walt kelly

Pogo the Possum was created by Walt Kelly in 1943, continuing on for 32 years (two year past Kelly’s own death). It’s a lovely cartoon, involving the denizens of a swamp: possums, skunks, turtles, squirrels, mice, alligators, and more. They live their lives, which sometimes oddly echo our own, or rather the politics of their time in which they were written, commenting on J. Edgar Hoover, McCarthyism, and muckracking.

What: Pogo is a comic strip. You can find plenty of compendiums for sale or you can seek out samples on some of the online sites devoted to Walt Kelly’s work.

Who: Writers interested in twisting language to their own ends should seek out Pogo, in whose pages it is beautifully wonderfully made coherent gibberish that delights the ear and cries out to be read aloud. Here, for example, is a Christmas carol that’s been Pogo-fied:

Deck us all with Boston Charlie,
Walla Walla, Wash., an’ Kalamazoo!
Nora’s freezin’ on the trolley,
Swaller dollar cauliflower alley-garoo!

Don’t we know archaic barrel
Lullaby Lilla Boy, Louisville Lou?
Trolley Molly don’t love Harold,
Boola boola Pensacoola hullabaloo!

Bark us all bow-wows of folly,
Polly wolly cracker ‘n’ too-da-loo!
Donkey Bonny brays a carol,
Antelope Cantaloupe, ‘lope with you!

Hunky Dory’s pop is lolly,
Gaggin’ on the wagon, Willy, folly go through!
Chollie’s collie barks at Barrow,
Harum scarum five alarum bung-a-loo!

Dunk us all in bowls of barley,
Hinky dinky dink an’ polly voo!
Chilly Filly’s name is Chollie,
Chollie Filly’s jolly chilly view halloo!

Bark us all bow-wows of folly,
Double-bubble, toyland trouble! Woof, woof, woof!
Tizzy seas on melon collie!
Dibble-dabble, scribble-scrabble! Goof, goof, goof!

Why: Read it because of the way gentle humor, sharp political insight, and sometimes grave disappointment in the state of America have all been combined in the lives of a cast of characters that manages to combine charm and cynicism.

When: Read it when you want some new characters to people the chambers of your head: earnest Pogo, the scowling Porkypine, too ingenious for his own good Albert the Alligator, and wanna-be trickster Churchy Lafemme.

Where and how: Read it somewhere that you can laugh freely and smile to yourself or even read a scrap (maybe more) aloud just to hear the cadences.

#sfwapro

I’ve been teaching an advanced workshop that’s been a lot of fun. I gave them one of my favorite texts, an issue of Swamp Thing by Alan Moore called “Pog.” You might want to read it before proceeding on to the discussion of it. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

I picked that text because it has a high degree of emotional impact. It was a great starting point for talking about how to create that in a piece of fiction. In discussing how Moore achieved that, we realized that it is primarily constructed through the characters. While it’s nice to see the images, they are not the primary source of the impact.

Here are the five ways that impact is created:

1. The characters are in a problematic situation with which we, the reader, can identify. While we have never rocketed through space in a ship shaped like a turtle shell, we do know the feeling of exile. We know what it is like to lose a home, and despair of finding a new one.
2. The characters are acting to solve their problem, even in the face of growing despair. Accordingly, we root for them and their valiant effort.
3. We see the characters caring for each other, taking care of each other in a way that is loving and endearing.
4. The characters are freaking adorable. Seriously cute. How can we not love them? I’m reminded of the Aeslin mice Seanan McGuire uses in her urban fantasy series or the fuzzies in H. Beam Piper’s Little Fuzzy series (free on the Kindle!) (also rebooted by John Scalzi). They speak in a way that is absolutely charming and full of wordplay.
5. And one can’t underestimate the glow of nostalgia that this comic holds for those who loved the original Pogo strip by Walt Kelly.

So what takeaways for character building can one draw from this? Are there axioms that can be applied in one’s own writing? Of course there are, and here’s the list: