96 pages; soft cover; full color

Early work from the creator of the celebrated Pogo syndicated strip! Along with fellow Disney alumnus Carl Barks, Walt Kelly is now considered one of the two classic “funny animal” artists from the golden age of comics. Surprisingly, Kelly’s longest-running continuing series was based on actual people,the “real-life” characters of MGM’s durable short-film series, Our Gang (a.k.a. The Little Rascals). Spirited and engaging, Kelly’s Our Gang harks back to the days before television, when kids spent most of their time playing outdoors, limited only by each other’s imagination and ingenuity. Kelly created nearly 100 Our Gang stories by the end of its 59-issue run in 1949, the year he quit comic books to switch careers a final time as syndicated artist/writer on the immortal newspaper strip, Pogo. This is the first in a series of books reprinting Walt Kelly’s Our Gang stories. Suitable for both adults and children, Fantagraphics Books has lovingly restored the work from their comic book appearance, which will be printed in their original four-color splendor. Introduction by Film critic, historian and author, Leonard Maltin.