Two weeks ago was a special fund-raiser at the Cartoon Art Museum about the work of Walt Kelly. Walt Kelly is probably one of the greatest cartoonist, writers, artist in history (IMHO) and a huge influence on many. Well…it seems not as many artist know his work (and you know who you are), but should.
Walt Kelly’s best known creation is Pogo Possum. Pogo is a big hearted Possum living in the Okefenokee swamp. Along with his cohort Howland Owl, Churcy Le Fem, Porky Pine, and Albert the alligator; Walt Kelly treated us to non-sense songs, play on words, political satire, and messages about conservation. And while some of the work is very adult, kid’s of the day loved the whimsical animals and silly stories.
The panel featured three men who are big fans of Kelly’s work.
Mark Burstein is a self proclaimed Pogo-aholic. He is a collector of Walt Kelly’s work and brought in many of the originals to show us. He also read from us his introduction to the catalog for a previous show at the Cartoon Art Museum. To see some of his collection, visit his site.
Scott Daley is the step son of Walt Kelly and a big fan of the work. He brought in a lot of amazing original art including the art for the animated from Kelly created on his own.
Steve Lealoha is the talented artist and comic book inker(Fables from Vertigo/DC) and has a large collection of comics featuring the work of Walt Kelly. Kelly did a lot of work on the funny animal genre of comic books including the Our Gang (Little Rascals) comic stories. Steve even did a cover for a collection of Kelly’s non-pogo work in the mid 1980’s. Some of the books he brought are in a picture below.
Scott brought in some of the original art from Kelly’s animated pilot: We Have Met the Enemy (and He Is Us). On the below image there is a hole on the background that allowed drawings of Albert to be animated on sheets of white paper. The animation is very nice and a new DVD version will be out in the new year. I will post when that happens. The story board was shown in one of the Pogo collections.
At the end of the evening, some of us recieved a very special treat. Scott Daily brought out a zip lock bag of brushes that Walt Kelly actually used to do his art. We were each allowed to pick on brush to take home. I hope that Kelly’s talent will rub off on me.
The evening was a real treat and I hope there are more similar events in 2007.
