Our Gang Vol. 2

by Wayne Markley

To longtime comic strip fans, and political fans, Pogo is considered one of the great strips, and its creator, Walt Kelly, is without question one of the great writer/artists out there. Coming this fall will be a new series from Fantagraphics reprinting all of the Pogo strips, daily and Sundays, in sequence. This series is sure to be a great treat for comic strip fans for many years to come. But over the last few years, Fantagraphics has also been reprinting the little-known Our Gang comics by Walt Kelly.

Our Gang Vol. 1

The Our Gang series ran in comic form in the 1940s and was based on the Little Rascals/Our Gang shorts from the same period. These are stories about kids being kids in the city streets of the 1940s. Unlike Simon & Kirby’s Newsboy Legion (recently collected by DC and highly recommended), the Our Gang stories are just plain fun, and often slapstick. These are great examples of comics done for kids that are over-looked and are such a perfect book for all ages, yet very few stores carry these four volumes.

In the forth volume, which was just recently released, the stories tend to be longer and more adventure oriented. A lot of the stories throughout the entire series are based in or around school. With this comes all the humor and antics you would expect with teachers and the troubles we all had in school. There are also a number of stories revolving around baseball. In addition to the great art and stories you will find in these volumes, you will also get a fascinating look into the world of the 1940’s. As with the Newsboy Legion, the world these kids live in is very different than the world we all know. The kids almost always play outside, there is no TV or video games, there are no superheroes that these kids play sidekick to (well, in the Newsboy Legion there is, but not in Our Gang.) If only for these reasons, these stories are worth reading.

A few other books you may want to look at if you like Walt Kelly’s work is Boom’s Walt Disney’s Christmas Classics that features a rare Mickey Mouse story by Kelly. Walt actually did a number of stories for Disney, including a comic adaptations of The Three Caballeros and Pinocchio. Kelly also did a number of fantastic stories based on Roald Dahl’s Gremlins. These were fascinating due to the art, and because the stories are all wordless. The originally ran in Walt Disney Comics and Stories #34-41.

In closing, I would like to point out a nice little bonus to the Our Gang collections are new covers by Jeff Smith. Anyone who has read Bone and is familiar with Kelly’s work can clearly see the influence on Jeff’s work. And Jeff will gladly sing Kelly’s praise all day if you ask him.

Pluto Vol. 1

One other book I would recommend you give a try if you have not is Pluto. Pluto is an eight volume manga series by Naoki Urasawa. It takes the classic story of Astro Boy by Tesuka and retells it in a modern setting. It is not the Astro Boy you may have grown up with, but a shining example of modernizing an old character with respect and passion. As an aside, I would also highly recommend Urasawa’s Monster. As always, all opinions are my own, and comments are welcome at MFBWAY@AOL.COM.

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