Walt Kelly facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Walt Kelly |
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| Born | Walter Crawford Kelly Jr. August 25, 1913 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Died | October 18, 1973 (aged 60) Woodland Hills, California, U.S. |
| Nationality | American |
| Area(s) | Animator, cartoonist, newspaper journalist, poet |
| Spouse(s) |
Helen DeLacy
(m. 1937; div. 1951)Stephanie Waggony
(m. 1951; died 1970)Selby Daley
(m. 1972) |
| Children | Kathleen, Carolyn, Peter, Stephen, Andrew, John, Kathryn |
Walter Crawford Kelly Jr., known as Walt Kelly, was an American animator and cartoonist. He is most famous for creating the popular comic strip Pogo. Walt started his animation career in 1936 at Walt Disney Studios. There, he helped create classic films like Pinocchio, Fantasia, and Dumbo.
In 1941, when he was 28, Kelly moved to Dell Comics. This is where he first created the Pogo characters. Later, his Pogo comic strip became a way for him to share his ideas about society and life.
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Walt Kelly's Early Life and Work
Walt Kelly was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His family moved to Bridgeport, Connecticut, when he was two years old. After finishing high school in 1930, Kelly worked different jobs. He then became a crime reporter for the Bridgeport Post newspaper.
He also started drawing cartoons. He even illustrated a book about P. T. Barnum, a famous showman from Bridgeport. Kelly was very proud of his newspaper background. He saw himself as both a newspaper man and a cartoonist. Kelly became good friends with other cartoonists like Milton Caniff and Al Capp. Sometimes, they would even mention each other in their comic strips.
Working at Disney Studios
After moving to Southern California, Kelly got a job at Walt Disney Productions. He worked as a storyboard artist, helping to plan scenes for cartoons. He also came up with funny ideas for Donald Duck cartoons and other short films. In 1939, he asked to move to the animation department.
Kelly became an assistant to Walt Disney animator Fred Moore. He also became close friends with Moore and Ward Kimball, who was one of Disney's famous "Nine Old Men" animators. Kelly worked for Disney from 1936 to 1941. He helped with Pinocchio, Fantasia, The Reluctant Dragon, and Dumbo.
You can see Kelly's animation in Pinocchio when Mastro Geppetto is fishing inside the whale. In Fantasia, he animated Bacchus riding a donkey. He also worked on the ringmaster and some crow scenes in Dumbo. His drawings are easy to spot in The Reluctant Dragon (the little boy) and in the Mickey Mouse short The Little Whirlwind.
During a strike by Disney animators in 1941, Kelly took time off. He said it was for "family illness" to avoid taking sides. He felt that animation, which is a team effort, limited his creativity. He was looking for a new path when the strike happened. Kelly never returned to Disney as an animator. However, he adapted Disney films like Pinocchio for Dell Comics. This led him to a new career.
Creating Comics for Dell
Kelly started creating comic books for Dell Comics. These comics were based on fairy tales and nursery rhymes. He also made special annuals for Christmas and Easter. Kelly often wrote or co-wrote the stories he drew. His unique style is easy to see in these comics.
He also drew stories for the Our Gang film series. He created covers for Walt Disney's Comics and Stories. He drew stories with Raggedy Ann and Andy and Uncle Wiggily. He even made a long series of comics to promote a bread company, featuring a character called "Peter Wheat." Kelly also drew two-page stories without words about Roald Dahl's Gremlins for Walt Disney's Comics and Stories.
During World War II, Kelly could not serve in the military due to his health. Instead, he worked for the Army's Foreign Language Unit. He illustrated manuals, including some about languages, which he loved.
This time period also saw the creation of Kelly's most famous character, Pogo. Pogo first appeared in 1943 in Dell's Animal Comics. In his first appearance, Pogo looked more like a real possum than the cartoon character we know today. Kelly continued working with Dell until the early 1950s. Their work together ended after a disagreement about reprinting his early Pogo stories.
