Customer Reviews

Pogo Volume 11

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(3)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

"Pogo" is side-splittingly, screamingly funny. The southern-fried gumbo dialect, absurd notions, manic action, and lush artwork put slapstick, satire (plenty of satire, you'll learn a li'l history reading Pogo), and recycled old vaudville gags in a congenial mixture that stands up extremely well two generations after the strips in this volume were penned. The forewards to the strips are helpful for us young 'uns that don't get all the silly Adalai Stevenson gags. I wholeheartedly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys the funnies.

Rick Fung is mistaken when he writes that these are previously uncollected strips. I purchased the book for someone who already owned "The Incompleat Pogo", and so far we've been unable to find anything that wasn't included in the earlier collection.

Worth buying if you don't have access to the larger out-of-print collections, but a great disappointment to us -- it's heading for the used bookstore....

Volume 11 of Fantagraphics continuing series shows us a selection of previously unprinted strips. This book falls neatly between Pogo Papers and Incompleat Pogo. The wit and satire are just as strong as ever.

Buy this if you like Pogo. Buy this if you enjoy well drawn cartoons. Buy this if you like a little odd ball humor and a touch of pathos along the way.

Just buy this and get in line for volume twelve. Right behind me.

POGO POSSUM: THE ORIGINAL ANIMAL SUPERHERO

by

Steven Kostis


Some of you may have seen a piece of fan art I created a few months back showing Everyone's favorite Possum, Walt Kelly's Pogo Possum, dressed up in a superhero's costume and rocketing off into the air. The image may have disoriented a few Kelly purists--such as one user named Emmet Earwax who wrote that the real threat to the Okefenokee crew was "their own innate idiocy" and that "no generic superpowers could deal with THAT!". But if you study the history of comic books and television cartoons--you will find out that I wasn't being too far from the truth of the character.
In many ways, Pogo WAS the original animal superhero. His digetic occupation may have been that of a warm, friendly naif of an unassuming Everypossum, but even Kelly admitted that when he created the Pogo he "[didn't] really work at it". Yet in his actual role in the Swamp and thus the strip that bears his name he was the sole defender of all the other animals of the swamp, he rescued any one that was captured by the remaining swamp critters, he singlehandedly put the swamp back together after the other animals tore it apart due to said idiocy, and successfully stared down anyone who wished to disturb the tranquility of the swamp--all the functions of a superhero.
The elements of the Possum's own depiction have parallels to the two previous comic book heavyweight protagonists. Like Superman, Pogo's surface persona was in the newspaper business as a reporter, his missives at the fictional Fort Mudge Moan not being unlike the Man of Steel's own day job as Clark Kent. Like Batman, he was descended from aristocracy--and often used this as a vantage point to assist animals less fortunate than him. His real name was Ponce De Leon Montgomery Alabama Georgia County Beauregard Possum (southern aristocrat)--but most of the time he was simply referred to as Pogo Possum, rendering his own real name a de facto secret identity.
The very notion of the superhero is rooted in German Existentialist Friedrich Nietzsche's theory of the Übermensch (or Superman)--which first appeared in Nietzsche's tome Thus Spake Zarathrustra. The Übermensch/Superman in his original definition was "a highly creative person who sets a new example for society to follow by rejecting the Church in favor of becoming the most powerful person of the state." Siegel and Schuster's Superman had been the first illustration of this concept in the comics--and thus the first superhero in the genre that created it, science fiction. Bob Kane's Batman applied the new character archetype to the detective genre. And Pogo Possum was the form the superhero first took in the gentler genre of children's talking animal fiction.
