Bill Peckmann &Comic Art &Illustration 18 Aug 2011 06:47 am
Animal Comics & Pogo
- Bill Peckmann sent scans of an incredible comic. It’s an early issue of Animal Comics (June/July 1947) with Walt Kelly‘s Pogo making an early appearance. The bulk of the magazine is the Pogo story, however there are a couple of other short pieces. We have doubt that Kelly did these other strips, (Jigger, Chuck Wagon Charley, Uncle Wiggily, and Rover), so if anyone out there knows, please drop a comment. Other than that, all I can say is enjoy and thank you Mr. Peckmann.
comic cover
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Jigger was done by the great John Stanley
of “Little Lulu” fame.
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on 18 Aug 2011 at 7:57 am 1.Mark Mayerson said …
It’s always been interesting to me that during the 1940s, Kelly put a ton of effort into the drawing of his fairy tale comics and tossed off the Pogo work. While Pogo became his meal ticket, I wonder if he really took the strip seriously (from a drawing standpoint) until it became the only thing was drawing.
Shortly after Animal Comics, he was the editorial cartoonist for The New York Star, where he also did Pogo, and during the late ’50s he was doing 16 page comics for Krug’s Bakery featuring Peter Wheat.
It’s only in the ’60s that the art in Pogo really took off.
on 18 Aug 2011 at 8:29 am 2.Bill said …
Mark’s comments about Krug’s Bakery rang a bell. As a kid, my parents had home delivery from Krug’s, and one of the perks (besides their really good baked goods) was the “Peter Wheat” comics. Unfortunately, Kelly by that time had passed the baton to Al Hubbard of “Mary Jane and Sniffles” and many Disney titles fame. A very good artist with a distinctive and easy going style, always liked him.
This site sez it all, neat!
-Bill
on 18 Aug 2011 at 9:57 am 3.Jonah Sidhom said …
I’m sure I’ve never seen those Pogo comics before, and I grew up in the 90s, but I feel like they’re a part of my childhood somehow.
I love that style—if that’s Walt Kelly not putting in much effort, I HAVE to see Pogo in the ’60s.
on 18 Aug 2011 at 12:18 pm 4.Dewey McGuire said …
“Jigger” is the work of John Stanley, best known for Little Lulu.
on 18 Aug 2011 at 12:45 pm 5.Joel Brinkerhoff said …
Pogo is Joel Chandler Harris or Uncle Remus gone barking mad.
on 18 Aug 2011 at 1:28 pm 6.The Gee said …
Kelly didn’t use a straight-edge to ink the panels. That’s surprising.
A couple of things about the Peter Wheat:
- I never even heard of it before now. The art is really nice and it is an interesting promotional piece. I guess it was one of the things that tied in cartoons with ads for baked good, predating the old Hostess ads that used to be in comic books.
- When i saw the character’s name, I immediately thought it was going to be about Peety Wheatstraw. Which would have been freaky. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petey_Wheatstraw
But, instead of seeing the “Devil’s son-in-law†it was “the pope on a pegasusâ€
on 19 Aug 2011 at 2:46 am 7.Tim said …
My grandmother use to tell me, on her knee, about
Uncle Wiggly. As a child she used to wake up before
the others to get the Sunday paper so she could
read his adventures. Seeing this excerpt and the
lively illustration and expressions of the characters, I can see why.
on 19 Aug 2011 at 7:08 am 8.Michael said …
I’m surprised no one’s mentioned the Uncle Wiggily game. It was as popular as Monopoly during the 50s & 60s – for kids, at least. Certainly, it was as big as Candyland.
on 19 Aug 2011 at 11:58 am 9.Michael Barrier said …
I remember the Uncle Wiggily game, although I have stronger memories of the Uncle Wiggily stories. I was particularly fascinated by the tags Garis included at the end, along the lines of, “If the milk bottle doesn’t drink too much and throw up on the cream pitcher, I’ll tell you about how Uncle Wiggily skinned the Pipsisewah alive and made him into a throw rug.” (That’s not a real example, of course.) I can’t pull up the name of the Wiggily artist for Animal Comics, but Rover is by Dan Noonan and Chuckwagon Charley looks to me like Moe Gollub’s work.