Sunday, September 15, 2013

Coloring Book

I'm still not able to function normally (whatever state of reality THAT is). The doctor calls it 'exhaustion', I call it 'too pooped to pop'. I guess I've been burning candles at both ends and beyond. With all the other stuff I've been doing, I haven't used the scanner in several weeks now (it used to be a nightly chore), so for now I need to use other folks' scans to keep the Kelly spirit alive, though we WILL get back to my Pogo Sunday strip collection in time.

You've prolly seen this cover before, but this scan by Jim Engel was too pretty to not show here (with just a teeny color tweak by me). Remember, I'm hoping to live long enough to eventually post nearly everything Kelly's ever drawn, whether we've seen it a thousand times or but never before.


6 comments:

  1. Welcome back, Thom!
    Don't overdo it! Even if it's hard to accept: This part of the world might go on (for some time at least...), even without your regular "service".
    Take care of yourself; family is more important than us.
    Only the best!

    Hun

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  2. Thom, Please don't come back here till you're well rested !
    Take care of yourself !

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  3. Thom,

    Seconding (seventhing?) what everyone else has said - don't worry about us until you're fully recharged! We love you for all your hard work, but us ungrateful sprats should be low on your list of priorities. Your health comes first. I say so primarily for selfish reasons - we want to have you around and posting for many years to come!

    I recently obtained a 1980 issue of the official Pogo magazine The Okefenokee Star on eBay. It reprints (as far as I can tell) the full contents of this coloring book. Each page is one huge drawing. While the pictures aren't nearly as detailed as Kelly's best work, it is exciting to see his linework and expressive character "acting" on a much larger scale than usual.

    Feel better,
    ~Craig

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  4. Yay, thank you so much—Hun, Michel and Craig! Your kind words make me feel better already. I know this is hard to believe, but I think I really did have an overdose of Kelly! Adjusting all those pages again and again, and again some more, kind of put too much salt in the soup, so to speak. I just need to pour it out and whip up another batch of broth.

    I'll be back. But really, guys, thanks!

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  5. Bob Scott, you left a lovely comment here, but it got lost somewhere when I clicked 'publish'. My deep apologies. It was a very nice compliment, thank you!

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  6. Sorry to see you're still in low gear, but that's understandable considering the amount of work you put in for Kelly's 100. I was surprised how muted an event it was online - it's not like the 100th is ever coming again, and yet it's been decidedly more quiet than it was in the oughts for Kelly aficionados. I don't think Pogofest has been active for a few years now. It's unfortunate that Kelly's talent and cultural impact seems to be increasingly relegated to cartoon historians.

    This is not to say that his impact isn't felt in a more lasting, subtle way if you look carefully. In this tumultuous time for print, it's not beyond consideration that heirs to Kelly's throne may have been overlooked. The best example that comes to mind of recent memory is D.C. Simpson's "Ozy and Millie" (http://ozyandmillie.org/). Set in a low-fantasy version of Seattle, Washington during the 90's, it has most of the hallmarks associated with Kelly's legacy: Mixing affable cartoon animals with occasional doses of unabashed social and political commentary. It ran under the radar for about a decade, occasionally garnering fairly prestigious awards, but never managed to secure newspaper syndication - coming to a close to a deliberate denouement in 2008.
    Although most people will likely never realize we had this comic come and go while we've been hoping for a Kelly successor of worth, it's not to be mourned: Simpson went on to create Heavenly Nostrils, which is being lauded as the best thing in comics since Watterson's Calvin & Hobbes and is expected to be syndicated to newspapers in the very near future. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTjBrK69VV4

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