Pogo expressed a desire to display his "natural-born talents" in even the earliest Pogo stories Kelly drew in Animal Comics. But when one sees these "natural-born talents" in action one notices that these were actually superpowers--he had superhuman strength (which was first revealed in the second chapter of the graphic novel Deck Us All With Boston Charlie), he could fly (which was first seen in Animal Comics #12), he could run faster than light (which was revealed when he competed in the 1952 Olympics in Sydney, Australia during Positively Pogo), and he even had superbreath (which he showed to Basil the Butterfly in the syndicated version of Basil's introduction). He displayed these "talents" in battle with such exuberance that they often spilled over into his activities during peacetime--such as when Howland Owl and Churchy LaFemme invited him to play baseball in The Best of Pogo. If this is typical of possums in the Kelly cartoon universe then one could say that the Possum's birth place of Canker County, West Virginia was populated entirely by superpowered talking opossums like himself--an opossum version of the planet Krypton, if you will. Only one of them settled down in the Okefenokee Swamp to become the place's hero--Pogo--and this was but one of many things that set him apart from the other members of the Okefenokee Glee and Perloo Society.
He was almost never dressed in anything other than a red and black striped shirt--and the few times he was in other clothes he was explained as playing roles other than himself, and therefore not on duty. The shirt was therefore not street clothes but a costume--brushed up against a possum body whose lower fur resembled a leotard and tights more than it did, say, Donald Duck's exposed bottom half--and whose tail billowed like a cape. And in the few times he was down to his nude bathing revealed the body of a superhero--including a muscular chest with cute little possum pecs and possum abs as well as powerful possum biceps on his arms--which his shirt hid well. It is not surprising, therefore, that as the Pogo strip continued to be drawn by Kelly and his assistants over the years, that during the streamlining of the strip even the shirt became skin-tight by 1968.
He even made THE POSES--arms akimbo, hands in front of the chest with a stern expression, et al.--whenever he discussed any issues with the other Swamp Critters, even if the issues were the most tranquil, such as what Mamselle Hepzibah's favorite holiday might be in Ten Ever-Lovin' Blue-Eyed Years with Pogo.
His very public conduct around the Swamp's Villians and Scalliwags was even one of the many things that outed him as a superhero as well. All throughout the Pogo strip's run it seemed on the surface as if the Possum was less inclined to deal with such foes as Seminole Sam (the resident con man) and Wiley Catt (the polar antithesis of Pogo) than his many friends. But while, say, Albert Alligator and Howland Owl drew the most fire against them, their efforts at defeating them were undone by their own innate idiocy--largely because their attempts involved military means. Only Pogo delivered the killing blows, using nothing but his own "natural-born talents". With Pogo Possum Powers, you don't need weapons--an important point that Kelly was effectively putting across in his pro-peace, antiwar thesis.
Pogo became even more of a superhero when his author Kelly made politics the default subject matter of the strip and had the Possum square off with such powerful figures as Joseph McCarthy (called "Simple J. Malarkey") and Nikita Khrushchev. Against such public figures of authority, Pogo Possum completed the transformation from the happy-go-lucky bystander into the Captain America of the repressed concerned citizen, delivering counterattacks to their threats that effectively silenced their efforts to disturb the peace of the swamp and the nerves of the actual Everymen reading.
Which brings us to the subject of the veracity of Pogo's role as an Everyman. The archetypal Everymen of Walt Kelly's day may have caught up on the issues in the news and the problems facing them and their communities--as did Pogo. But most actual Everymen (and Everywomen) at the time were too scared of doing anything about them, preferring to crawl back into either alcohol or lie in a stasis of suburban domesticity. Pogo, conversely, confronted said issues and their architects head on, either by engaging in conversations with them as a means of drawing their fire (as in the second half of Positively Pogo), or turning their own weapons against them (as in the first half of the chase in the 1980 film of I Go Pogo)--the natural reaction of a superhero. In the sociological environment of the late-'40s/early '50s (the Golden Age of Pogo) there may have been efforts at friendliness amongst actual "ornery persons"--but for the most part folks didn't interfere with each other's most personal business. Pogo, however, constantly asked "what's going on?" and kept a constant vigil on all the other animals in the Okefenokee Swamp, always looking for an opportunity to spring into action in the event that disaster struck. Just like a true superhero would. The "innocent and naïve Everyman" bit was clearly a disguise.
Pogo's most memorable scenes in the Pogo strip's run thusly depicted the Possum doing acts of heroism that were nothing less than superhuman. When Lyndon Johnson co-prosecuted with Seminole Sam in the trial of Albert over the supposed disappearance of Pup Dog, he drove them out of the Swamp Hollywood-style, shooting at them a-la Hopalong Cassidy with REAL BULLETS, at a time when very few people were questioning Johnson.
