As mentioned here recently, Dark Horse Comics is issuing a wonderful series called Classic Comic Characters. Each month, you can buy a couple new figurines of the players from some famous newspaper strip. (A good, honest place to order them is www.budplant.com.) The little statues are issued in limited editions and a few months ago, they came out with Albert the Alligator, reptilian star of Walt Kelly's immortal Pogo. In June, you'll be able to purchase Pogo Possum, hisself. The pic at left was taken last evening on my breakfast table, placing the Pogo prototype alongside a finished Albert. Don't they look great together?
This is because of the expert sculpture work done by the folks at Yoe! Studios but also because these were supervised by my best friend — and another of Walt's great creations — Carolyn Kelly.
I love it when a piece of merchandise perfectly captures the way a character oughta look. Back in my Hanna-Barbera days, I lived in a state of perpetual argument with certain folks in the marketing division who didn't seem to know what Yogi Bear and Fred Flintstone looked like…or, if they did, they didn't care if the toys and t-shirts and lunch boxes matched up. One of the joys of working for years with Jim Davis on Garfield was that it didn't matter to Jim how much it cost, the cat was going to look right. I once saw him kill, without flinching, a $100,000+ deal because the manufacturer couldn't get the lasagna-loving feline to look the way he oughta. Carolyn has been no less strident about getting her father's characters the way he drew them. Would that more people who were in charge of great characters were as diligent and knowledgeable.