Eventually a very political possum, Walt Kelly's Pogo was first seen in 1942 in a comic book. By the time he moved into the funny papers in 1948, he was not only considerably cuter but also much more socially aware. A success, albeit a controversial one, from almost the start of his newspaper days, Pogo soon branched out into a series of popular soft-cover reprint books. As the strip progressed, Kelly took increasing interest, and delight, in poking fun at many of the biggest political targets of the day; these included Senator Joe McCarthy, Lyndon Johnson, Nikita Khrushchev, Spiro Agnew, and J. Edgar Hoover. Needless to say, this was sometimes a risky sort of satire in which to indulge, especially in the social climate of the 1950s.

Born in Philadelphia and raised in Bridgeport, Kelly had always yearned to be a cartoonist. In the mid-1930s he went West to...