{"id":31330,"date":"2025-01-14T09:00:48","date_gmt":"2025-01-14T09:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=31330"},"modified":"2025-01-13T17:09:54","modified_gmt":"2025-01-13T17:09:54","slug":"walt-kellys-our-gang-volume-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2025\/01\/14\/walt-kellys-our-gang-volume-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Walt Kelly\u2019s Our Gang volume 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nBy Walt Kelly<\/strong> (Fantagraphics Books)
\nISBN 978-1560977537 (TPB)<\/p>\n

This book includes Discriminatory Content<\/strong> produced in less enlightened times.<\/em><\/p>\n

Today is the anniversary of controversial screen pioneer Hal Roach (January 14th<\/sup> 1892 – November 2nd<\/sup> 1992), a movie man responsible for some of the best comics and newspaper strips ever made. Here\u2019s one of the very best solely in need of rediscovery and new archival editions… <\/em><\/p>\n

The movie shorts franchise Our Gang<\/strong> (latterly the Li\u2019l Rascals<\/strong>) were one of the most popular in American Film history. Beginning in 1922 they featured the fun and folksy humour of a bunch of \u201ctypical kids\u201d. Atypically though, there was always full racial equality and mingling – and the little girls were still always smarter than the boys. Romping together, they all enjoyed idealised adventures in a time both safer and more simple.
\n\"\"
\nThe rotating cast of characters and slapstick shenanigans were the brainchild of film genius Hal Roach who directed and worked with Harold Lloyd, Charley Chase and Laurel & Hardy amongst so many others. These brief cinematic paeans to a mythic childhood entered the \u201chousehold name\u201d category of popular Americana in amazingly swift order. As times and tastes changed Roach was forced to sell up to the celluloid butcher\u2019s shop of MGM in 1938, and the features suffered the same interference and loss of control that marred the later careers of Stan and Ollie, the Marx Brothers and Buster Keaton.<\/p>\n

In 1942 Dell released an Our Gang<\/strong> comic book written and drawn by Walt Kelly who, consummate craftsman that he was, deftly restored the wit, verve and charm of the glory days via a progression of short comic stories elevating lower class American childhood to the mythic peaks of Dorothy<\/em> in Oz<\/strong>, Huckleberry Finn<\/strong> or Laura Ingalls<\/em> of Little House… <\/strong>fame.<\/p>\n

Over the course of the first eight issues so lovingly reproduced in this glorious collection, Kelly moved beyond the films – good or otherwise – to sculpt an idyllic storyscape of games and dares; excursions; pee-wee adventures; get-rich-quick schemes; battles with rival gangs and especially plucky victories over adults, mean, condescending, criminal or psychotic.<\/p>\n

Granted great leeway, Kelly eventually settled on his own cast, but aficionados and purists can still thrill here to the classic cast of Mickey<\/em>, Buckwheat<\/em>, Happy\/Spanky<\/em>, Janet<\/em> and Froggy<\/em>.
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\nThankfully, after far too long a delay, today\u2019s comics are once again offering material of this genre to contemporary audiences. Even so, many modern readers may be unable to appreciate the skill, narrative charm and lost innocence of this style of children\u2019s tale. If so I genuinely pity them, because this is work with heart and soul, drawn by one of the greatest exponents of graphic narrative America has ever produced. I hope their loss is not yours.
\n\u00a9 2006 Fantagraphics Books. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Walt Kelly (Fantagraphics Books) ISBN 978-1560977537 (TPB) This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times. Today is the anniversary of controversial screen pioneer Hal Roach (January 14th 1892 – November 2nd 1992), a movie man responsible for some of the best comics and newspaper strips ever made. Here\u2019s one of the very … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Walt Kelly\u2019s Our Gang volume 1”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[80,191,113,122,124,127],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adaptations","category-adventure","category-comedy","category-historical","category-licensed-product","category-nostalgia"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-89k","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31330"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31330\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31335,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31330\/revisions\/31335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}