A 65 year-old premonition

In the 50's to 70's the 'funny' papers had their best contributor ever, before or since.  In the comic strip Pogo, the badly missed Walt Kelly blended intelligence, great artistic flair, imagination, satire, humor, and just plain wonderful escapism. His critters of the Okefenokee swamp in Georgia were fiction (I think), but they often clearly related to real-world events taking place outside the swamp.

Often Pogo was funny, but not always silly, and it usually had a serious, intelligent edge far above the level of anything on today's comics page.  Below is a timely example.  Deacon Mushrat represented the obvious sort of pompous, angry, 'true believer' presumptuous clergyman.  Pogo the possum, the star, was the very embodiment of good will; ol' Albert the alligator was a temperamental often boorish fellow, addicted to his seegars....but good at heart.

This image, from 1952/3, is a spooky premonition of current news.  Even over a half-century later, we can all sense Pogo's and Albert's reactions, I think.

From The Pogo Papers, copyright Walt Kelly and Simon & Schuster, 1952/3

The Pogo characters often were take-offs of real figures, including Nikita Krushchev, Lyndon Johnson, Joseph McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Spiro Agnew, Barry Goldwater, J. Edgar Hoover, and many others of their ilk and time, all cast as animals with appropriate traits.  It is easy to imagine who would be in those pages today.  What sort of animal would that person be?

Ah, wonderful Pogo, how we miss and need you now**!


**fortunately, some of the strips are still available in reprints.  Pure entertainment, not to be missed.  And it's impossible to believe that Pogo and his pals aren't out there, deep in the Okefenokee today, wondering how we can be as doltish out here in our 'real' world as we are.