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Pogo: The Complete Syndicated Comic Strips

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Pogo: The Complete Syndicated Comic Strips is a series of books published by Fantagraphics Books collecting the complete run of the Pogo comic strips, a daily and a Sunday strip written and drawn by Walt Kelly, for the first time.[1] Debuting in 1948 in the short-lived New York Star newspaper, during the strip's golden days in the mid 1950s it had an estimated readership of 37 million, appearing in 450 newspapers.[2] The first volume of this reprint series was released in December 2011.

Pogo: The Complete Syndicated Comic Strips
Publication information
PublisherFantagraphics Books
ScheduleIrregular
FormatHardcover
GenreHumour
Satire
Political commentary
Anthropomorphic animals
Publication dateDecember 5, 2011
No. of issuesEight published of twelve planned
Main character(s)Pogo Possum, Albert Alligator, Porky Pine, Churchy LaFemme, Beauregard Bugleboy, Miz Hepzibah, Seminole Sam, Howland Owl
Creative team
Written byWalt Kelly
Artist(s)Walt Kelly
Editor(s)Carolyn Kelly, Kim Thompson, Mark Evanier, Eric Reynolds

History

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Up until Fantagraphics began publishing this hardcover collection, the only somewhat complete trade paperback series, released by Simon & Schuster from 1951 to 1973,[3] had been the most comprehensive collection of the comic strip, "somewhat complete" meaning missing sequences, dropped panels, abridged plot lines and sometimes unsupplemented new drawings.[4] Fantagraphics had during the 1990s published an incomplete collection in an eleven-volume softcover series, covering five and a half years of the strip's run.[5]

On February 15, 2007, Fantagraphics Books announced that it had obtained the rights to publish a complete edition of Pogo, with a projected 12 volume comprehensive hardcover collection scheduled to be launched in October 2007, with books to be released on a rough annual basis.[5] In May 2007, Gary Groth of Fantagraphics Books reached out to comic collectors of all sorts in order to help Fantagraphics obtain the best source materials possible. In July 2008, one of the series' editors, Eric Reynolds, stated that he and Fantagraphics had been having a hard time securing good enough source material to reproduce the first couple of years of the comic strip.

By January 2011, it had become a running gag in comic circles online for someone to be "still waiting on Pogo". The first volume of the series was sent to the printers in August 2011, and in December, it was finally released. One year later, the second volume followed.[6]

Kim Thompson, co-publisher of Fantagraphics, died of lung cancer on June 19, 2013. In the aftermath of his death, Fantagraphics faced economic difficulties due, in part, to a major loss of sales that fiscal year, due to the postponing of 13 upcoming titles which he had been in charge of editing, nearly a third of the company's scheduled total output that year.[7] To keep the company afloat after all this turmoil, Fantagraphics launched a Kickstarter campaign on November 5, 2013; the goal of raising $150,000 was reached in about a week.[7] However, the publication schedule suffered from Thompson's passing, and the third volume was released in November 2014. It was dedicated to Thompson, "a good friend of Pogo".

On April 9, 2017, Carolyn Kelly, co-editor of the series and daughter of Walt Kelly, died after a long battle against breast cancer and its complications.[8] She had been responsible for painting the covers in the beginning of the series (volume 1-4), designing the books, restoring source material where it was needed and supervising the whole reprint project of her father's work. Mark Evanier, another of the series' editors, stated that by the time of her death, the work of their Pogo series had reached the point where no major restoration was required since they had come to the series' middle years, and source material was no longer scarce nor in horrible shape.

Contents

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Each volume is approximately 340 pages long and contains two years worth of chronological daily comic strips reproduced in black-and-white (just as the original newspaper printings were), as well as the entire sequence of color Sunday strips originally published during that same period. The daily one-row strips are arranged three per page and separated from the standalone full page Sunday strips.[9]

The books include extras such as prefaces by Jimmy Breslin[10] and Stan Freberg,[11] among others; weekly plot summaries of the strips; indexes for the comic strips; annotations by comics historian R.C. Harvey; samples of Walt Kelly's original art; and a biography of Walt Kelly, written by Steve Thompson.[4]

Volumes and box sets

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The volumes are available individually and in slipcase sets of two.

