Number 13



Walt Kelly's The Brownies in The Funnybody Kingdom


I don't think I can say much about the genius cartoonist Walt Kelly that hasn't already been said.

About all I can say is that he was liberal and progressive in one of the most repressive eras in our history, the early 1950s. Yet he got away with it, even with some savage satire of political figures, because of the sense of whimsy that permeated his work.

Pogo is his most famous work, but far from all of his work. It's his magnum opus, but not his only opus.

One of the books he worked on is the funny and beautifully drawn Brownies, Dell Four Color #244, dated April, 1949. While a lot of Kelly's work has been reprinted, I'm not sure if this story, "The Brownies In The Funnybody Kingdom" has…so if you've seen it before just enjoy it again. Otherwise you're in for a surprise when you read this story and its very Alice In Wonderland premise. Like Alice it ends enigmatically--was it a dream?--but while on the surreal ride this 15-page story takes us on it doesn't really matter, does it? It's the whimsy, the sense of fun, that goes throughout this whole story--really the whole comic book, entirely written and drawn by Kelly--that matters.