from fifty years ago

[egypturnash]

One of the books I asked my mother to get for my past birthday was Ten Ever-Lovin' Blue-Eyed Years with Pogo - a retrospective of the strips first ten years, with commentary by Walt Kelly. It's the book that introduced me to the strip at eight years of age.

One thing I notice now, looking at it through the eyes of a professional cartoonist, is how dense the strip is compared to today's. In a typical daily strip, you have close-ups, long shots, bits of lovely backgrounds, and up to three punchlines. And possibly even more gags than that; not only might you have dialogue resulting in a punchline in panel 2, a topper in panel 3, and another topper in panel 4, there might also be other characters in frame acting as a sort of Greek chorus, commenting softly on the main action and making their own joke, or coming in at the end to join in on the final one. Sometimes one of the jokes would be broad, physical comedy. Slapstick. When's the last time you saw slapstick humor in the newspaper strips?

And, of course, some strips have no jokes. Not ones you want to laugh at, at least.

Comments

[bluerain.livejournal.com]

That book was like my Bible, during my teenage years.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

You too? This doesn't surprise me. n.n

[wolflahti.livejournal.com]

http://www.pogopossum.com/ (http://www.pogopossum.com/)

[normanrafferty.livejournal.com]

More modern cartoonists should study Walt Kelly and Carl Barks, yes.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

of course, in newspaper strips... how many people can try doing the sort of art Kelly did? There simply isn't a canvas big enough for another Pogo.

Except maybe in a Sunday-only strip. You could pack in about one weekday Pogo's strip worth of art and narrative in a Sunday strip. Maybe.

[mnemora-n-arial.livejournal.com]

Maybe not laugh, but certainly give a slightly savage grin of recognition...

[paka.livejournal.com]

Frank Cho puts in an incredibly good try, and though I don't find his stuff neccessarily so funny, his art's definitely up there with Kelly and Watterson.

[kinkyturtle.livejournal.com]

My mom and dad used to have the original editions of a lot of Pogo books from back when Pogo was still in the papers and first started appearing in books. They let me read them, and I enjoyed them, but didn't really appreciate what GOLD I was looking at until later in life.

Panel 1. JON: "Boy, Garfiend, comic strips are so stagnant nowadays, aren't they?"
Panel 2. JON: "Garfiend?"
Panel 3. GARFIEND: "Can't talk. Stagnating."