I should probably mention that this book is officially out. Advance-ordered copies are arriving. Amazon claims to have it in stock and people there are reviewing it. If the store where you purchase such things does not have it on its shelves, they'll either have it within days…or they had it and have already sold out and are awaiting replenishment.
This book is, of course, the long-awaited Volume One in a series that will reprint (in a dozen books total) the complete run of the syndicated strips that were Walt Kelly's Pogo. If you are familiar with that work, no further recommendations are needed. If you are not familiar with it, I recommend that you get familiar with it.
It's a wonderful book and though I am a Consulting Editor — I think that's my title — I can rave about it because I deserve very little credit for its wonderfulness. Any book that properly presents the work of Mr. Kelly is going to be, by definition, wonderful…and Carolyn Kelly (daughter of Walt, companion of mine) and Fantagraphics Books made sure it was properly presented. Carolyn's design work could not be more perfect for the occasion.
A few folks seem to be griping that it didn't come out when it was originally advertised to come out. Most seem to be hailing it as "well worth the wait" and hoping the next one won't be similarly delayed. It won't be. Believe me: We could have had it out on time if we'd been willing to run inferior copies of these strips. We now have a better idea of how daunting a task this is…and as the series progresses, it'll get easier. There are better copies around of most of the later material. It's just the first couple of years that were a huge problem.
I'm not sure what else to say here. I can give you an Amazon link to order one…or more. This is apparently going to be a great Christmas present for some people. Apart from that, the book speaks for itself. Walt Kelly's work always did and when it spoke, it said very witty, memorable things.