Uncle Pogo So-So Stories

by Walt Kelly

Here is a book that should not be taken lightly -- if for no other reason than that book store proprietors have sharp eyes. It is the custom to pay one dollar per copy and it is hoped the trend will continue. If you find yourself in need, however, and must resort to that vanishing but basic flower of human ingenuity, the Clean Getaway, we forgive you and trust you to mail in the money at some late date when the dice have rolled in the right direction.

Genres: Humor, Comics, Comic Strips

Paperback

First published January 1, 1953

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

[StrictlySequential · Rating 2 out of 5]

1953 Edition = Third Printing = $1

This is a very appropriately named batch of shamelessly weak filler stories that were never in a newspaper- apparently he squeezed them into his regular schedule because the corporate overlord publisher needed more material, beyond the reprints, to fill reader demand. I'm only keeping this for my Pogo completionism.

For the freestyle (not daily/Sunday style) comics shorts he adapts, as loosely as one can, a few classical legends and some popular fiction into the Okefenokee swampverse. What I enjoyed most was that, during the Robin Hood type lore, he had them using Shakespeak along with their southernisms- I just love words like 'varlet'! It was nice to know, from watching the best 104 film noirs, inside jokes of the Dashiell Hammett film noirs, but he butchered it all so lazily.

Then, there are a bunch of illustrated poems that are just dopey lexicodialectical wordplay strewn abouts along with a->few->page prose story that I skipped- as my name demands.

[Al McCarty · Rating 4 out of 5]

1953 first Edition. A collection of parodies, fairy tales, poems and even a short prose piece unconnected to the Okefenokee swamp. I'm not sure if these pieces were original to this book, or cobbled from some other source, but it's definitely not from the regular newspaper strip continuity. A lot of silliness and Kelly's gorgeous cartooning.

[Rick · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kelly’s third collection of Pogo cartoons is not an anthology of his daily strips from 1953. Instead it includes a short story that doesn’t feature any of the characters from the strip and only a little bit of spot art here and there, illustrated sections of pun-filled doggerel, and special spoof stories of folk tales and less-traditional tales—parodies of Chicken Little, Robin Hood and Mickey Spillane, for example. Unfortunately, the joking reference in the title to the Kipling’s Just So Stories is a fair review of the collection. It is so-so. It’s the kind of collection that critics inexplicably say is just for fans but I’m a fan and I was disappointed in it. Even the drawing, inking, and lettering looks lighter, more slapdash, compared to the strips. It has its moments, the macabre short story where critturs literally turn table on an indolent, selfish couple and the final story where all the characters think they’re something else, Albert is an alligator mule, Pogo is a man, Churchy thinks he might be a dog. Caught up in Pogo fever, I picked up this and the fourth Pogo book from Alibris. My disappointment here, however, hasn’t inhibited my eagerness to start The Pogo Papers. It contains the strips from 1952-53, when Kelly and Pogo were coming into their own.

[Jean-Pierre Vidrine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Before reading this book, the only Pogo strips I had read were from the late 80's early 90's revival done by a hired creative team. Even without having read the originals, I guessed that those strips probably didn't live up to Walt Kelly's work. Reading this collection has proven that.
But even these are not "typical" Pogo strips. Here, Pogo is telling stories to some of the younger critters of the Okefenokee swamp, and the colorful cast of characters of the comic strip become the characters in these hilarious stories. I've never known anyone but Walt Kelly to jumble together the stories of Robin Hood and Little Red Riding Hood, even though it seems so obvious. There is also an unusual text story herein. The characters seem to be human (they are not illustrated), but their behavior and speech fit with the strip so well that I wasn't sure if I should have pictured them as Pogo characters or not.
Of course, the stories do have the classic Pogo touch of not-too-heavy-handed commentary on humankind and our silly behaviors that make the animals in the swamps seem so much wiser than us.
I hope that this is only the first of of a Pogo book collection for me.

[Mckinley · Rating 2 out of 5]

They were there so I read them - maybe too young to though.

[grundoon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not his strongest, but we're on the Walt Kelly scale here. (Grundoon sightings: cover, first panel, last page... no lines)