The Khrushchev episode bears repeating, as it was the moment Pogo's "Everypossum" mask finally fell. When the infamous Soviet leader attempted to subvert the Democratic process by crashing the 1956 Elections during I Go Pogo '56 late in Positively Pogo he DECKED the Communist leader in what would now be termed a Sonic the Hedgehog-style. When you have attacked a hostile authority figure in public, it is impossible to resume the life of an innocent bystander. Now and forever, you're either a superhero for the rest of your life--or you're roadkill. Pogo wisely chose to be the former, to the relief of millions of Pogo fans, such as poet Carl Sandburg and sociologist Maurice Horn. (Incidentally, ever noticed how much Sonic looks like Pogo?)
When Pogo wrote his own book on the Jack Acid Society (Kelly's send-up of the ultraconservative John Birch Society), he annihilated its various members (which turned out to be the Swamp Scallywags) by putting what must have been truth serum in their whiskey before each one of them began to speak--and offered the final coup de grace by offering his own name when Molester Macarony asked for names of people who believed in "peace and brotherhood" as "[he was] the only one [he was] sure of!" His Nietzschean roots even infected his support for freedom of religion, as when the Possum tried to comfort the followers of a Fallen God, he let slip his very knowledge of the fact that religion was a human construct--a rebuke to the machinations of the Swamp's deadliest Critter Deacon Mushrat (the evil town man of the cloth) if there ever was one. If that isn't the Sentient Opossum as Superman, I don't know what is.
Pogo the "Super Possum" came to the rescue twice in the Pogo Poop Book. In "Low Down Dirt Latest Poop on Jack Acid Society" he foiled an attempt in Germany to start a Fourth Reich on the 15th anniversary of the end of World War II. And in the "Kluck Klams" he deprogrammed the head of the Ku Klux Klan--and turned him into a hippie!
During the International Geophysical Year (as recounted in G.O. Fizzickle Pogo) the Possum offered as his own personal contribution the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to People--the first-ever manifestation of what is now termed the Chip and Dale version of animal superheroics, thus giving birth to the notion of the Rescue Rangers. Pogo was now ready to save the human race!
And if that weren't enough evidence that Pogo the "Innocent Possum" was gone and Pogo the "Super Possum" had taken his place, in 1968 (at the close of Pogo: Prisoner of Love) he finally stood up to both Deacon Mushrat AND Wiley Catt during an attempt to prove to his girlfriend Miz Mademoiselle Hepzibah (who had become something of a "Super Skunk" herself at that point) that he was sorry for being such a male chauvinist. The apology was accepted, and with the combined strength of Pogo and Hepzibah the Swamp was saved--from a scheme that Deacon devised to secede the Swamp from the union that came very close to destroying the Okefenokee Political infrastructure.
The now-Dynamic Duo of the Okefenokee Swamp then set out to become the orphaned Porky Pine's family later that same year in Pogo's first television appearance, The Pogo Special Birthday Special.
Pogo even negated the pacifistic commitments of his own creator when the Swamp had become inundated with pollution, which drove him to utter his Famous Last Words "We Have Met The Enemy and He Is Us". The Possum discovered that EVERY OTHER MEMBER OF THE OKEFENOKEE GLEE AND PERLOO SOCIETY had revealed him or herself to be secretly evil! Surrounded by the Biggest Disaster the Swamp had ever seen, Pogo gave the rest of the cast "a taste of their own medicine"--which finally drove the remaining critters to change their ways--before starting to lead in the Swamp's big clean up, thus cementing his reputation as the Swampland Superhero--and his place in history the First Animal Superhero.
Yet all the amazing things Pogo has done came unbelievably easy to him--and thus "'tweren't nothin'" Kinda makes one shudder to think what would be "somethin'" by the Possum's standards. Small wonder, then, that in the instances that Pogo announced that he "is run off" that the entire Swamp shrieked in terror in response--because the other critters self-flagellated on their innate idiocy, and couldn't survive without him. In fact, every time the Possum stayed out of the swamp for too long the whole place went to hell in a handbasket--witness the fire that breaks out shortly before Pogo and Hepzibah "kiss and make up" in Pogo: Prisoner of Love. Pogo held the fate of the entire Swamp in his cute little paws--and fortunately for the remaining members of the Okefenokee Glee and Perloo Society, they were in very good hands.
