Pogo (comic strip): Difference between revisions

 

 

 

[[Print Long Runners|Long-running]] (1948-1975, plus a brief late-1980s revival) newspaper comic starring Pogo Possum, Albert Alligator, Churchy La Femme, Miz Beaver and other [[Talking Animal|talking animals]] in Georgia's Okeefenokee Swamp. Starting from a fairy-tale-esque comic book and quickly moving to the newspapers, the strip became one of the all-time comic strip classics. Creator Walt Kelly, a former [[Disney]] animator, filled his strip with dozens, if not hundreds, of characters, all with distinct personalities, motivations and goals that would frequently collide. Kelly's ear for dialect and language, in addition to his skill with nonsense poetry, has been compared to [[Mark Twain]] and [[Ogden Nash]].

* [[Only Sane Man]]: Pogo and Porkypine were frequently the only two sane characters in an environment where, e.g., a rabbit can be celebrating all known holidays at the start of the year to save time, an owl and a turtle might develop advertising slogans for dirt ("D as in dirt! I as in dirt! R as in dirt! T as in orange pekoe!") while, at the same time, an alligator is plotting to make his fortune and retire to the Sunny Bermoothies ("Land of the onion and the eel!") by ordering a million boxes of dirt with a penny-a-box discount, and then return the boxes. Sanity is very definitely an optional extra in the swamp.

* [[The Owl-Knowing One]]: Gloriously [[Subverted]] and parodied with Howland Owl, who ''thinks'' he's a genius and is repeatedly shown to be an enormous fool even by Okeefenokee standards.

* [[Punny Name]]: Oh so many. Starting with Churchy La Femme.

* [[Reptiles Are Abhorrent]]: A rare aversion. Albert Alligator, while generally lazy and having accidentally swallowed a cast member or two, and at times getting duped into working for any miscreants, is still generally a nice guy.