This first volume reprints the first two years of the famed comic strip. The earliest strips embrace a kind of broad farce that reflects Walt Kelly's interest in slapstick and the comedies popular in the 1930s. By the second year, Kelly begins to test the waters of political satire.

In November of 2011, Fantagraphics released the first volume of its much-anticipated, long-promised series reprinting in its entirety the syndicated run of Walt Kelly s classic newspaper strip, Pogo. Pogo: Through the Wild Blue Wonder immediately became the company s best-selling book of the last five years. Exactly one year later, the second volume, Pogo: Bona Fide Balderdash, will be released, featuring all the strips from 1951 and 1952. With sources found for the more elusive strips (in the past, our scheduling downfall), we re confident that these collections will become an annual affair. Even though Pogo had been in syndication for less than two years as this volume begins, Kelly s long professional experience (including seven years creating Pogo stories for comic books) had him at the peak of his powers, and this book features page after page of gorgeously drawn, hilarious vaudevillian dialogue and action among the swamp denizens, as well as Kelly s increasingly sharp-tongued political satire especially on display during the 1952 election season. Kelly was famous for his prolific creation of recurring characters, and by the end of this second volume, the count will already have topped over one hundred. New arrivals include Tammanany the Tiger, the voluble P.T. Bridgeport, the sinister Sarcophagus MacAbre (with his funereal speech balloons), Uncle Antler the bull moose... and Bewitched, Bothered, and Bemildred, the adorable trio of bats. The two years of daily strips in this volume have been collected before but in now long-out-of print books; and even there they were not as meticulously restored and reproduced as in this new series. Bona Fide Balderdash also reprints, literally for the first time ever in full color, the two full years of Sunday pages, also carefully restored and color-corrected, shot from the finest copies available. This second volume is once again edited and designed by the cartoonist s daughter, Carolyn Kelly, who is also handling much of the restoration work. It includes a new introduction by the legendary author, recording artist, and satirist Stan Freberg, who was not only a friend of Kelly s but the voice of Albert the Alligator in the I Go Pogo: Pogo for President movie. There will also be more extensive annotations by comic strip historian and expert R.C. Harvey, as well as additional historical information from writer Mark Evanier.

It s in this volume (featuring another two years worth of Pogo strips) that we meet one of Walt Kelly s boldest political caricatures. Folks across America had little trouble equating the insidious wildcat Simple J. Malarkey with the ascendant anti-Communist senator, Joseph McCarthy. The subject was sensitive enough that by the following year a Providence, Rhode Island newspaper threatened to drop the strip if Malarkey s face were to appear in it again. Kelly s response? He had Malarkey appear again but put a bag over the character s head for his next appearance. Ergo, his face did not appear. (Typical of Kelly s layers of verbal wit, the character Malarkey was hiding from was a Rhode Island Red hen, referencing both the source of his need to conceal Malarkey and the underlying political controversy.) The entirety of these sequences can be found in this book. But the Malarkey storyline is only a tiny portion of those rich, eventful two years, which include such classic sequences as con-man Seminole Sam s attempts to corner the market on water (which Porkypine s Uncle Baldwin tries to one-up by cornering the market on dirt); a return engagement of Pup Dog and Houn dog s blank-eyed Little Orphan Annie parody Li l Arf and Nonny; Churchy La Femme going in drag to deliver a love poem he wrote, Cyrano style, on Deacon Mush-rat s behalf to Sis Boombah (the aforementioned hen); P.T. Bridgeport s return to the swamp in search of new talent; and of course two rousing choruses of Deck Us All With Boston Charlie. In addition to presenting all of 1953 and 1954 s daily strips complete and in order for the first time anywhere (many of them once again scanned from original syndicate proofs, for their crispest and most detailed appearance ever), Pogo Volume 3: Evidence to the Contrary also contains all 104 Sunday strips from these two years, presented in lush full color for the first time since their original appearance in Sunday sections 60 years ago plus the usual in-depth Swamp Talk historical annotations by R.C. Harvey, spectacular samples of Kelly s work scanned from original art, and a whole lot more!"

This is the first time Pogo has been complete and in chronological order anywhere—with all 104 Sunday strips from these two years presented in lush full color for since their original appearance in Sunday newspaper sections. In Volume 6, Albert Alligator and Beauregard Bugleboy fend off a man-from-Mars, and Howland Owl investigates Communist espionage in the postal system. Then, it's election year and Okefenokee Swamp gets a new presidential candidate, Fremount the Bugboy. His campaign slogan, "Jes' Fine," sparks political debates about just who can and should be president—maybe even a woman!