Walt Kelly
Walt Kelly | |
---|---|
Woodland Hills, California , U.S. | |
Nationality | American |
Area(s) | Animator, cartoonist, newspaper journalist, poet |
Spouse(s) | Helen DeLacy
(m. 1937; div. 1951)Stephanie Waggony
(m. 1951; died 1970)Selby Daley (m. 1972) |
Children | Kathleen, Carolyn, Peter, Stephen, Andrew, John, Kathryn |
Walter Crawford Kelly Jr. (August 25, 1913 – October 18, 1973), commonly known as Walt Kelly, was an American animator and cartoonist, best known for the comic strip Pogo.[2][3] He began his animation career in 1936 at Walt Disney Studios, contributing to Pinocchio, Fantasia, and Dumbo. In 1941, at the age of 28, Kelly transferred to work at Dell Comics, where he created Pogo, which eventually became his platform for political and philosophical commentary.
Early life and career
Kelly was born of
Kelly became close friends with fellow cartoonists Milton Caniff and Al Capp, and the three occasionally referred to each other in their strips.
Personal life
In 1930, Kelly graduated from high school and met Helen DeLacy at choir practice. DeLacy was a few years older than Kelly. DeLacy left her southern California position as a Girl Scout executive in 1935, hoping to leave Kelly behind. Kelly gave up his job at Bridgeport General Electric and followed DeLacy to Los Angeles, where he took a job at Walt Disney. Kelly and DeLacy then married in September 1937.[6][7] In 1951, Kelly divorced DeLacy and married Stephanie Waggony; the two remained married until Waggony died of cancer in 1970.[8] Kelly met Selby Daley in the late 1960s while working on The Pogo Special Birthday Special, a television special based on the Pogo comic strip. Kelly and Daley continued to collaborate professionally, and got married in late 1972.[5][8]
Kelly and DeLacy had three children: Kathleen, Carolyn, and Peter. He and Waggony had three children who survived infancy: Stephen, Andrew, and John.[9] A fourth child, Kathryn Barbara, died before her first birthday, an event he commemorated in the Pogo strip for several years thereafter with a bug character attempting to deliver a cake with one candle.[10]
Disney Studios
After relocating to
Kelly worked for Disney from January 6, 1936, to September 12, 1941, contributing to Pinocchio, Fantasia, The Reluctant Dragon, and Dumbo. Kelly once stated that his salary at Disney averaged about $100 a week. During 1935 and 1936, his work also appeared in early comic books for what later became DC Comics.
Kelly's animation can be seen in Pinocchio when
During the 1941 animators' strike Kelly did not picket the studio, as has often been reported, but took a leave of absence, pleading "family illness", to avoid choosing sides. Surviving correspondence between Kelly and his close friend and fellow animator Ward Kimball chronicles his ambivalence towards the highly charged dispute. Kimball stated in an interview years later that Kelly felt creatively constricted in animation, a collective art form, and possibly over-challenged by the technical demands of the form, and had been looking for a way out when the strike occurred.
Kelly never returned to the studio as an animator, but jobs adapting the studio's films Pinocchio and The Three Caballeros for Dell Comics, apparently the result of a recommendation from Walt Disney himself, led to a new and ultimately transitional career.
On May 25, 1960, Kelly wrote a letter to Walt Disney regarding his time at the studio:
Just in case I ever forgot to thank you, I'd like you to know that I, for one, have long appreciated the sort of training and atmosphere that you set up back there in the thirties. There were drawbacks as there are to everything, but it was an astounding experiment and experience as I look back on it. Certainly it was the only education I ever received and I hope I'm living up to a few of your hopes for other people.[11]
Dell Comics
Kelly began a series of comic books based on fairy tales and nursery rhymes along with annuals celebrating Christmas and Easter for Dell Comics. Kelly seems to have written or co-written much of the material he drew for the comics; his unique touches are easily discernible. He also produced a series of stories based on the Our Gang film series, provided covers for Walt Disney's Comics and Stories, illustrated the aforementioned adaptations of two Disney animated features, drew stories featuring Raggedy Ann and Andy and Uncle Wiggily, wrote and drew a lengthy series of comic books promoting a bread company and featuring a character called "Peter Wheat",[12] and did a series of pantomime (without dialogue) two-page stories featuring Roald Dahl's Gremlins for Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #34–41.[13] Kelly also then wrote, drew, and performed on children's records, children's books, and cereal boxes.
