beetle Bailey and Charlie Brown to Dagwood Bumstead and Krazy Kat, by definition were antiauthoritarian. I did not know I could write a dissertation on comic strips. “So, let me get this straight,” I asked Greg, “I can write a dissertation on the scholarship of Al Capp or Walt Kelly?” Greg threw his hands up in the air and told me he saw no reason why I couldn’t. If Arthur Asa Berger could write “Li’l Abner: A Study in American Satire,” then what was to stop me writing something about Walt Kelly and Pogo. One might suspect this was the begin- ning of my dance card with Simple J. Malarkey, but I may have been destined to take on this task a long time ago for a far more personal reason. Like many kids my age, I made sure I was

 Preface  in front of the television in time for Dark Shadows and the afternoon newspaper comic page. I learned to read addicted to three panel strips. My father died when I was eight years old. I was shuffled from family friend to family friend as my father wasted away in a hospital about a hun- dred miles away from my home. As summer ended and the school year began, I moved in with neighbors by the name of Vince and Romaine Co- nig lio. I was a rambunctious and hyper- active kid who found trouble more than once while I stayed with them. Ro - maine often had to send me to my room to cool down, but I didn’t mind that punishment at all because their oldest son Vinnie had every Mad book printed before . I was first drawn to the earlier work and the slapstick humor, but it was not long before my Walt Kelly on a cigar box [n.d.]. visits to Vinnie’s room were consistent enough that I began reading the more political satire and parody. Not only did I find my nir- vana, but I also began to understand Pogo in ways that other kids my age could not. Vinnie had long forgotten his treasure and given me his Mad books when I was all but adopted by Bill and Sally Steis. TheySample were radio people. file Bill started with NBC in . One of his favorite stories he would tell was when he decided to quit his high paying job in the s to go back for his graduate degree. The House Un-American Activities Committee investigated him for doing so. They found that although he politically leaned to the left, he was certainly no Communist. Until I went off to college, they raised me in a household always talking about politics. I continued reading my Mad Magazines at home and the comic strips while I was folding newspapers for my bicycle route, but I also hung out at the newspaper office while I was waiting for my papers to be printed. I knew the reporters and artists by their first names. They would holler at me wondering about what I thought of specific stories as I walked through the offices, knowing that I may have been the only person in the city who had read every word of their publication. News and satire was always with me. Even today I spend hours and hours reading news. I remain addicted. One might say I was destined to tackle the politics of Walt Kelly’s Okefenokee Swamp critters, but that proved harder than I had antic- ipated. I had no starting point. No one had ever written a full biography of Walt Kelly when I started my dissertation. I was truly appalled. In my opinion, Kelly had originated the concept of modern political parody and he was all but forgotten during a time when The Daily Show and other late night comedians owed him so much. Kelly deserves to be remembered.  Preface

I began my research by ordering all of the Pogo books I could ﬁnd on Amazon and eBay. Walt Kelly began compiling his strips into books as soon as he retained the copyright to his characters. Thirty- four were published during his lifetime, many of which were best sellers. Selby Daley Kelly and Bill Crouch, Jr., published edited works from the pages of The Oke- fenokee Star and sequential strips. Fantagraphic Books compiled all of the Pogo strips through February , , and for some reason stopped. All of these paperbacks had been out of print for over ten years, so the copies I bought were mostly dog- eared and well worn. R.C. Harvey, however, was a godsend to me. He wrote the introduction to each of the eleven original Fantagraphic books in the series. He certainly did his homework and continues his annotations and historical Swamp Talk in the new beautifully bound hardbacks now being compiled by Walt Kelly’s daughter Carolyn Kelly and Kim Thompson. Pogo, vol. : Bona Fide Balderdash even won the coveted  Eisner Award for Best Archival Collection/Project. My understanding is that they should be all ﬁnished by , but don’t quote me on that. Walt Kelly would often send the original drawings to fans who wrote him. Finding the best copies is not always easy, so I had to go with hi- res photocopies from yellowing and crinkled books.

The Pogophiles are once again growing in ranks as cartoonists such as Pearls Before Swine’s Stephan Pastis, Bones’ Jeff Smith, Garfield’s Jim Davis, and Calvin and Hobbes’ Bill Watterson have all publically expressed their admiration for the man who created Pogo. Yet everywhere I looked I could not find any inspiration for two basic questions. The first few years of Pogo were surprisingly nonpolitical in nature. Why did Kelly suddenly and coura- geously decide to include political and social commentary in Pogo and how did he get away with it in the time of the HUAC and McCarthyism? Walt Kelly would not have been the first or the last cartoonist to be censored, arrested, or even killed because of political content. There had to be something about Pogo that shielded Kelly from any harm.