Saturday, April 11, 2009

Pogo's Stepmother Goose

Walt Kelly turns a couple of familiar stories on their heads: a dark version of the Pied Piper, with the further unusual step (for being drawn in 1954) of using a handsome African-American as the Piper; then a rollicking Pogo version of Jack and the Beanstalk, without the beanstalk but with the cow that jumped over the moon.

From THE POGO STEPMOTHER GOOSE, Published by Simon and Schuster, 1954.

Copyright © 1954 The Estate of Walt Kelly

























3 comments:

Joe said...

BINGO! One of my favorite books by one of my favorite comic strip writers!

Muzzlehatch said...

I was a kid when I first read this book back in 1956. The townspeople in "The Town at the Edge of the End" were scarier than the monsters and gave me nightmares.

giralua said...

Also great, from the same book, were Kelly's illustration of the trial of the Knave of Hearts (Lewis Carrol) in which the judge was a dead ringer for Joe McCarthy — which was the theme of the entire book, including the frontspiece, dedicated to "Lewis Carrol and the children":

"The gentle journey jars to stop;
The drifting dream is done.
The long-gone goblins loom ahead
The deadly, that we thought were dead
Stand waiting, every one."

It is horribly relevant again today.