Pogo Vol. 3 by Walt Kelly, Hardcover | Indigo Chapters

It's in this volume (featuring another two years worth of Pogo strips) thatwe meet one of Walt Kelly's boldest political caricatures. Folks across Americahad little trouble equating the insidious wildcat Simple J. Malarkey with theascendant anti-Communist senator, Joseph McCarthy. The subject was sensitiveenough that by the following year a Providence, Rhode Island newspaperthreatened to drop the strip if Malarkey's face were to appear in it again. Kelly's response? He had Malarkey appear again but put a bag over thecharacter's head for his next appearance. Ergo, his face did not appear.(Typical of Kelly's layers of verbal wit, the character Malarkey was hiding fromwas a Rhode Island Red hen, referencing both the source of his need to concealMalarkey and the underlying political controversy.) The entirety of thesesequences can be found in this book. But the Malarkey storyline is only a tinyportion of those rich, eventful two years, which include such classic sequencesas con-man Seminole Sam's attempts to corner the market on water (whichPorkypine's Uncle Baldwin tries to one-up by cornering the market on dirt); areturn engagement of Pup Dog and Houndog's blank-eyed Little Orphan Annie parodyLi'l Arf and Nonny; Churchy La Femme going in drag to deliver a love poem hewrote, Cyrano style, on Deacon Mush-rat's behalf to Sis Boombah (theaforementioned hen); P. T. Bridgeport's return to the swamp in search of newtalent; and of course two rousing choruses of Deck Us All With Boston Charlie. In addition to presenting all of 1953 and 1954's daily strips complete and inorder for the first time anywhere (many of them once again scanned from originalsyndicate proofs, for their crispest and most detailed appearance ever), PogoVolume 3: Evidence to the Contrary also contains all 104 Sunday strips fromthese two years, presented in lush full color for the first time since theiroriginal appearance in Sunday sections 60 years ago plus the usual in-depthSwamp Talk historical annotations by R. C. Harvey, spectacular samples of Kelly'swork scanned from original art, and a whole lot more! | Pogo Vol. 3 by Walt Kelly, Hardcover | Indigo Chapters