Miz Mam'selle Hepzibah - Influence and Legacy

Influence and Legacy

Walt Kelly's work has influenced a number of prominent comic artists:

• From 1951 to 1954, Famous Studios animator Irv Spector drew the syndicated Coogy strip, which was heavily influenced by Kelly's work, for the New York Herald-Tribune.
• In the Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book, cartoonist Bill Watterson listed Pogo as one of the three greatest influences on Calvin and Hobbes, along with Peanuts and Krazy Kat.
• Pogo has been cited as an influence by Jeff MacNelly (Shoe), Garry Trudeau (Doonesbury), Bill Holbrook (Kevin and Kell ) and Mark O'Hare (Citizen Dog), among others.
• René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo were both admirers of Pogo, and many of Walt Kelly's visual devices resurfaced in Astérix. For example, the Goths speak in Olde English blackletter text, and a Roman tax-collector speaks in bureaucratic forms.
• Jim Henson acknowledged Kelly as a major influence on his sense of humor, and based some early Muppet designs on Kelly drawings. One episode of The Muppet Show's first season included a performance of "Don't Sugar Me" from Songs of the Pogo.
• Robert Crumb cites Pogo as an influence on Animal Town, an early series of comic strips he drew with his brother Charles that later formed the basis for R. Crumb's Fritz the Cat.
• Harvey Kurtzman parodied Pogo as "Gopo Gossum" for the comic book Mad #23, published by EC Comics in 1955. It was the first of many Mad references to Pogo, most of them drawn by Wally Wood. According to The Best of Pogo (1982), "Walt Kelly was well aware of the Mad parodies, and loved them." Kelly directly acknowledged Wally Wood, and even had Albert spell out his name in Pogo Extra: Election Special (1960).
• Writer Alan Moore and artist Shawn McManus made the January 1985 issue (#32) of Saga of the Swamp Thing a tribute to Pogo (titled "Pog"), with Kellyesque wordplay and artwork.
• Jeff Smith acknowledged that his Bone comic book series was strongly influenced by Walt Kelly's work. Smith and Peter Kelly contributed artwork of the cast of Bone meeting Pogo and Albert for the 1998 "Pogofest" celebration.