Walter Kelly was born in Philadelphia on August 26, 1913, but raised in Bridgeport, Connecticut. In high school, Kelly was the associate editor of the school paper (for which he also penned comics), belonged to the glee club, wrote poetry, and was apparently "the only member in the senior class who could take apart a ukulele blind-folded." (Pogo Even Better, p. 49) After graduation, he worked a string of factory jobs, and soon found his way into reporting and cartooning for a local Bridgeport newspaper. From there, on to Hollywood, where for six years he drew for Disney, lending his talents to such animated classics as Snow White, Pinnochio, and Dumbo, among others.

In 1942, Pogo began the comic strip that would become Pogo. In its early incarnation, as Kelly explained it, it chronicled the "doings of a little colored boy" named Bumbazine and whole cast of swampfriend characters. In time, Kelly would stop drawing Bumbazine and introduce with greater frequency, instead, a scrappy little opossum named Pogo (who was depicted increasingly more adorable, and consequently less possum-like, as the strip developed). Pogo maintained many of Bumbazine's most laudable characteristics: "innocence, naivete, friendliness, and sturdy dependability." (Ibid., p. 50) These virtues come straight from the mouth of Kelly, and tell you something about his own values, though he would often maintain that Pogo was meant to be neither a moral exemplar nor the exclusive (and we might presume autobiographical) hero of Kelly's comic. He continued to develop the strip in comic book form until joining the staff of the ill-fated New York Star as arts director and a regular comic feature. The Star folded in 1949, less than a year after it began. Several months after that, Pogo became nationally syndicated.

From 1949 until his death in 1973, Pogo remained the major project of Walt Kelly's life. That project implicitly involved two things: first, creating the strip; second, ensuring that it had an audience. The first meant a lifelong promulgation of those values Kelly held most dear, which were consistently philosophical and liberal. The second meant becoming an adept and innovative pitchman - essentially, a practical and shrewd marketer.

Kelly the Crusader.

[The early fifties was] the sort of period in which the naive boy cartoonist began to examine the gift horse's feet. He looked to see if they were straw or clay. It was typical in many ways of a whole, finally calcified, set of values. Mr. Truman had done his best to retain the order of the New Deal, when hope, heads in the clouds and a certain fey idealism had spread themselves through the country. Crime investigations, a political campaign directed by PR men, real and fancied traitors in the government, and the announcement by the Chinese that they had 'peacefully liberated Tibet' made the beliver count all his beads to see if a few had stuck in the pot. I finally came to understand that if I were looking for comic material, I would not ever have to look long. We people manufacture it every day in a hundred ways. The news of the day would be good enough. Perhaps the complexion of the strip changed a little in that direction after 1951. After all, it is pretty hard to walk past an unguarded gold mine and remain empty-handed. (p. 40)

Kelly the Merchandiser.
All of this advertising accomplished great things for voter literacy, Asiatic Flu awareness, the U.S. Treasury Department, the U.S. Department of Labor, UNICEF, and the Salvation Army (all of whom he endorsed or promoted at some point). But running a comic strip character as a presidential candidate (even in jest) undercut some of the seriousness of the actual race. Pogo's name appeared on write-in ballots for the actual elections in many states, and those wasted votes represent a trivializing of the political process that is disconcerting, if only because it means that the votes that would have otherwise gone to a viable candidate were wasted on a cartoon character. And all of this was due to an effective button merchandizing campaign. (Ironically, folks who did "Go Pogo" probably shared the liberal sentiments of Walt Kelly. Presumably, then, if those votes had been cast in earnest they would have gone to the (losing) candidates that Kelly most supported.)

And of course, Kelly's syndicated strips provided innumerable opportunities to create and sell Pogo paraphernalia: "Best of" books, figurines, and as seen at left,

Pogo cups, which Proctor and Gamble distributed as promotional items.

This schism between principle and practice was walso apparent in the context of the strips, where the ways in which Kelly depicts different demographic factions in the country had practical implications for the American dream.