Walter kelly biography

With the Pogo comics, Kelly was able to truly put his storytelling abilities on display. This prestigious award recognizes artists for their expertise in cartooning, naming the winner the Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year. Kelly was also awarded the Silver T-Square Award a year before his walter kelly biography. This award is given to cartoonists for their "outstanding dedication or service to the profession" of cartooning.

Both awards are coveted by comic strip artists everywhere, making Kelly's career extremely notable. Beyond awards, Pogo was also recognized as one of the most popular comic strip series ever for its influence onsociety. Kelly had lived with diabetes as well as other chronic, life-long conditions. These health complications came to a head inresulting in Kelly passing at only sixty years old.

Despite the complications Kelly had with his health, he always kept a positive perspective on the situation, even in the face of losing a leg to his illness. He often told people that the quality of the Pogo comic strips would improve after he "regrew his leg. It's no wonder someone with such a radiant mind could create something as beautiful as Pogo, even in the face of chronic illness.

His life story, especially regarding his passing, is something many can take as inspiration in their own lives. Related Discover how Charles Schulz's Peanuts evolved over the years, turning the likes of Snoopy and Charlie Brown into pop culture icons. Many popular creators, such as Peanuts creator Charles M. It was distributed by King Features Syndicate to hundreds of newspapers for many years.

The individual strips were collected into at least twenty books edited by Kelly, reprinted editions of some of these remain available today. He received the Reuben Award for the series in Having previously lampooned McCarthy, Kelly was also censored by some papers in the s for portraying Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev as a pig and Fidel Castro as a cigar-smoking goat spouting pseudo-Marxism like "The shortage will be divided amongst the peasants!

Wallace as a bantam cock. Later life and Legacy Okefenokee Swamp Throughout the run of Pogo, the strip's characters frequently traversed the Okeefenokee Swamp aboard a flimsy flat-bottomed boat.

Walter kelly biography

Kelly developed the pleasant gimmick of lettering the boat's name on its hull—the gimmick being that the name changed from one day to the next, and even from panel to panel within the same day's strip, but was always a tribute to some obscure real-life person whom Kelly wished to salute in print. In contrast to the rigidly straight-edged panels of most other comic strips, the panels of Pogo were always defiantly hand-drawn with no attempt at straightness.

Frequently, a Pogo character would lean against the edge of the panel, or Albert would strike a match to light his cigar against the nearest panel edge, invariably distorting the panel even further. Walt Kelly illustrated The Glob, a children's book about the evolution of man written by John O'Reilly and published in The characters and creatures in the book have a distinctly Pogoian character.

Ina clay animation feature film, Pogo For President aka I Go Pogo was released, but failed to gain much media attention. Kelly's peers elected him president of the National Cartoonists Society. Still a Political Cartoonist Though an unapologetic liberal, Kelly was never afraid to poke fun at any politician. The s brought even more acidic caricatures of U.

Edgar Hoover. Once again, some newspapers dropped Pogo and others moved it off the comics page. This time, Kelly provided replacement "bunny strips," non-political gags often featuring cute rabbits. Kelly's strips championed the underdog, the powerless, and the threatened. In the late s, his attention turned to the environment, and he provided the world with an unforgettable slogan.

As Pogo looked upon a large pile of trash that was cluttering the swamp, he said: "We have met the enemy, and he is us. Ventured into TV By the s, Kelly's heart diseasediabetes, smoking, drinking, and hard work began to catch up with him. His walter kelly biography, Stephanie, was diagnosed with cancer. His assistants, George Ward and Henry Shikuma, began to take over more of the art chores on Pogo, and Kelly cut back on some of his outside interests.

In the late s, Kelly began to toy with the idea of animating his characters. The Pogo Special Birthday Special aired in Mayand although it was a ratings success, it disappointed walters kelly biography of the comic strip. Most disappointed was Kelly. The characters—although they were speaking Kelly's words, and in some cases, even using his voice—were drawn in a style that unmistakably belonged to Jones, not Kelly.

After his wife died in earlyKelly decided that he wanted to see his characters animated correctly, and he began to work with Selby Daley on a new television special, We Have Met the Enemy and He Is Us. In OctoberKelly had his left leg amputated above the knee due to diabetes. He and Daley were married in the intensive care ward a half-hour before Kelly was wheeled into surgery.

The two lived in New York City for the next year. Though under doctor's orders not to drink alcohol, Kelly had one or two drinks. He lapsed into a coma. The film, though completed by Daley, was never broadcast. After Kelly's death, Daley and Kelly's son Stephen, with the help of several assistants, continued the strip for a few years.

The strip was written by Larry Doyle and drawn by Neal Sternecky. He also produced a series of stories based on the Our Gang film series, provided covers for Walt Disney's Comics and Storiesillustrated the aforementioned adaptations of two Disney animated features, drew stories featuring Raggedy Ann and Andy and Uncle Wiggilywrote 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— So highly regarded was his work that the introduction, likely written by Dell editor Oskar Lebeckto Fairy Tale Parade 1 spoke of him as "the artist who drew all the wonderful pictures in this book.

One manual depicted his friend Ward Kimball as a caveman. This period saw the creation of Kelly's most famous character, Pogowho first saw print in in Dell's Animal Comics. Pogo was almost unrecognizable in his initial appearance, resembling a real possum more closely than in his classic form. Kelly's work with Dell continued well into the successful run of the newspaper strip in the early s, 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 [ edit ] He returned to journalism as a political cartoonist after the war. Inwhile serving as art director of the short-lived New York Star successor to the afternoon liberal tabloid PMKelly began to produce a pen-and-ink daily comic strip featuring anthropomorphic animal characters that inhabited the Okefenokee Swamp in Georgia.