Gopo Gossum

I'm now getting very close to completing a reading collection of classic Pogo books. These are the ones that Walt Kelly himself edited, more or less, from his famous comic strip. I used to read my grandmother's (yes, my grandmother's!) collection of these avidly when I was a kid, and I'm happy to say that they hold up magnificently today. Many of these volumes contain material that never appeared in the strips, from linking illustrations to bits of poetry to various Cold War and fairytale satires. For a true Pogophile, they're must-haves.

A new series of hardback volumes that are intended to present a comprehensive collection of all Pogo comic strips is in the offing, and that's something I keenly anticipate. But that otherwise worthy goal means they won't have the charming eccentricities that Kelly put into his own compilations. Have no fear, though, the material they will contain is the stuff that made Pogo a legend in his medium.