Animal Comics #1

History

After departing Walt Disney Studios in 1941 — he left the day before the animators' strike began — Walt Kelly relocated east and found work with Western Publishing, which produced comics under the Dell imprint. Dell editor Oskar Lebeck, a German-born illustrator and children's-book writer who was already overseeing titles such as Our Gang and Fairy Tale Parade, hired Kelly to write and draw for a new anthology he was launching called Animal Comics. The book was published September 8, 1942 (copyright registered to Lebeck), with its wraparound cover by H. R. McBride rather than Kelly; crucially, Kelly retained the copyrights to his Pogo creations — a shrewd move that would matter enormously once the strip became a national phenomenon. The anthology's intended flagship was the long-established character Uncle Wiggily, but Kelly's swamp stories gradually eclipsed that rabbit gentleman across the series' 30-issue run.

Trivia · 8 facts

• First appearance in any medium of Pogo Possum (a possum) and Albert the Alligator, both created by Walt Kelly, in the five-page story 'Albert Takes the Cake.'
• Also introduces Bumbazine, a young African-American boy who serves as a human anchor character in the early stories; Kelly later phased him out, finding that an all-animal cast worked better comedically.
• The issue features the first appearance of Mrs. Jay and Beetle alongside Pogo and Albert, establishing the core of what would become the Okefenokee ensemble.
• Published on-sale September 8, 1942 by Dell Publishing Co.; copyright registered to editor Oskar Lebeck, though Kelly wisely retained personal copyright to his Pogo characters.
• Animal Comics was, at launch, the first comic book anthology to specialize exclusively in original funny-animal characters conceived for the comic book format rather than licensed from strips or animation.
• In the debut story Albert is the lead and Pogo appears only in a supporting role; Pogo did not become the title character of the feature until issue #15 (June–July 1945), when the strip was renamed 'Albert and Pogo.'
• The Pogo feature ran in Animal Comics through issue #30 (December 1947–January 1948), after which Kelly took the characters to a daily newspaper strip debuting in the New York Star on October 4, 1948, and then to national syndication via the Post-Hall Syndicate on May 16, 1949.
• The 'Albert Takes the Cake' story from this issue was later reprinted in Hermes Press's Walt Kelly's Pogo: The Complete Dell Comics Vol. 1 (2014), giving modern readers archival access to the characters' earliest incarnation.

Full credits

Key issues in Animal Comics