Walt Kelly and Pogo Sample file This page intentionally left blank Sample file Walt Kelly and Pogo The Art of the Political Swamp James Eric Black Foreword by Mark Burstein Sample file 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) ---- © James Eric Black. All rights reserved 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. Front cover: (inset) Self-caricature of cartoonist Walt Kelly; (bottom) Pogo Possum and Albert Alligator, (Artwork © Okefenokee Glee & Perloo, Inc., used by permission, all rights reserved) 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 Sample file Table of Contents 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 schol- arship 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.