Kelly, Walt(er Crawford)

(born Aug. 25, 1913, Philadelphia, Pa., U.S.—died Oct. 18, 1973, Los Angeles, Calif.) U.S. cartoonist. From 1935 he produced animation drawings for Walt Disney Productions, and in the 1940s he worked as a commercial artist in New York. His best-known character, the opossum Pogo, first appeared in a comic book c. 1943. In 1948 Pogo began to be published as a daily comic strip in the New York Star, and it was soon appearing in many other newspapers. Skillfully drawn, with witty and literate text, it featured Pogo and his winning animal friends in Okefenokee Swamp, characters Kelly often used to satirize prominent political figures.

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