Walt Kelly’s Pogo and the Legacy of Satire as a Tool for Political Reform

By Steven Heller · Print Magazine · 2026-07-23

Print Magazine examines how cartoonist Walt Kelly transformed the funny pages into a serious venue for social commentary during the mid-twentieth century. By placing political figures like Joe McCarthy and Richard Nixon into the fictional Okefenokee Swamp, Kelly used his anthropo

Print Magazine examines how cartoonist Walt Kelly transformed the funny pages into a serious venue for social commentary during the mid-twentieth century. By placing political figures like Joe McCarthy and Richard Nixon into the fictional Okefenokee Swamp, Kelly used his anthropo