Volumes
Volume Release date Title Period Foreword by Page count ISBN
1 2011-12-05 Through the Wild Blue Wonder 1948–1950 Jimmy Breslin 320 978-1-56097-869-5
2 2012-12-18 Bona Fide Balderdash 1951–1952 Stan Freberg 344 978-1-60699-584-6
3 2014-11-11 Evidence to the Contrary 1953–1954 Mike Peters 344 978-1-60699-694-2
4 2018-01-30 Under the Bamboozle Bush 1955–1956 Neil Gaiman 344 978-1-60699-863-2
5 2018-10-23 Out of This World at Home 1957–1958 Jake Tapper 344 978-1-68396-133-8
6 2020-01-14 Clean as a Weasel 1959–1960 Jim Davis 344 978-1-68396-243-4
7 2020-11-10 Pockets Full of Pie 1961–1962 Sergio Aragonés 360 978-1-68396-376-9
8 2022-12-13 Hijinks from the Horn of Plenty 1963–1964 Lucy Shelton Caswell 344 978-1-68396-471-1
9 2025-07-15 A Distant Past Yet to Come 1965–1966 344 978-1-68396-965-5

Box sets

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Box sets
Volume Release date Title Period ISBN
1 2012-12-18 Pogo: The Complete Syndicated Comic Strips Vols. 1 & 2 1948–1952 978-1-60699-629-4
2 2018-03-31 Pogo: The Complete Syndicated Comic Strips Vols. 3 & 4 1953–1956 978-1-60699-864-9
3 2020-01-14 Pogo: The Complete Syndicated Comic Strips Vols. 5 & 6 1957–1960 978-1-68396-244-1
4 2022-12-13 Pogo: The Complete Syndicated Comic Strips Vols. 7 & 8 1961–1964 978-1-68396-491-9

Recognition

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References

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  1. ^ Leroy Douresseaux (February 20, 2007). "The Complete Pogo Joins Peanuts at Fantagraphics". Comic Book Bin. Retrieved February 1, 2019.
  2. ^ Matthew Wills (September 8, 2018). "The Most Controversial Comic Strip". JSTOR Daily. Retrieved February 1, 2019.
  3. ^ F. X. Feeney (September 17, 2012). "Us Is Doomed: On Walt Kelly and Mr. Fish". Los Angeles Review of Books. Retrieved April 7, 2019.
  4. ^ a b Michael Barrier (November 27, 2011). "Possums and Ducks and Bears, Oh My!". Retrieved February 1, 2019.
  5. ^ a b "Fantagraphics Announces Complete Pogo; Jeff Smith to Design Series". The Comics Reporter. February 15, 2007. Retrieved February 1, 2019.
  6. ^ Mark Squirek. "Pogo: Bona Fide Balderdash (Vol. 2) (Walt Kelly's Pogo)". New York Journal of Books. Retrieved April 7, 2019.
  7. ^ a b Angela Watercutter (November 13, 2013). "Fans Spend $150K to Help Save a Beloved Indie Comic Publisher". Wired. Retrieved February 1, 2019.
  8. ^ "RIP: Carolyn Kelly". Comics Beat. 10 April 2017. Retrieved February 1, 2019.
  9. ^ "Second volume of 'Pogo' shows Walt Kelly's political bite". www.chicagotribune.com. Retrieved 2019-04-07.[title missing]
  10. ^ "Pogo, Vol. 1 of the Complete Syndicated Comic Strips: 'Through the Wild Blue Wonder'". Publishers Weekly. December 5, 2011. Retrieved April 7, 2019.
  11. ^ Michael Taube (November 25, 2012). "Book Review: 'Pogo: The Complete syndicated Comic Strips, Vols. 1 & 2'". The Washington Times. Retrieved April 7, 2019.
  12. ^ Steve Morris (July 20, 2013). "The 2013 Eisner Award Winners Are…". Comics Beat. Retrieved February 1, 2019.
  13. ^ "Your 2013 Harvey Awards Winners". comicsreporter.com. September 7, 2013.
  14. ^ Wheeler, Andrew (July 11, 2015). "2015 Eisner Award Winners: Was This the Best Ever Year for the Eisners? (Hint: We Won an Award.)". comicsalliance.com.
  15. ^ "2019 Will Eisner Comic Industry Award Nominees". San Diego Comic-Con. Retrieved May 12, 2019.
  16. ^ Schedeen, Jesse (July 25, 2020). "2020 Eisner Award Winners Revealed". IGN.
  17. ^ "2021 Eisner Award Winners". www.dailycartoonist.com. 24 July 2021. Retrieved 2021-08-25.
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