Pogo's Will Be That Was

by Walt Kelly

Book Overview

Positively Pogo" are comic strips from around 1954 first published in newspapers. This part starts with the start of the television media with various characters doing things to break into commercials... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0671248545
• ISBN13: 9780671248543
• Release Date: January 1987
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Length: 381 Pages
• Weight: 9.20 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Russian Pigs, Satellites, and Grand Old Fizzicks

I have before me three three-inch tall plastic figures: One of Pogo Possum, one of Albert Alligator, and one of Churchy La Femme (the turtle). My six-year old niece likes to play with them from time to time, and is fascinated that Albert sports a cigar in his left hand. They are my inspiration for this review. _Pogo Will Be That Was_ (1979) is an omnibus of two Pogo classics: _Positively Pogo_ (1955) and _G.O. Fizzickle Pogo_ (1957). I believe that Anthony Boucher gave each of these books brief attention in his "Recommended Reading" column for _Fantasy & Science Fiction_ when they first came out. They are, at least in part, reflections of some of the goings-on in the fifties. _Positively Pogo_ runs from rehearsals for T.V. commercials (especially Kokola Kola) to events at the Australian olympics (such as boomerang duels). The chapter titles are arranged in quatrains of verse: "Merrily, Merrily,/ O'er the Lea,/ Verily, Verily/ Blue" and "Raggedly, Baggedly,/ Through the True,/ Haggardly, Haggardly,/ Flee". Other items of interest in this volumn include the debate on the relative virtues of dogs and alligators, an inanimate sea serpent that creates problems for various animals, a Russian Premier pig who claims to have discovered America, and a rocket knocked into orbit by a method that would have made Jules Verne proud. The International Geophysical Year (I.G.Y.), for tads too green around the gills to remember such things, was a period of time running from 1957 into 1958 devoted to the scientific study of the Earth. Satellites mapped and measured the planet, bathyspheres plumbed the ocean depths, Project Mohole drilled into the crust of the Earth. Expeditions were sent to the poles, to mountaintops, and along rivers. Volcanoes were studied. It was, I suppose, successful. But Walt Kelly suggested that we follow it up with the Year of Man, "a never ending year devoted to the study of inner space" (198). In the Okefenokee Swamp, the animals are concerned with such things. There is a report of an organization devoted to peace, which worked very well until it had more than one member. The G.O. Fizzickle Year is the Grand Old Year devoted to the study of Fizzicks (whatever they are). The critters want to know where Friday the thirteenth will fall in an eighteen month year. And if scientists have an eighteen month year, can they really be trusted to measure the size of the Earth? Good questions, those. There follows certain valuable information about the Moon ("Now this is the waxin' gibbous phase of the Moon, named after Sam Gibbous, a early explorer," 261); plans to push Russian trespassers off the point of the Moon ("Of course, we gotta make the plan foolproof," 262); and assorted side adventures with Little Arfin' Nanny, Beauregard Hound and a flea, a butterfly with chompers, an attempt to dig a canal that will rival the Suez, and a couple of witch doctors. There is a touch of political satire, but not as much as you will find in some of the