Our favorite marsupial and his Okefenokee buddies star in a new exhibit at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum, which is located at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. The exhibition is called "Into the Swamp: The Political and Social Satire of Walt Kelly's Pogo" and it opens tomorrow. The museum has an extensive collection of Walt Kelly's papers and artwork including 75 pieces of Kelly original art that Garry Trudeau of Doonesbury fame donated to the collection last year.
The exhibition is curated by Lucy Shelton Caswell (the Founding Curator of the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum) and Jenny E. Robb (who serves as Curator & Associate Professor). The promotional pieces for the show say, among other things…
Walt Kelly's newspaper comic strip Pogo was a platform for political satire and commentary using a motley group of swamp critters. Kelly tackled many of the political issues of the world in which he lived, from the Red Scare to civil rights, the environment, scientific exploration, and consumerism. We celebrate Walt Kelly and his social commentary through the joyous, poignant, and occasionally profound insights and beauty of the alternative universe that is Pogo. Working in the mid-twentieth century, Kelly drew on the legacy of earlier generations of newspaper cartoonists and then became a major influence on his successors.
I agree with all of that and I would add that it was often very, very funny.
Visits are arranged by reservation and all the info you need is over on this page. Wish I could be there but there's this disease thing going around. You may have heard about it…