Pogo: Through the Wild Blue Yonder by Walt Kelly

This collection of Pogo comics was my bedside companion for several months, providing a break from other reading as I drifted off to sleep. Kelly's comic ran in my local paper when I was growing up, and not surprisingly, I was not very impressed with it as a child. It was hard to understand the satire or even the language sometimes, given the Southern dialect the characters use. I did enjoy some of the story arcs, and I liked the continuity, which contracted with most of the daily gag strips. It was funny and yet continuity like "Dick Tracy" and the serious comics did.

The collection at hand is from the beginning of the strip in the 1940s. I have not seen the follow-up volumes (though I'd like to) but the first one is well done, with strips nicely sized for reading. The color Sunday strips are included in the back, and a short essay describes Kelly's work as well as some of the ins and outs of comic publishing.

My recollection of the character Pogo was fairly accurate, and I began to understand the content of the comic as I grew up, so I was not terribly surprised at the humor. I don't recall many of the other characters, or their general dim-wittedness. If the content was close to what he was doing in the 1970s, I surely missed most of the humor.

I finished this slowly, over the course of 5-6 months, probably completed it about 12/15. I have shelved with with the comics books.