The Comic Strip Pogo and Liberal Satire During the Vietnam Era
During the early 1950s , the comic strip Pogo became the most widely read daily strip in America . Created and written by Walt Kelly , it was set in Georgia ’ s Okefenokee Swamp and was best known for its broad farce , whimsical humor , and Southern slang . The strip ’ s lead character , Pogo Possum , was the essence of common sense and decency , and its storylines took in much of the political and social news of the day . In fact , Pogo was one of the first newspaper comic strips to satirically deal with controversial current events . It was perceived by most to be “ liberal ” in tone and during the opening years of the decade it had become particularly famous for lampooning Senator Joseph McCarthy and the “ Red Scare ” menace that surrounded him . 1
However , Pogo ' s popularity and the sting of its liberal satire began to falter in the mid-1960s . McCarthy was gone and many of the issues that surfaced in this new era proved to be difficult to fold into a comic strip . The civil rights movement and the escalating problems of race in America gave Kelly problems . In his mind , the movement ’ s honorable goals and its increasingly questionable means seemed to diverge . 2 Also by the mid to late sixties , the war in Vietnam and the rise of the “ new left ” opposition to it were troublesome to Kelly . On the one hand , radical youth , the counterculture , and anti-war protests appeared to be disrupting the nation , while , on the other hand , America ’ s role and tactics in the war were becoming worrisome . Thus , for Pogo , the decade proved to be elusive and difficult subject to grasp . The strip ’ s ambivalence became something of a mirror to the uncertainties of liberals who felt irrelevant as the issues around them seemed to spin out of control .
Kelly ’ s dislike of the youth movement was obvious at first and then lessened over time , while his early support for the war grew fainter as the fighting went on . Some of his first written views on these topics were not penned into the strip , but were in a commentary about his 1965 world tour , a week of which was spent in South Vietnam . He wrote a number of columns during this one week , including interviews with American servicemen and South Vietnamese civilians . The articles displayed sincere feelings for the people of South Vietnam and sympathy for their sufferings . They also portrayed a uniformly consistent image of intelligent , courageous , and confident American soldiers who always maintained their respect for their South Vietnamese allies . Kelly also reported on the violent nature of Vietcong tactics and their attempts to destabilize the South ’ s society . He did not hesitate to quote American soldiers ’ dislike and disgust for the emerging anti-war protests back in the United States , nor did he try to qualify or be objective about the issues he found . At this point , the war appeared to be justified and necessary .