Walt Kelly

Joseph Farrell jlfarr495 at yahoo.com
Sun Jul 13 21:40:28 CEST 2003


These are all good points,but another reason for Walt
Kelly's fading profile may be the topicality of so
much of his work. While Barks' Duck stories are
timeless and appeal to a worldwide audience, much of
Kelly's output seems pointless outside of its time and
place. Very funny material like his "Jack Acid Society
Black Book" would probably just puzzle readers ---
particularly non-Americans of several decades later
--- who have no knowledge of the groups and
individuals that are being satirized. Obviously, this
is not a problem with Barks.

Joe Farrell

In a message dated 7/13/2003 10:49:08 AM Eastern
Daylight Time, 
cord at wiljes.de writes:

> IMO Kelly can and should be recognized as one of the
giants of the field. 
> But today he is no longer popular with the general
public.
>   
        of course, 
here in the USA when you are dead your popularity
plumets...(with a handful 
of exceptions in the perfoming arts - the usa audience
only likes modern 
things) 
 and Kelly  has been dead for several decades - and he
didnt do tons of 
liscencing work to keep his characthers alive....
        this still doesnt dimish his enormous 
popularity then, and the  
still there fanbase he has 

> But then how could he? The Fantagraphics edition is
out of print and 
> foreign editions of his works are scarce probably
because his humor is difficult to 
> translate. Only very few of his strips have been
printed here in Germany.
> 
  even worse: the Simon and Shuster books are all out
of print --
   (and some of the Fantagraphics books may still be
in print)
        the Fantagraphics were just small potatoes in
terms of sales and more 
importantly distribution through book stores.  Its
possible that the number 
of S&S books available used is all the market can bear
....thus making it 
unlikely for new reprints of those books


     on the other hand, his record album is back in
print and available - 
through Amazon and the other usual outlets 

Hey Don Rosa, can we expect a musical CD from you???
    

steven rowe


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