WHM 2012 Womensfolk of POGO (3)

Continuing the introduction of the three major female characters in the POGO comic-strip by Walt Kelly, today I want to talk about Miz Beaver and her pal, Miss Sis Boombah.

Miz Beaver seemed to be the one female character who was treated as an equal in the crazy Okefenokee Swamp world. She wasn't a romantic character at all (that was Mis Mam'selle Hepzibah; we'll get to her next week). She seemed to be non-threatening most of the time (unless she was trying to play match-maker between Pogo and any of her other lady friends!). She was often shown walking a baby buggy (usually containing a fish!) or she would be shown doing her laundry. Almost always she had a corn-cob pipe in her mouth. She reminded me a little bit of "Granny" from The Beverly Hillbillies. Sometimes she would talk about her husband Mister Beaver, but always in the past tense. The assumption was that he had died. However, in this panel from 1969, she actually tells her pal Miss Sis Boombah what happened to Mister Beaver.

Miss Sis Boombah was a Rhode Island Red and was introduced as such in a joke about subversives or some such. She was crazy about physical fitness and tended to get the mens folk all riled up about staying in shape or getting out of her way. As was shown last week, subtlety was not her forte. She did not tend to show up as often as Miz Beaver; when she did appear it was often as Miz Beaver's conversational companion, again as shown here. She was very much a supporting character and not a protagonist of any particular adventures.



the illustration on the last page
before PRISONER OF LOVE begins