Prehysterical Pogo (in Pandemonia)

1967, possibly first edition
Walt Kelly
Prehysterical Pogo (in Pandemonia)
Original price $1.50, purchase price about $25
Very worn paperback
B+

I had a copy of this as a kid but lost it at some point.  I remembered it as having my favorite Pogo artwork, so a few years ago I shelled out some money to get a replacement.  There are two odd things about the art, one of which I remembered, and one which never struck me till this rereading.  Owl has again decided to launch his friends-- this time Pogo, Churchy, and Albert-- into outer space.  They're accidentally sent off ahead of schedule, thanks to Albert's cigar and Aunt Granny's Bitter Brittle Root Beer.  They land in what they think is either Mars and/or the prehistoric (and prehysteric) past, although their Australian pilot friend Basher later shows up and reveals that it's actually Alice Springs.  (He also makes a lot of references to Milton Caniff of Steve Canyon fame.)

Although there are some sequences back in the swamp, particularly with crooked storekeeper Mr. Miggle, who's founded Unknowns Anonymous, most of the story is set in Pandemonia.  So Kelly is freed to draw not only dinosaurs and zebra-unicorn hybrids, but half-clothed humans.  And I can't remember if there are humans elsewhere in Pogo.  I think there was a little black boy in the early days of the comic book, but generally it ran as a talking-animal newspaper strip.  One character is half-human, a cowboy centaur that I could've sworn all these years was John Wayne, but now I can clearly see is LBJ with the hat pulled down over his eyes.  The "Lone Arranger" is fighting with a Mao-Tse-Tung-like Buddha figure, both of them wanting to protect a little Asian girl who doesn't want protection.  The political symbolism is a lot more obvious to me now than when I was a kid.

Meanwhile Noah is preparing for a flood, despite a drought and despite the strike by the time-keeping rabbit in his hat.  And Albert has a romance with a dinosaur princess, despite his temporary single motherhood, leading to a picnic containing one of my all-time favorite puns.  Pogo trips over the inedible cake and says, "It din't improve the foot nor the cake."  The princess says, "My cute marble cake."  Pogo says, "Yeh?  I took that for granite."  (The second-best joke has a half-empty half-full observation about Keynesian economics.)

Even by Pogo standards, it's all kind(s) of crazy.  And fun.

I've now read more works from the 1960s than any other decade, although that record won't stand.