The Okefenokee Star
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| Zine | |
|---|---|
| Title: | The Okefenokee Star |
| Publisher: | Swamp Yankee Studios |
| Editor(s): | Bill Crouch Jr. |
| Type: | comic strip reprints |
| Date(s): | 1977-1982 |
| Medium: | |
| Size: | 8.5-in x 11-in |
| Fandom: | Pogo, Comics |
| Language: | English |
| External Links: | Poopsheet Foundation |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
The Okefenokee Star was a fan zine devoted to the comic strip Pogo and it's creator Walt Kelly.
It lasted for seven issues. The content consisted mainly of illustrations by Walt Kelly, pictures and strips from "Pogo" and recollections of Kelly from colleagues and friends. Kelly's widow Selby Kelly was a recurring collaborator and the whole project involved many people, such as comics connoisseur Bill Blackbeard and others.[1]
In 1982, Simon and Schuster published Best of Pogo: Collected from the Okefenokee Star (accessed June 27/2024) (archive link), written by Bill Crouch and Shelby Kelly (with a foreword from Gary Trudeau, creator of Doonesbury), which collected material from the zine.
Issue #1
Spring 1977. Published by Swamp Yankee Studios and edited by Bill Crouch Jr.
Contents:
Reprints of Pogo comic strips.
Issue #2
1978. Published by Swamp Yankee Studios and edited by Bill Crouch Jr.
Contents:
Reprints of Pogo comic strips.
Issue #3
1979. Published by Swamp Yankee Studios and edited by Bill Crouch Jr.
Contents:
Reprints of Pogo comic strips plus a wide range of reviews and articles about Kelly and his possum[2].
Issue #3 interior
Issue #3 interior
Issue #3 interior
Issue #3 interior
Issue #3 interior
Issue #3 interior
Issue #3 back cover, with the famous Pogo quote: "We have met the enemy and he is us."
Issue #4
October 1979. Published by Swamp Yankee Studios and edited by Bill Crouch Jr. 50 pages, black and white with colour front and back covers.
Contents[3]:
Pogo reprints and rare Walt Kelly art, reprints of MAD magazine Pogo parodies (by Wally Wood), an article about "Pogo In the Underground," featuring very hairy photos of Sergio Aragones, Harvey Kurtzman, and Vaughn Bode; plus two reprinted articles by Kelly.
Issue #5
January 1980. Published by Swamp Yankee Studios and edited by Bill Crouch Jr. 36 pages, black and white with colour front and back covers. This issue was authorised by Walt Kelly's Estate and copyright to them.
Contents[3]:
Book has numerous full page black & white drawings by Kelly to be colored in. Also included is a 4 page bio of the characters in the strip titled " An Introduction to the Okefenokee Swamp" from Pogo's POV. plus reprints in black & white of several Sunday strips, "Pogo's Primer for Parents" and "Walt Kelly's Mother Goose".
Issue #6
June 1980. Published by Swamp Yankee Studios and edited by Bill Crouch Jr. 48 pages, black and white with colour front and back covers.
Contents:
Comic strip reprints from 1949, 1964, and 1968, plus the music and lyrics to "Go Go Pogo," and various news articles about Pogo and Walt Kelly.
Pogo may not be a household name to today’s fan, but back in the fifties and sixties, just about everyone knew who Pogo was. He could be found in comic books, in newspaper strips, fanzines, and in quite a number of college papers across our great Country. In fact, he was practically a movement! He ran for our Nation’s Presidency on a number of occasions. In fact, this very fanzine, that I’m holding in my hands, covers his run in 1952, including a picture from the Dallas Morning News, dated October 23, 1952.
Anyway, back to the beginning. After Selby’s forward/State of Union piece, the fanzine reprints a very rare strip that Kelly did for the New York Herald Tribune, dated August 8, 1952, bringing people’s attention to New York City children in need of getting out of the extreme heat that summer.
This issue then gives us a plethora or reprint strips, nine pages, with four strips each page, of a sequence from May 1949. These were the very first syndicated daily strips that were ever run. Kelly’s characters had previously been introduced within the comic book pages of Dell Comics.
Next up is an article discussing the song written and sung by creator Walt Kelly for the 1952 Presidential campaign by the title of Go Go Pogo. I have the album this comes from, as well as, the single, 45 release. And so you can get a feel for the song and the singer, here is a YouTube clip of that very song: https://youtu.be/civxnI7nujA. Sorry but you’ll have to copy it and paste it into your browser to view and listen to it.
The Okefenokee Star even gives us the score of the music, so that any piano players amoung [sic] us can play and sing along!...
The song score takes up eight (8) pages of the fanzine. After that is a one page Political Dope Pogo page done by Walt in 1952, as well. Within Pogo answer burning political questions of 1952! Then there is that one page article that I mentioned at the top, about Pogo’s run for President in 1952.
Following that is a full page photograph of Kelly stumping for Pogo and three short articles taken from papers covering Pogo’s campaign, including one from Ottawa, Canada!
At the time, a number of newspapers that carried the Pogo strip were unhappy with Walt Kelly’s humor aimed at the election. They planned to ban his strip or at least drop it from their circulation. To appease these papers, Kelly wrote and drew replacement strips that he called; “Bunny Strips” because they mostly featured fluffy bunnies and story lines that would not ruffle any of the paper’s sensitive readers!
The Star reprints a number of these strips from the elections held in 1964 and 1968. Next up is a full page picture of Kelly with the former First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt and a short article urging people to register and vote. These were from the election in 1956.
This issue wraps up by reprinting six (6) Sunday strips from 1970. Unfortunately they are reprinted in black and white, rather than in color, as they were originally printed in newspaper Sunday editions.But we do get a nice Walt Kelly color illustration on the back cover, also revolving around the elections. I guess this issue could be considered the political or Presidential issue of the fanzine!
Issue #7
June 1982. Published by Swamp Yankee Studios and edited by Bill Crouch Jr. 48 pages, black and white with colour front and back covers. Subtitled "The Having A Wonderful Time, Wish You Were Here Issue".
External Links
References
- ^ https://seriewikin.serieframjandet.se/index.php/The_Okefenokee_Star
- ^ Pogo The Okekenokee Star Vol 1 Num 3 customer review at Bud's Art Books (via Wayback Jun 27/24)
- ^ a b "Pogo Okefenokee Star" at MyComicShop.com (via Wayback Jun 27/24)
- ^ "Fabulous Find: Okefenokee Star # 6 fanzine" by Greg Turner at Back to the Past Collectibles, Sep 8/17. (via Wayback Sep 26/24)