So highly regarded was his work that the introduction, likely written by Dell editor Oskar Lebeck, to Fairy Tale Parade #1 spoke of him as "the artist who drew all the wonderful pictures in this book."[14]
Although his health would not allow him to serve in the military,[15] during World War II, Kelly also worked in the Army's Foreign Language Unit illustrating manuals, including several on languages, one of his favorite topics. One manual depicted his friend Ward Kimball as a caveman.
This period saw the creation of Kelly's most famous character,
Kelly's work with Dell continued well into the successful run of the newspaper strip in the early 1950s, ending after 16 issues of Pogo Possum (each with all-new material) in a dispute over the republication of Kelly's early Pogo and Albert stories in a comic book titled The Pogo Parade.
New York Star
He returned to journalism as a political cartoonist after the war. In 1948, while serving as art director of the short-lived
Pogo
The Pogo
The principal characters were
The setting for Pogo and his friends was the Okefenokee Swamp. The Okefenokee Swamp Park near Waycross, Georgia, now has a building housing Kelly's relocated studio and various Pogo memorabilia.
Additionally, Kelly illustrated The Glob, a children's book about the evolution of man written by John O'Reilly and published in 1952.
Death
Kelly died on October 18, 1973, in
Influences
His influences included cartoonists
Legacy
Pogo was continued by Kelly's widow, Selby, and various assistants until the summer of 1975. Reprint books continued in a steady stream, including a series reprinting several original books under a single cover according to various themes—romance, elections—that ran into the 1980s. In 1977, Gregg Press reprinted the first ten Pogo books in hardcover editions with dust jackets. In 1995 Jonas/Winter issued another ten Pogo titles in navy blue cloth editions.
In 1988 Steve Thompson issued The Walt Kelly Collector's Guide (Spring Hollow Books), an invaluable and comprehensive resource of Pogo and other Walt Kelly-related memorabilia.
In 1989 the Los Angeles Times attempted to revive the strip with other artists, including Kelly's two children, Carolyn and Peter, under the title Walt Kelly's Pogo. The new strip ran through the early 1990s. Also in 1989, Eclipse Books began publication of a hardcover series called Walt Kelly's Pogo and Albert collecting the early Dell Pogo comic book stories in color, starting with the characters' first appearance in 1943. The series reached four numbered volumes, with volumes two, three, and four subtitled At the Mercy of Elephants, Diggin' fo' Square Roots and Dreamin' of a Wide Catfish, respectively.
In 2003 Reaction Records reissued Kelly's 1956 album Songs of the Pogo on compact disc. The album features Kelly singing his own comic lyrics and nonsense verse to melodies written mostly by Norman Monath. Kelly wrote music to seven of the 30 songs, according to the printed song book. The disc also features the content of Kelly's later recordings, No! with Pogo and Can't! with Pogo, which were issued as children's 45 rpm record sets in 1969, with booklets written and illustrated by Kelly to accompany his recorded performances.
In February 2007 Fantagraphics Books announced that it would begin publication of The Complete Pogo, a projected 12‑volume series collecting the complete chronological run of daily and Sunday strips, to be overseen by Jeff Smith and Kelly's daughter Carolyn. The first volume in the series was scheduled to appear in October 2007 but was delayed, reportedly due to difficulty in locating early Sunday strips in complete form. It was finally released in October, 2011.[19] Volume two was released in November, 2012, and three was released in November 2014. Four was released in January 2018 and five was released in October 2018. Volume six was planned for release in November 2019 but was delayed until January 2020. Volume seven was released in November 2020.
In 2013 Hermes Press began reprinting the comic book series of Pogo that predated the comic strip, originally published by Dell Comics.[20][21] The first two volumes were nominated for the 2015 Eisner Awards, and the third volume came out in late 2015; followed in 2016 by the fourth volume.[22] The fifth volume was released in 2017, with the sixth and final volume appearing in 2018.
