Pogo and Albert

by Walt Kelly

Book by Kelly, Walt

Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

American animator and cartoonist best known for the classic funny animal comic strip, Pogo. He won the National Cartoonists Society's Reuben Award in 1951 for Cartoonist of the Year, and their Silver T-Square Award in 1972, given to persons having "demonstrated outstanding dedication or service to the Society or the profession."

Reviews

[Frank · Rating 4 out of 5]

Here we find the origin of Pogo and associated characters of the swamp -- before it became a newspaper comic strip, some of them critters was published in a comic book called Animal Comics in 1942. "Some critters" -- Albert and Pogo and a human boy named Bumbazine were the main characters in the first stories.

This book is the first volume in a series "The Complete Pogo Comics", which acording to Series Editor Mark Burnstein "...will be reprinting, in chronological sequence, Walt Kelly's entire comic book output involving the Pogo menagerie." An ambitious and honorabobble undertaking to be sure.

As a longtime Pogo fan I find these first early strips fascinating. Pogo looks a lot scruffier, Albert looks pretty much the same... and the human Bumbazin "was dropped because, being human, he was not as believable as the animals" [per Walt Kelly, 1959, in "Ten Ever-Lovin' Blue-Eyed Years with Pogo"].

So yeah, hardcore Pogo fans will find this book quite interesting. Others not so much.