Pogo Figgers

Speaking of statuary from Dark Horse Comics — as I was, a few days ago — they've been issuing this wonderful set called Classic Comic Characters.  They're wonderful little figurines of your favorites from the funny pages, including (so far) Nancy, Sluggo, Krazy Kat, Ignatz, Popeye, Prince Valiant, The Phantom, Olive Oyl, Felix the Cat, Fearless Fosdick, Terry (of "…The Pirates" fame), The Dragon Lady, Flash Gordon, Little Orphan Annie, Beetle Bailey, Sarge, Li'l Abner, Daisy Mae, Mandrake, Blondie, Dagwood, Smokey Stover, Bluto, Wimpy, Alley Oop and (coming soon) The Yellow Kid, Little Nemo and many more.

They've also issued a figure of Albert the Alligator (from Walt Kelly's brilliant newspaper strip, Pogo) and in June, the above Pogo replica will join the ever-widening throng.  Well, actually, Pogo will look even better than he does above.  These are pics of prototypes.  The design of the Albert statue — which you can purchase right now from places like Bud Plant Comic Art — was improved a bit after the catalogue photo was taken and Pogo is still being even further refined.

The statues are being sculpted by folks at Yoe! Studios, supervised by demon cartoonist Craig Yoe, with these two under the intense scrutiny of my best friend in the whole world, Carolyn Kelly.  She is uniquely qualified to supervise Pogo stuff because not only is she a fine artist but she also sometimes sat on her father's lap as he drew the strip.  The possum is in good hands.