The term "animal superhero" did not exist in Kelly's day when he first created the Pogo--as a matter of fact, he was trying to get away from the crime and horror comics when he introduced Everyone's Favorite Possum in Animal Comics #1. It was only when Kelly shifted the emphasis from the Possum's non-superheroic sidekick Albert the Alligator and toward the Possum himself that his possum protagonist started to taken on that descriptor. Like the game of chess, this was a trend that started by mistake. The first announced animal superhero was Mighty Mouse--a mouse clone of Superman created by Paul Terry who tended to sing more than speak--the singing an auditory reference to the soundscape of Pogo. Six years later Terry's nephew Alexander Anderson read up on the Kelly Pogo comics and expressed his desire to create his own version of the Possum and Alligator. This was the second officially named animal superhero, Crusader Rabbit--assisted by the non-superpowered Rags the Tiger. And Crusader is of course the father of the most famous animal superhero of them all, Jay Ward's Rocky The Flying Squirrel, ably assisted by the mere mortal Bullwinkle the Moose. Rocky himself inspired a clone of his own--that of W. Watts Biggers's Underdog, a superpowered canine who was every bit as much a poet as Pogo and Albert was.
Later actual superhero comics in the '70s and '80s introduced superhero characters that were every bit as cute and politically astute as Kelly and his Possum--such as Steve Gerber's Howard the Duck and Roy Thomas, Scott Shaw! And Gary K. Wolf's Roger Rabbit, sometimes referred to as the costumed, superpowered Captain Carrot. Most recently, Hero Illustrated named as one of the greatest superheroes of the '90s Fone Bone and his brother Smiley, the stars of Jeff Smith's Bone--a comic series whose structure and protagonists were heavily influenced by that of Pogo. (The same can't be said of Michael Fry and T. Lewis's Over the Hedge, unfortunately--which only used the surface of Pogo in its structure. R.J. Raccoon and Verne Tortofsky may have a similar relationship to Pogo and Albert, but their occupations are that of suburbanites in stasis, and the subject matter is instead that of Happy Tree Friends).
The Disney animated show The Schnookums and Meat Funny Cartoon Show featured as its supporting characters Pith Possum (Superdynamic Possum of Tomorrow) and Obediah the Wonder Raccoon--extremely obvious clones of Pogo and his adopted nephew, Delishus the Rackety Coon Chile, respectively.
But in every official case of animal superheroics portrayed by the list above, it was Pogo who did it first--and it was Pogo who showed them all the way, and thus the inventor of the occupation animal superhero.
Kelly himself used the Bizzaro concept from Superman at one point in Pogo--in which Molester Macarony disguised himself as the Possum in an unsuccessful attempt to resuscitate I Go Pogo '62 late in Beau Pogo after Pogo once again refuses the Presidential nomination.
As if to bring home the point across, Pogo appeared in an issue of a genuine superhero comic in the late 70's--"Pog", an issue of Alan Moore's Swamp Thing. The Possum--portraying a visiting fellow protector from another world--recapitulated the first half of the We Have Met The Enemy storyline before lamenting that 1977 was too dark a year for the values that Kelly espoused during his lifetime.
(By the way, Roger Waters answered the question that Pogo's Famous Last Words proposed a decade later in "The Trial"--the penultimate track on Pink Floyd's 1979 album and 1982 movie The Wall. This is how you defeat the enemy within your soul: Understand that it is really a wall between yourself and the ones who love you, and tear down the wall!)
It is the dichotomy between the average Everypossum he claimed to be on the surface and the superhero he really was that is the reason why Pogo Possum is such a funny character, and more importantly why we love Pogo--and why even 37 years after Kelly's death we all feel we still need him. Stop saying he wasn't a superhero, genre purists everywhere--'CAUSE HE WAS.

I have previously purchased all ( over 20 ) of the POGO comic strip collections. This book did not add any new material, but since it is a current printing ( some of mine date to the 1960's and all are in paperback ) with high quality printing, I think it is a keeper. By the way, I am not a "serious" book collector, I buy books I want to read, share, and have fun. None of my collection is for sale, and no "serious" collector would want paperbacks with pages falling out and wrinkled covers, but for me -- for me, the delights of having my Dad read POGO while putting on special voices for Pogo, Albert, Churchy, Howland Owl, Deacon muskrat, and lots of other critters...

This is a fun book.