In 1941, at the age of 28, Kelly transferred to work at Dell Comics, where he created Pogo, which eventually became his platform for political and philosophical commentary.

[4] After graduating from Warren Harding High School in 1930, Kelly worked at odd jobs until he was hired as a crime reporter on the Bridgeport Post.

[5] Kelly became close friends with fellow cartoonists Milton Caniff and Al Capp, and the three occasionally referred to each other in their strips.

[9] A fourth child, Kathryn Barbara, died before her first birthday, an event he commemorated in the Pogo strip for several years thereafter with a bug character attempting to deliver a cake with one candle.

[10] After relocating to Southern California, Kelly found a job at Walt Disney Productions as a storyboard artist and gag man on Donald Duck cartoons and other shorts.

During the 1941 animators' strike Kelly did not picket the studio, as has often been reported, but took a leave of absence, pleading "family illness", to avoid choosing sides.

Surviving correspondence between Kelly and his close friend and fellow animator Ward Kimball chronicles his ambivalence towards the highly charged dispute.

On May 25, 1960, Kelly wrote a letter to Walt Disney regarding his time at the studio: Just in case I ever forgot to thank you, I'd like you to know that I, for one, have long appreciated the sort of training and atmosphere that you set up back there in the thirties.

So highly regarded was his work that the introduction, likely written by Dell editor Oskar Lebeck, to Fairy Tale Parade #1 spoke of him as "the artist who drew all the wonderful pictures in this book.

In 1948, while serving as art director of the short-lived New York Star (successor to the afternoon liberal tabloid PM), Kelly began to produce a pen-and-ink daily comic strip featuring anthropomorphic animal characters that inhabited the Okefenokee Swamp in Georgia.

Kelly used the strip in part as a vehicle for his liberal and humanistic political and social views, and satirized, among other things, Senator Joseph McCarthy's anti-Communist demagogy (in the form of a shotgun-wielding bobcat named "Simple J. Malarkey") and the sectarian and dogmatic behavior of communists (in the form of two comically doctrinaire cowbirds).

The Okefenokee Swamp Park near Waycross, Georgia, now has a building housing Kelly's relocated studio and various Pogo memorabilia.

Additionally, Kelly illustrated The Glob, a children's book about the evolution of man written by John O'Reilly and published in 1952.

Kelly died on October 18, 1973, in Woodland Hills, California, from diabetes complications, following a long and debilitating illness that had cost him a leg.

[5] Kelly, a great admirer of Lewis Carroll, was also a prolific poet, especially in the "Anguish Languish" form (of which Deck Us All with Boston Charlie is considered one of the prime examples).

Kelly's singing voice, a boozy Irish baritone, can be heard on the Songs of the Pogo album, for which he also supplied the lyrics.

The album features Kelly singing his own comic lyrics and nonsense verse to melodies written mostly by Norman Monath.

The first volume in the series was scheduled to appear in October 2007 but was delayed, reportedly due to difficulty in locating early Sunday strips in complete form.

Joe Murray, (creator of Rocko's Modern Life and Camp Lazlo) cited Kelly's work as his inspiration to create wacky anthropomorphic animal characters.