The official history and commemoration of Pogo's first decade...all wrapped up with a running commentary by Walt Kelly.

    For over 40 years he contributed strips to The Village Voice, and has long been a regular contributor to the London Observer and Playboy. An animated cartoon based on his story Munro received an Academy Award in 1961. In the '60s, he branched into theater, writing several plays now regarded as classics: Little Murders; Knock, Knock; The White House Murder Case; Elliot Loves; and The Grown-Ups, to name a few. Originally conceived for the stage, his Carnal Knowledge became one of the landmark films of the '70s. He has written two prose novels, Harry the Rat with Women and Ackroyd, as well as a cartoon novel, Tantrum. In the 1990s, Feiffer embarked on yet another career, this time as a children's book author. He has over a half-dozen to his credit, including modern classics like The Man and the Ceiling.Passionella and Other Stories collects Feiffer's finest extended graphic narratives of the late '50s and early '60s. It opens in full-color with "Excalibur and Rose," the fable of a village comedian who embarks on a crusade in search of his serious side, which he finds in spades when he encounters his true love, the pathologically depressed Rose. The volume's centerpiece, "Passionella," a retelling of Cinderella set in modern Hollywood, concerns a chimney sweep whose fairy godmother transforms her into the "mysterious exotic bewitching temptress"and movie starPassionella. Other stories include "The Lonely Machine," an account of one man's attempt to find the perfect relationship through robot love, and "Harold Swerg," the predicament of the world's greatest athlete who'd rather stay at his mundane job than compete against others, despite his country's desperate pleas to enter the Olympics. Three more classic graphic tales and several entertaining one-act plays round out this handsomely designed hardcover edition.

    (The Gilberton Company, Inc.), the series kicked off in October 1953 with an adaptation of the Grimm Brothers' Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs illustrated by Alex Blum. The series' last original issue was The Runaway Dumpling, issue 577 of 1962. The series ceased publication in Spring 1971. Published monthly, issues cost slightly more than other comic books of the time with a 15 cent cover price rather than the usual 10 or 12-cents. Close to the end of publication in 1971, prices jumped to 25-cents. At its peak, in 1960, Classics Illustrated Junior's average monthly circulation was 262,000. Issues included among their contents features such as comics adaptations of Aesop Fables (usually two to three pages), a limerick by Edward Lear, a Mother Goose rhyme, or poem from Robert Louis Stevenson's A Child's Garden of Verses (one page), and a one page factual article about a bird, beast, or reptile. As the publisher allowed only in-house advertising in his books, the back cover interior sometimes offered a catalog of titles and a subscription order form. First editions included a "Coming Next Month" ad and a dot-to-dot puzzle on the inside front cover. The interior of the back cover featured a "Color this Picture with your Crayons" full-page line-drawn illustration of a scene from the tale. The exterior of the back cover often depicted a full-page color illustration from the tale. Artists included John Costanza, Kurt Schaffenberger, L. B. Cole and Graham Ingels. Unlike other comic book publishers, Kanter reprinted his titles regularly and the line was distributed abroad.