Good For a Larf

Ten Ever-Lovin’ Blue-Eyed Years with Pogo; The Best of Pogo; Pogo Even Better; Outrageously Pogo; Pluperfectly Pogo; Phi Beta Pogo, by Walt Kelly.

‘Years’ is a treasury of the first decade of Pogo, with running commentary by Kelly. The others are more in the nature of scrapbooks, with indeed runs of the comics, but also articles by and about Kelly and the strip, ancillary artwork, and the fandom that arose. I remember collecting these mostly through my college days. (6 Books). Fireside.

Ranking: Essential.

File Code: Comics. Collections. Softcovers.

Bloom County: “Loose Tails”; Penguin Dreams and Stranger Things; Toons for Our Times; Billy and the Boingers Bootleg; Tales Too Ticklish to Tell; Night of the Mary Kay Commandos; Happy Trails!, by Berke Breathed. (7 Books)

I used to quite enjoy Bloom County, and these early works of Breathed are like a diary of life in the 80’s. But then he started to get, well, pretentious. And less funny.

Ranking: Keepers.

File Code: Comics. Collections. Softcovers.

Calvin and Hobbes; Something Under the Bed is Drooling; Yukon Ho!; Weirdos from Another Planet!; The Revenge of the Baby-Sat; Scientific Progress Goes “Boink”; Attack of the Deranged Mutant Killer Monster Snow Goons; The Days are Just Packed; Homicidal Psycho Jungle Cat; There’s Treasure Everywhere; It’s a Magical World, by Bill Watterson. (11 Books)

“Calvin and Hobbes is a daily American comic strip created by cartoonist Bill Watterson that was syndicated from November 18, 1985 to December 31, 1995. Commonly cited as "the last great newspaper comic", Calvin and Hobbes has enjoyed broad and enduring popularity, influence, and academic and philosophical interest. Calvin and Hobbes follows the humorous antics of the title characters: Calvin, a precocious, mischievous and adventurous six-year-old boy; and Hobbes, his sardonic stuffed tiger. Set in the contemporary suburban United States, the strip depicts Calvin's frequent flights of fancy and friendship with Hobbes. It also examines Calvin's relationships with family and classmates, especially the love/hate relationship between him and his classmate Susie Derkins. Hobbes' dual nature is a defining motif for the strip: to Calvin, Hobbes is a living anthropomorphic tiger, while all the other characters see Hobbes as an inanimate stuffed toy. Though the series does not frequently mention specific political figures or contemporary events, it does explore broad issues like environmentalism, public education, philosophical quandaries and the flaws of opinion polls.” – Wikipedia. Not to mention it is one of the best explorations of childhood ever, with its waves of love, fear, defiance and imagination that wash uncontrolled over us at that time of life.

Ranking: Essential.

File Code: Comics. Collections. Softcovers.