According to Wiki, Fantagraphic Books expected to release a 12-volume set of the daily and Sunday Pogo comic strips, in chronological order, in 2007. Apparently this has been delayed until 2009. By the time I started reading newspapers (well, the comics, anyway) Pogo was nearing its end. I didn’t appreciate it as a child, but the references I’ve seen since that time resonate.
Pogo was one of the greatest of all comic strips (I’d rank it second behind Krazy Kat). I loved it as a kid (early 60s) and Kelly was great enough so that it was top notch until his death.
I’d love to start picking up the complete set. I have a decent amount of Krazy Kat, but not enough Pogo at all.
I’ve been looking forward to this collection for a while. Those Fantagraphics newspaper strip collections have been… well… fantastic.
I’ve been a fan of Pogo ever since I was in high school, a few years before the strip ended in 1975. A friend’s father owned many of the original Simon & Schuster books that were published from the 1940s on, and my friend and I would pore over them and laugh and laugh.
But for many years all I owned myself was one or two of the later compilations. Then about ten years ago, I suddenly decided I wanted to own more Pogo. I got on the Intarwebs, went to eBay, and was fortunate enough to find someone selling pretty much all of the original S&S books in two lots. Instant collection, and at pretty good prices (about $7 each on average, IIRC). With a few additional purchases of individual books not included in those lots, I owned the complete Pogo within a week or two. Including this rarity:Pogo Primer for Parents (TV Division), a booklet Walt developed for the U.S. Gummint in 1960.
I later snagged a signed, first edition of Ten Ever-Lovin’ Blue-Eyed Years of Pogo, and a few years ago I acquired the original art for the daily strip of 7/28/1970, which features one of my favorite characters: Spiro Agnew as a hyena. (I’m a Maryland native.)
So, yeah, you could say I’m a Pogo fan.
So I’ll probably shell out for the complete collection if/when it comes out, if only because many of my 50-plus-year-old paperbacks are getting a little too fragile to deal with anything more than very gentle handling. Also, it would be nice to see the color of the Sunday strips.
I’ve got most of the books that Walt Kelly authorized, & a few authorized after his death.
One of the 20th Century’s great cartoonists.
According to the info at Amazon the first volume of “The Complete Pogo” has been delayed but is in the works by Fantagraphics.
In the meantime, if you can find the previously mentioned, “Ten Ever-Lovin’ Blue-Eyed Years with Pogo”, it’s a must-have for lovers of excellent cartooning. One of my most treasured books.
Is there any place online where you can read some of the strips?
Does the announcement on that Pogo site not make sense to others?
They’re going to reprint all of Pogo, but not G. O. Fizzickle Pogo?
Or is is just a clumsy way of saying that the first volume won’t contain G. O. Fizzickle Pogo?
I have almost all the Pogo volumes in first paperback editions, all in very good condition. But they sure cost me more than $7 each.
I take it to mean that G.O. Fizzickle per se won’t be reissued, although the strips that comprise it will eventually be included in the complete series.
I’ve been waiting for this forever. Fantagraphics’ Krazy Kat volumes are great, and Pogo will go nicely alongside those, IDW’s Complete Dick Tracy, and the Popeye books (can’t remember who publishes those).
I love Pogo, but over the years I’ve realized that I only love it in small doses. I’ll read a Pogo book voraciously for a few days and then put it down for a few weeks or months. Repeat. I don’t know what that says about it (it might say something good), but it’s not a comic I can devour in mass quantities like The Far Side, Calvin and Hobbes, or Get Fuzzy.
Depends on when you bought them. Most of mine were purchased in the 1960s, used books, most under $1. 
Count me in as a heavy Pogo fan. I have many of the original 1950s-1960s collections and on the wall to the left of me is a framed litho of the 1971 Earth Day comic, “We have met the enemy and he is us”, signed by Selby Kelly, #362/750.
Speaking of book prices, I see that the cover price of my paperback copy of “Ten Ever-Lovin’ Blue-Eyed Years with Pogo” is $3.95, which I paid when I bought it new in the 70’s . That’s for 288 large-size pages of pure genius. Probably the most value for the money of any book I own.
I bought that used a couple years ago at Half Price Books for twice the cover price. I asked the clerk if it was opposite day or something, and she shrugged and said, “it’s Pogo.”
That rocks. I hope the price is reasonable, because I’ll be buying at least two sets (Dad is a Pogo freak, too)
Maybe Ol’ Walt is finally getting the recognition he deserves. About time.
I learned to read from Pogo collections.
I can see that as a blessing or a curse, given that Kelly spelled some words phonetically to relay a particular character’s accent.