New York Star and Pogo Comic Strip
After the war, Walt Kelly returned to journalism as a political cartoonist. In 1948, he was the art director for a newspaper called the New York Star. While there, Kelly started drawing a new daily comic strip. It featured anthropomorphic (human-like) animal characters living in the Okefenokee Swamp in Georgia.
The very first Pogo strip appeared on October 4, 1948. When the New York Star newspaper closed in 1949, Kelly found a new way to share his strip. He arranged for it to be distributed by the Publishers-Hall Syndicate. The strip relaunched in May 1949. Kelly was able to get the copyright and ownership of his strip, which was not common at the time.
The Pogo Comic Strip
The Pogo comic strip was published in newspapers for 26 years. The individual strips were collected into more than 20 books edited by Kelly. He won the Reuben Award for the series in 1951, which is a major award for cartoonists.
The main characters in Pogo included Pogo the Possum, Albert the Alligator, Churchy LaFemme (a turtle), Howland Owl, Beauregard Bugleboy (a hound dog), Porkypine, and Miss Mam'selle Hepzibah (a French skunk). Kelly used the strip to share his ideas about politics and society. For example, he made fun of Senator Joseph McCarthy's anti-Communist ideas. He did this with a character named "Simple J. Malarkey," a bobcat with a shotgun.
The setting for Pogo and his friends was the real Okefenokee Swamp. Today, the Okefenokee Swamp Park in Waycross, Georgia, has a building with Kelly's studio and Pogo items. Kelly also illustrated The Glob, a children's book about human history, published in 1952.
Walt Kelly's Death
Walt Kelly passed away on October 18, 1973, in Woodland Hills, California. He died from complications related to diabetes. He had been sick for a long time and had lost a leg. Even during his illness, Kelly joked about getting back to work as soon as he "regrew" his leg. He is believed to have been cremated.
Influences and Legacy
Walt Kelly was influenced by many cartoonists, including George Kerr, Frederick Opper, and George Herriman. He especially admired T. S. Sullivant. Kelly also loved Lewis Carroll and was a talented poet. He was known for his "Anguish Languish" poems, like Deck Us All with Boston Charlie. You can hear Kelly's singing voice on the Songs of the Pogo album, for which he wrote the lyrics.
Continuing Pogo'
Pogo was continued by Kelly's widow, Selby, and other assistants until 1975. Many reprint books of Pogo were published, often grouping stories by themes like romance or elections. In 1989, the Los Angeles Times tried to bring the strip back with other artists, including Kelly's children, Carolyn and Peter. This new strip, called Walt Kelly's Pogo, ran into the early 1990s.
Also in 1989, Eclipse Books began reprinting the early Pogo comic book stories in color. These were the stories that came before the newspaper strip. In 2003, Kelly's 1956 album Songs of the Pogo was re-released on compact disc. The album features Kelly singing his own funny lyrics.
Since 2011, Fantagraphics Books has been publishing The Complete Pogo. This is a large series that collects all of Kelly's daily and Sunday comic strips in order. In 2013, Hermes Press also began reprinting the original Pogo comic book series from Dell Comics. Carolyn Kelly, who worked a lot on The Complete Pogo, passed away in 2017.
Walt Kelly's work has inspired other artists. In the animated series The Loud House, a canary character was named after him. Joe Murray, who created Rocko's Modern Life, said Kelly's work inspired him to create funny animal characters.
Awards and Recognition
Walt Kelly has been compared to famous writers like James Joyce and Lewis Carroll. He was elected president of the National Cartoonists Society in 1954. He was also the first comic strip cartoonist asked to donate his original drawings to the Library of Congress.
- 1951: Won the Reuben Award for Cartoonist of the Year.
- 1972: Received the Silver T-Square Extraordinary Service Award for his dedication to cartooning.
- 1989: Received the Comic-Con International Inkpot Award (after his death).
- Walt Kelly is in the Hall of Fame at the National Cartoon Museum.
- He was also inducted into the Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame in 1995.
Images for kids
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Walt Kelly, the creator of Pogo.
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Walt Kelly's Pogo comic strip from April 3, 1966.
