Comic Strip created by Walt Kelly

Back when every house had the newspaper delivered, the literate kids always turned to the comics first. Kinder newspaper editors put the comics on the last couple pages, sometimes hidden amid the classified ads (if you don’t know what those are, then think of Craigslist (no relation), but for people with really good eyesight or a handy magnifying class). Of course, you never read all the strips because some were just too boring when the weather was nice and you needed to get back outside. Mary Worth, Judge Parker… these had extended plots and dealt with themes of little interest, like marriage and such. The strips that drew a kids eye fit into two categories: simpler lines (not badly drawn, just less cluttered) or rich with unusual images. Think Peanuts and Prince Valiant.

Pogo certainly had unusual images with all the talking animals, but it was so beautifully drawn that a child could easily mistake it for a strip aimed at adults (which it was) and skip right over it. The themes ranged from slapstick to politics of the day, so there was that whole unreliability of the content for the youthful reader. Then, the language was unexpected, requiring reading out loud sometimes just to figure out the sense of it, much like a first pass at Huckleberry Finn. Worst of all, Pogo was gone from the papers by the time I was out of elementary school, so I remember the characters vaguely and the general setting from those halcyon days, but nothing like Peanuts or Dick Tracy.

So I came to Pogo late, by way of old paperback collections. For me, Pogo feels like the quintessential American comic, an art form to which others lay claim, but feels like it could only come to fruition in the United States. Comics just feel like the sort of thing that would come out of the nineteenth century melting pot that needed new ways of communication that would bring people together.

Funny animal strips had been around for a while when Kelly left Disney and tried his hand at creating his own characters. The ensuing years brought an increasing politicization to the Okefenokee Swamp and its denizens, but they always managed to mark baseball season and Christmas. Their finest gift however was spreading common sense in a fine brew of humor. Cloaked within the doings of the possum, alligator, owl, turtle, skunk,…. a kid could learn a lot.

Kelly continuously pushed the boundaries of lettering and storytelling, working within a medium that is more restrictive than virtually any other that I can think of. Space constraints as well as editors frequently dropping panels on Sundays made the writing a nightmare.

Fantagraphics made a big splash years ago publishing the complete run of Peanuts in order. Then they tried to do the same with Pogo, but ran into numerous delays because many of the strips had been lost. They announced their predicament to the world and somehow, blessedly, they found what they needed.

You’ve Got to Check This Out is a blog series about music, words, and all sorts of artistic matters. It started with an explanation. 282 more to go.

New additions to You’ve Got to Check This Out are released regularly. Also, free humor, short works, and poetry are posted irregularly. Notifications are posted on Facebook which you can receive by friending or following Craig.

Book written by Charles Dickens

Depending on the circles you run in, someone somewhere along the way probably has asked you what your favorite movie is. It may have been akin to asking what sort of music you listen to as shorthand for taking your temperature to see whether your idea of cool jibed with the questioner’s idea. Or it may have been a way to start a debate at an otherwise boring moment. I have been there. I may even have asked the question. And let’s be clear that it is not a question to ask if you cannot answer it. I usually took the film wonk’s easy way out and said Citizen Kane, a movie that truly blew my mind when I saw it the first time, but I can now say that about a lot of films. The thing is that the same question so rarely gets asked about books. People will ask what you’re currently reading or if you have read anything interesting lately or if you have read the current “it” book, but rarely what your favorite book might be. And it is a stumper. I have only heard the question asked a handful of times and just a couple times it received an answer. As for me, I fell into the dodging-the-question camp. I had not read Martin Chuzzlewit at the time.

