The Complete Pogo

On the other hand, there are about 25 Pogo books listed on eBay (by non-stores) starting at 99 cents to about $10 and none of them have a bid. I own the first half-dozen or so Pogo books in first edition which I bought as they were being published 40 or 50 years ago and I have long since abandoned the idea that some day I would be able to sell them for much more than I paid for them.

Indeed. ISTR that I paid about $100 for the Pogo Primer for Parents I mentioned above, the most expensive book in my collection except for the signed one. So I was dismayed to see it’s available now for as little as $30-40. :frowning:

I just checked my records, and it seems as though, all told, I’ve spent about $1,500 on the items I’ve described above, all acquired in October and November 2001, except for the original art, which I bought in Berlin the following spring.

Yeah, well. :frowning:

It took me years to assemble all of the Pogo volumes from used book stores and collectible events.

On eBay right now, some guy is selling 25 Pogos, including that rare pamphlet, in two lots with starting bids totaling $180. Amazing.

Of course, nowadays price is nothing but quality. People will pay outrageous (high) prices for near mint quality and outrageous (low) prices for anything else. The middle ground is rapidly disappearing.

I’ve got all the published books, most of them bought when I was in college back in the 1960s. I first met Pogo through TEN EVER-LOVIN’ BLUE-EYED YEARS, which is wonderful and still my favorite. The two books that Selby Kelly edited after Walt’s death, I have those autographed.

A few years ago, Fantagraphics started reprinting the dailies – they got about 11 volumes out, IIRC, running about 8 months worth per volume (which made no sense to me, why not do a year-by-year?) Then it stopped. I’d be thrilled if they started up again, the books don’t cover all the strips.

Amazing because the amount is so high or amazing because the amount is so low?

Low. I probably paid five times as much.

I loved Pogo! I even nicknamed my husband Pogo, when we were dating because he was so cute and goofy looking.

I’ve always wanted to go to the Pogo festival. A book would be cool too.

I’ve been reading Pogo since I was just out of grade school. The first book I got was Equal Time for Pogo, which covered the 1968 elections. I didn’t understand most of it, but I loved it anyway.

I have a fairly good collection of the '70s Fireside reprints. Several have been read to death, and certain members of my family lust over them occasionally.

I’d love a comprehensive reprint of all the strips. I know there’s someone doing very high quality hardcover versions of some - I’ve seen Far Side and Calvin and Hobbes - and I’d certainly drop the cash for those.

Pogo, Calvin & Hobbes, Krazy Kat, Far Side, in no particular ranking, rate very high on my scale of really, really good comics. No one has managed to consistently skewer modern politics with the same consistent quality since Pogo stopped and Doonesbury went so predictably leftist.

Good list. I’d add Barnaby and the early Peanuts (it’s hard to see how great and innovative it was in the beginning, since all sorts of strips have borrowed from it).

I purposefully left off comics that were great at one point, but then ran into troubles later. Early Doonesbury is wonderful stuff, early Peanuts (from before 1970 is really cool too (though you have to be able to understand the references to get some of the in jokes, like the series of strips where he was lampooning everything being “hi-fi”. :smiley:

Interestingly, Doonesbury, after being quite boring and predictable, has started to return to readability, especially when he lampoons the younger Twitter generation. It’s not good enough yet to make me hunt it down daily, but it does make me chuckle, usually, when I see it.