The Press: Out Goes Pogo

Pogo is a pleasant kind of possum. The star of Walt Kelly's comic strip (syndicated in 519 papers), is a wide-eyed, ingenuous little critter without a contentious bone in his body, and so. by and large, are all his swampland buddies. But now and then Artist Kelly, who has a sharp way of making a point, converts his strip into a sounding board. In 1954 he invented a new character called Simple J. Malarkey. who looked and fulminated so much like the late U.S. Senator Joe McCarthy that several newspapers took instant offense. e.g., the Orlando. Fla. Sentinel, dropped Pogo on the grounds that comics should be funny, not preachy. Last week Pogo was again making some of his clients unhappy.

In ostensible tribute to National Edu cation Week. Pogo began sounding off fortnight ago on a subject of extreme sen sitivity to Kelly's fourscore clients in the South: school integration. "Some places 'round here," observed Pogo to a butter fly pal, "education is perty well finished." This observation was too much for John H. Colburn. managing editor of the Rich mond, Va. Times-Dispatch. He ordered the offending Pogoism routed out of the strip (see cut).

Buried beneath this comic-page tempest was a principle: Can an editor ethically edit a comic strip — which is. after all, the bylined personal product of its creator? Yes. said Editor Colburn: "We have a right to edit, we do edit, everything that goes into our newspaper. Comic-strip art ists have no immunity.'' No, said Artist Kelly. "Once my name and copyright are on the strips, I am responsible for what is said in them and how it is said. I'd be will ing to let 519 papers go to hell if they want to insist on a right — which they do not have — to edit my copy." The Pogo balloon that Editor Colburn popped was only the beginning. Said Pogo a few strips later: "This fella said the thing to do when schools is padlocked or bombed is to open a speakeasy schoolroom near by." Albert the Alligator chimed in: "You open up a school, next thing you know all kinds of ignoramusses is comin' in ... They meets yo' daughter . . . Splits a orange with her poof! They's engaged, married, an' livin' in the attic." On their rounds. Pogo and assorted pals find "speakeasy" school sites in a rotten log, under a stone.

For these strips. Colburn had a different remedy: he consigned three of the most offensive ones to the wastebasket. In

Charleston. S.C. the Evening Post went farther, dropped the whole education sequence. Other Southern editors chose to let Pogo have his say, carried his full symposium on "consegregated," "de-conseg-regated," and "non-un-de-consegregated" schools. Cracked Editor Harry Ashmore. whose Arkansas Gazette did not pencil Pogo: "I suppose some editors are worried about their daughters' marrying a possum."