POGO Vols. 1 & 2 Gift Set (POGO COMP SYNDICATED STRIPS HC BOX SET)

Pogo, Volumes 1&2, are beautiful books. As I opened my just-arrived volumes, I was expecting just a basic hardbound book of comics. What I found was a pair of books full of love. Let me explain. As a child, I spent my summers on the family ranch, miles from anything, where reading material was pretty limited. There were, however, a small collection of Pogo books, so I read them over and over, every summer. I still have those books, though the bindings are rotting, and they are very special to me. I bought these reprints, thinking this would be a nice way to read Pogo without further damaging those old volumes. I really loved those old books, but I never figured that other people put such value on Pogo comics as I did. Why would they? It was rare that I even come across someone who recognizes Pogo quotes, such as "we have met the enemy and he is US!" or Deck us all with Boston Charlie.So, when I opened the first volume of this set, I was unprepared for what I saw. Already the slipcover had impressed me. Beautifully done, with no advertising on it, fully covered with gorgeous color panels from Pogo. But the books themselves... Wonderful binding with embossed Walk Kelly art -- those ever present swamp trees -- opened to reveal typical Pogo endpapers, on luscious heavy paper that easily lays flat without any coaxing from the reader. The print is so crisp and perfect, you'd swear it was the original printing, maybe even better than the original. No crowding; three strips to the page, maximum. The pages are 9" tall by 11" wide, a generous format for horizontal comic strips. Everything about the books suggest that the people who got the artwork together, assembled and published them, truly love Pogo themselves. These are books that are made to please the people who made them. We're the lucky beneficiaries of their labor and love.In some fields of publication, I'd expect books like this to go for $150 for the pair, easily. To get something of this quality for this price is truly a bargain. If you're thinking about buying these books, quit thinking and just do it. You want them or you wouldn't be reading this. You're not EVER going to find anything better than this, or cheaper, so take the plunge and One-Click these wonderful books. When you get them, make some time to put your feet up and enjoy that old Walk Kelly humor, unlike anything else you've encountered in this world. Gosh-a-mickle-pickle-dickle, you know you want to see Strawberry Shortcut (Pogo, in disguise) woo Albert into giving up cigars, Beauregard leading a search party to look for himself, or Albert, Churchy laFemme, and Mouldy Mort (the frog) in the business of stirrin' cakes. Then there's the rather moving story of the search for the lost pup dog, with Albert carrying a sleeping Pogo back home after searching deep into the night, in vain. And plenty more of the great stories of the early Pogo strip. Don't hesitate. Buy this. Give it as gifts. Make sure this sells well, so that we can be sure of seeing the rest of the volumes. I want all of them! Now!Many thanks to the people who so lovingly brought this collection to us. I could not be more pleased.

Set in the Okefenokee Swamp of the southeastern United States, the strip often engages in social and political satire through the adventures of its anthropomorphic funny animal characters.Pogo combined both sophisticated wit and slapstick physical comedy in a heady mix of allegory, Irish poetry, literary whimsy, puns and wordplay, lushly detailed artwork and broad burlesque humor.Revisit Albert Agitator, Pogo Possum, the turtle Churchy LaFemme, and Howland Owl, among others. One of my favorites was Sarcophagus MacAbre: a buzzard and the local mortician. "Doom Looms!"I find myself using some of Kelly's nonstop malapropisms, fractured grammar, "creative" spelling and mangled polysyllables such as "incredibobble" and "hysteriwockle," plus invented words such as the exasperated exclamations "Bazz Fazz!," "Rowrbazzle!" and "Moomph!" Nobody understands.Or when I get the Christmas spirit and quote Kelly's popular song: Deck us all with Boston Charlie.Deck us all with Boston Charlie,Walla Walla, Wash., an' Kalamazoo!Nora's freezin' on the trolley,Swaller dollar cauliflower alley-garoo!Then there is the political commentary with a wildcat named "Simple J. Malarkey," an obvious caricature of Senator Joseph McCarthy; communist leaders Fidel Castro, who appeared as an agitator goat named Fido, and Nikita Khrushchev, who emerged as both an unnamed Russian bear and a pig.In the early 1970s, Kelly used a collection of characters he called "the Bulldogs" to mock the secrecy and perceived paranoia of the Nixon administration. The Bulldogs included caricatures of J. Edgar Hoover (dressed in an overcoat and fedora, and directing a covert bureau of identical frog operatives), Spiro Agnew (portrayed as an unnamed hyena festooned in ornate military regalia), and John Mitchell (portrayed as a pipe-smoking eaglet wearing hightop sneakers.)[12] Always referred to but never seen was The Chief, who we are led to believe was Nixon himself[citation needed]. (Nixon eventually made his appearance—as a reclusive, teapot-shaped spider named Sam.)J. Edgar Hoover apparently read more into the strip than was there. According to documents obtained from the FBI under the Freedom of Information Act, Hoover had suspected Kelly of sending some form of coded messages via the nonsense poetry and Southern accents he peppered the strip with. He reportedly went so far as to have government cryptographers attempt to "decipher" the strip.Walt Kelly wrote for 24 years. Now we have the comic strips being reprinted in 12 volumes. A classic lives on!To quote Kelly's most famous commentary on human foibles "We have Met the Enemy, and He is Us."

This is an incredible set. It contains two volumes of both syndicated daily and Sunday strips from 1949-52, in two sections(Daily and Sunday), each page with the week dated. A lot of work was put into these, and if your a Pogo fan, you better jump on this.I hope that, despite the sad passing of Walt Kelly's daughter, Carolyn Kelly (Just as the 4th volume of this set was completing editing in April 2017), these sets continue to come out until we have them all. She really put her heart and soul into these with Kim Thompson, and deserves much credit for enamoring her father's legacy with the strip's fans, and hopefully, introducing the strip to generations to come.Bonuses include a forward by Jimmy Breslin in Volume one, and Satirist Stan Freberg in Volume two, a section for all the strips, pre-syndicated, from the New York Star in 1948, Swamp Talk, Annotations and Historical data by R.C. Harvey, Editors notes by Kim Thompson and Carolyn Kelly, a wonderfully laid out table of contents with a synopsis of each week...But the best part of this to me is obvious in the painstaking delivery of quality of product. The book is magnificently put together, 9 inches tall by 11 inches long (the strips are huge man!) quality paper, beautiful covers for both volumes in a sturdy slide in case.Get it!

Recommended.Original and best of the funny animals comics

Just as good as when I read these many years ago.

One of the best comic strips ever in a very well done special edition. What a treat!

Fast shipping, Great packaging, Outstanding product, Highly Recommended! ★★★★★