Carolyn Kelly, having worked extensively on The Complete Pogo, died on April 9, 2017.[23]
In Nickelodeon's animated series The Loud House, the Loud Family's canary was named after Walt Kelly. Joe Murray, (creator of Rocko's Modern Life and Camp Lazlo) cited Kelly's work as his inspiration to create wacky anthropomorphic animal characters.
Awards and recognition
Kelly has been compared to everyone from James Joyce and Lewis Carroll, to Aesop and Uncle Remus.[5] He was elected president of the National Cartoonists Society in 1954, serving until 1956, and was also the first strip cartoonist to be invited to contribute originals to the Library of Congress.
- 1951: National Cartoonists Society, Reuben Award, Cartoonist of the Year[24]
- 1972: National Cartoonists Society, Silver T-Square Extraordinary Service Award[24] for "outstanding dedication or service to the Society or the profession".
- 1989: The Comic-Con International Inkpot Award(posthumous)
- Walt Kelly, an inductee into the National Cartoon Museum, (formerly the International Museum of Cartoon Art) is one of only 31 artists selected to their Hall of Fame.
- Kelly was also inducted into the Will Eisner AwardHall of Fame in 1995.
References
- ^ "United States Social Security Death Index," index, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/JBQR-K2V accessed 1 March 2013), Walter Kelly, October 1973.
- ^ "Answers - The Most Trusted Place for Answering Life's Questions". www.answers.com.
- ^ "Kelly, Walt. "An Autobiography by the Creator of Pogo." Official Pogo Website. 1954". Archived from the original on 2011-10-02. Retrieved 2011-09-15.
- ^ "Walt Kelly biography card from National Cartoonists Society". www.reuben.org.
- ^ ISBN 9780786479870.
- ^ "Walt Kelly Facts". biography.yourdictionary.com.
- ISBN 9781560978695.
- ^ ISBN 9781560978695.
- ^ "Kelly, Walt - Social Networks and Archival Context". snaccooperative.org.
- ^ "Blogfott: Kathryn B". 30 March 2013.
- ^ "Walter K. to Walter D., 1960". michaelbarrier.com. Archived from the original on 2010-03-29. Retrieved 2009-10-28.
- ^ Markstein, Don. "Peter Wheat". toonopedia.com. Retrieved 2 April 2020.
- ^ "The Return of the Gremlins". www.mouseplanet.com. 23 April 2008.
- Michael Barrier in his website's March 31, 2009 entry More Klassic Kelly Komix
- ^ Kelly, Walt: Phi Beta Pogo, p. 197, Simon and Schuster, 1989.
- ^ "We Have Met the Enemy, and He is Us: Pogo Possum and Politics in the Funnies". blog.timesunion.com. October 30, 2008.
- ^ "Walt Kelly". Archived from the original on 2012-01-27. Retrieved 2011-09-15.
- New York Times. October 19, 1979. Retrieved March 19, 2019.
- ^ "Archived copy". www.newsfromme.com. Archived from the original on 21 October 2011. Retrieved 15 January 2022.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) - ^ "HOMECBR NEWS WALT KELLY'S "POGO" COMICS REPRINTED BY HERMES PRESS WALT KELLY'S "POGO" COMICS REPRINTED BY HERMES PRESS". www.comicbookresources.com. 18 March 2013. Retrieved 6 January 2016.
- ^ "BOOK REVIEW: 'Walt Kelly's Pogo: The Complete Dell Comics'". The Washington Times.
- ^ "2015 Eisner Award Nominations". www.comic-con.org. Archived from the original on 2015-06-13.
- ^ "News From ME - Mark Evanier's blog". www.newsfromme.com.
- ^ a b Hahn Library. "National Cartoonists Society Awards". Archived from the original on 2007-11-13.
External links
- Quotations related to Walt Kelly at Wikiquote
- The Ohio State University Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum: Walt Kelly Collection Guide
- Lambiek Comiclopedia: Walt Kelly
- Toonopedia: Walt Kelly
- Walt Kelly at Inducks
- Walt Kelly at IMDb
- 1955 Walt Kelly publicity photos
- Internet archive of OGPI Pogo official site
- Animation Resources salute to Walt Kelly
- The Fort Mudge Most (Archived link to a Fanzine covering all aspects of Kelly's career)
- Inside front cover of Fairy Tale Parade #1