Prehysterical Critters

In case you don't ever make it over to Whirled of Kelly, I thought fans of Pogo in Pandemonia would enjoy Walt Kelly's prehysterical critters from the 1952 book, The Glob. Thanks ever so much to OtherEric for sharing this image.

Walt Kelly — The Glob — 1952

A Dream Come True

This just in (literally): volume 1 of a series of 12 books that no Kelly fan should be without:

POGO—Through the Wild Blue Wonder, The Complete Syndicated Comic Strips—Volume 1, published by Fantagraphics Books, available NOW at your favorite booksellers.

Okay, so the only Pandemonia art in volume 1 is the magnificent drawing above. Collect all the volumes over the next few years and it WILL get around to the entire run of Pandemonia. In the meantime, the early strips are gorgeous.

Many of you saw the Pandemonia sequence for the first time on this blog, but to eventually own it, in hardcover no less—well, a dream come true.

Fabulous Fantasy Art

Fans of Pandemonia are probably fans of The Adventures of Peter Wheat. Keep checking in at The Whirled of Kelly for fabulous fantasy art!

At the Caves of Mystery

Check out this fanciful chapter of The Adventures of Peter Wheat over at Whirled of Kelly. It's not Pandemonia, but a precursor of sorts with grand Kelly characterization.

Dutch Treat

It seems the fellers tried blasting off for Mars any number of times over their years with Kelly. Because that's the gimmick of this whole Pandemonia thing, here are some pages from the fifties that saw print in a Dutch fan publication, StripSchrift. Great thanks to Norman Boyd for sending over this Dutch treat.

You don't need to know Dutch very well to be able to follow along, in fact 'Gobby Wombies' translates pretty well.

Tiny Folk of the Wheat Field

The first issue, ever, of The Adventures of Peter Wheat has been posted over at Whirled of Kelly. Come take a look, it's Kelly work you probably haven't seen before.

Above, a reconstructed 1948 poster giving you a synopsis of Peter Wheat's world.

Rare Treat

There's not been any new business in Pandemonia for quite a spell. But there's breaking news over at Whirled of Kelly.

Coming up soon will be the premier posting of the first three issues of The Adventures of Peter Wheat, Walt Kelly's adventure fantasy. Issues from this series are extremely scarce, but showcasing issues 1, 2 and 3, in order, is a rare treat indeed, courtesy of our friend OtherEric of the Digital Comic Museum.

Head on over to Whirled of Kelly, to see it unfold.. Here's a sneak preview panel:

Pogofenokee

This is not strictly related to Pandemonia, but just in case you toon in here but not at Whirled of Kelly, I thought you might enjoy this 1952 Walt Kelly drawing.

Abandoned on the Martian Ice Cap

Over the years, the boys have had the dream of reaching Mars any number of times. I believe they've tried for some of the other planets, and I know they've even had ambitions to land on the sun. Here Churchy is figgerin' to get to Mars some 14 years before he makes it as far as Pandemonia.

Post-Pandemonia

Post-Pandemonia, 1969, Kelly is having fun. Check it out at Whirled of Kelly.

Creator of Pogo

I've pre-ordered this book from Amazon. I hope you all will want to also.

Up and Walking

Sorry it took so long to get started, but the new Walt Kelly site is up and, well, walking. Look for it and please follow it at Whirled of Kelly.

I hope to see you there.

SERIOUSLY

Howland and Kelly 

(sounds like the name of a radio team show, doesn't it?)

Really, serious thought is being given this new 'blog. Just need a bit of time to organize the material.

In addition, I've got two long distance trips I need to make in the next three weeks, so my plan is to have the new 'blog up and running by November 7. I would dearly love to make it sooner, but all things considered, that's the way it is. I still have a few things to share on this 'blog, so keep checking back, but ESPECIALLY, come back around Saturday, November 7 to find the link to (working title) Ever-Lovin' Blue-Eyed Years with Kelly.

Thinkin' Out Loud

?

Not that any of you need to worry about it, but I'm still trying to decide some things about the new Kelly 'blog. 

Please indulge me while I think this 'out loud'.

I was hoping to bring over the Sunday, Kelly Sunday strips from The Pictorial Arts 'blog, but those are from 1964 and aligned with the calendar of this year. I can give up that gimmick and post them back to back here, but I also have strips earlier, from 1963, that really deserve a showing as well, and from 1965 (not to mention the rest of 1967 plus '68, '69, '70 and '71). So a big question is: Do we want strict continuity for the Sunday strips? Or maybe 'story arcs', of a few weeks here and there? I lean toward that concept so that I can also throw in a whole bunch of other Kelly material between story arcs. You know, each Sunday will have its date in its file name, as always, so if you're saving em, they'll all go into order as you dump em into a folder, or folders, if you want to do em by year. So you can still have continuity on your end of the deal.

I think I've just convinced myself to do it that way. 

I'm going to post some non-Pogo Kelly stuff here and there, cuz we all love Kelly, right? Not JUST Pogo, please tell me that.

OK, so, well, I've talked it out and feel better for it. If any of you have some strong feelings about something or other that I should know before I kickstart the new 'blog, do please let me know. But really, even if you've seen a lot of this stuff here and there, like the comic books, or the special stories from the books, I promise to make the scans big and clean and worthy of Kelly, so it might be fun looking at it all again. 

And who knows? Maybe I'll post something you've never seen before. Wouldn't that be fun?

Oop, Alors!

Well, this is it. We're at the end of our story for Pandemonia/Post-Pandemonia. The story ends here, because there is no reference to Pandemonia in the Sunday strips ever again, and in fact from this point Basher is never again seen in the Sundays as well. 

What happened in Kelly's mind that he could ignore the previous year and a half of continuity and just go back to business as usual?

And where do WE go from here? 

Well, I'm going to start another 'blog for Kelly's work, with lots of stuff that many of you may not have ever seen, but I'm still giving some serious thought to the format and contents. Please weigh in on what you might want to see while I do some prepping for the next Kelly volume.

That Strange Strawberry

Tee Hee and Sympathy

 Even the most ordinary of Pogo Sundays is full of fun and frolic, and even ordinary coloration makes the art even prettier.

See There?

You've all been extraordinarily polite in letting these dailies play out without complaint, as they have been a bit repetitive and dare I say, dull.  But, um. . . we're done with the dailies as of—here—folks. This is where I cut when I passed on the rest of my daily collection. Who knew back in the 80s that I'd ever want to post em on a thing called an internet. But at least I saved the really good stuff--wow--I did something right.

I've got three more Sundays to post, and then Pogo in Pandemonia will draw to a close with some final thoughts.

The thing is, I never got rid of my Sunday collection, so they go on for quite a long stretch. But they never refer to Pandemonia in any way. Even Basher will just up and disappear, never to be seen again.

So, I really think the Pandemonia blog will stand alone, here, for new fans to discover and explore, at least until the reprint books catch up. After three more Sunday posts I will discuss my plans for the NEW Walt Kelly blog and hopefully get some more feedback from you all, now that you've had a little more time to consider, um, how we'd like to see this go on.

See you in three.

Gack

 

Slab the Liverwoots