Dickens wrote a lot, so if you like Dickens, you can parse him out over your lifetime. I first heard of John Irving doing that (probably apocryphally and maybe it was John Cheever or John Updike…) and it has always seemed like a good plan, so I have not read all of Dickens, but you probably haven’t either. Those that I have read I like a lot and Martin Chuzzlewit translates best to the modern world for me. Dickens had recently returned from a tour of the United States and had a lot to say about what he had seen. He was also carrying some lingering anger over being ripped off by American publishers as we were the China of the day as far as copyright goes. The middle section of the novel includes an extensive telling of the adventures of the younger Martin Chuzzlewit in our hemisphere. (Note that the book is the tale of the older Martin Chuzzlewit seeking an heir and the younger doing everything in his power to be disinherited, though much more comes into play as always.) Dickens’ critique of a land where everyone seeks their fortune may seem unfair, but he didn’t see it as unfairness. He didn’t bring down the country and he highlighted issues that merit attention.

Dickens was capable of remarkable humor- a central villain of the piece is named Pecksniff. If you can read the first three pages of the book and not get a laugh, then I admit that it may not be for you, but I confess to a certain sadness for you.

Apparently you can use favorite books for just the same purposes as favorite films. Really, you should not be afraid of standing near me at parties.

You’ve Got to Check This Out is a blog series about music, words, and all sorts of artistic matters. It started with an explanation. 283 more to go.

New additions to You’ve Got to Check This Out are released regularly. Also, free humor, short works, and poetry are posted irregularly. Notifications are posted on Facebook which you can receive by friending or following Craig.

Song composed by Gunnar Madsen and Richard Greene
Performed by The Bobs

One of the greatest concerts I have been privileged to attend was a day long folk festival on the outskirts of Boston some twenty five years ago. Thinking back on the list of performers, I think they were using the looser definition of folk music that extended the boundaries well beyond what one might have heard in Greenwich Village in the early sixties. Each performer took to the main stage starting in late morning. Many also circulated through two smaller tents during the course of the afternoon. As with all such scheduling, the choices were difficult, but we made it to the small tent for what may well be the most incredible musical confluence that I have experienced. The Bobs came out and introduced their new friends, Mahlatini and the Mahotella Queens. Amazing artists separately, they then proceeded to work out an improvisation that turned into a riff on the music of the Who and then ventured off into realms undiscovered. Honestly, the content is gone from memory, but watching the members of each group defy their inability to find a shared spoken language and still create beautiful music… the communication beyond words.

Finally though, The Bobs were alone on the stage as Mahlatini and the Mahotella Queens had places to be. Gunnar Bob took the small audience into their confidence and announced that he was leaving the group, but that they already had new member Joe Bob on board (no real surprise since he was standing right there). Then Gunnar introduced this new song that he had written after seeing Hare Krishna walk past his house one morning.

Few groups have a backlog as amazing as The Bobs, including Grammys, cover tunes, originals, and stunning arrangements. So, why this song? I love virtually everything they have done, but there is something about that mix of cynicism and empathy that I sense here that is a rarity in all art forms. Dramas succeed sometimes, but songs are so brief, so gone in a moment. Clearly, the Krishna in the song is messing up on the expected vow of poverty, but isn’t poverty our expectation and not necessarily his? Even the Janet mentioned in the song- well, we thought he was celibate. Perhaps he still is. Once again, the song is about expectations as much as human failings. Why must Krishna be only one thing? Art that gives us a minute or an hour to see ourselves in the other, be it that joy of driving the fast car or meditating quietly in the corner- that is art that can be remembered three decades later.

Now, A Capella is a beautiful thing, but there is nothing like the experience of hearing the walls shake from a single bass voice- the story of Jericho seems it might be plausible in that moment. The Bobs have just such a bass in Richard Bob Greene. For a bonus for those aficionados of a little humor in their music, Greene occasionally produces other groups- check out Davinci’s Notebook. The album that he worked on with them is head and shoulders above much of the rest of the competition.

You’ve Got to Check This Out is a blog series about music, words, and all sorts of artistic matters. It started with an explanation. 284 more to go.

New additions to You’ve Got to Check This Out are released regularly. Also, free humor, short works, and poetry are posted irregularly. Notifications are posted on Facebook which you can receive by friending or following Craig.