Kelly was a dog. All I get is hits about Walt Kelly, who was neither a dog, nor a cartoon strip.
Do you know which syndicate carried Kelly? King Features? United Artists? Chicago Tribune? Universal?
Nope.
From Frequently asked questions to rec.arts.comics.strips:
Q. Kelly and Duke?
A. Kelly, later Kelly and Duke, ran from 1972 until 1980; Jack Moore was the cartoonist. Kelly’s dog, Duke, was large, cynical, and spoke with a Southern accent. In one typical story arc Kelly, Duke and a hipster cat (another recurring character) were trapped in the backyard by a vicious neighbor dog. Kelly told Duke to go talk to the other dog, you know–dog-to-dog. Duke’s negotiation: “Let me go and you can eat the kid and the cat.” No compilations are known, but a book of new material,/What is God’s Area Code?/, was published in 1974 as part of the Cartoon Stories For New Children series.
Does this sound right?
Not making this easy, are you?
I take it it was a humor strip. Joke or day, or with ongoing plotlines? A Sunday strip? Name two city newspapers that carried the strip.
Yep. That’s it. The dog was Duke, not Kelly. Thanks.
This comic strip was originally created by Charles Johnson from Charlotte, NC in the early 70’s. Charles created the original artwork and characters - Kelly (an image of himself as a small boy and named after his father’s surname, which was also the name of his daughter), the dog (which was created in the image of their family dog), and the family cat. Jack Moore was forced to stop running the comic strip by the Charlotte Observer in Charlotte, NC because of the infringement and then began to run the strip in NY until it was also pulled. The last comic strip had the boy “Kelly” stating that he had to stop because of a certifiable nut. He was referring to the original creator from which he had stolen the idea and original material.
Here’s a few strips online.
Here’s the Wikipedia entry: