"Maybe, in hindsight, we should have made our drawings look like his. He drew very funny Mickeys."
Kelly grew tired of trying to suppress his style. He was more of a writer than an animator and wanted to do his own work and be his own boss. A strike by animators at Disney in 1941 was a turning point for Kelly. Although he agreed with the strikers, mainly in-betweeners and assistants, he had friends in supervisory positions as well, and he did not want to be forced to choose between the two camps. The strike provided the impetus for Kelly to leave Disney. He took a leave of absence, claiming that his sister was ill, and moved back to Connecticut.
Pogo
After months of commuting to New York City looking for freelance work, Kelly took advantage of a contact Disney provided him at Western Printing and Lithographing Company, a magazine and children's book printer that produced Disney and Dell comics. Kelly began writing comic books for Western. In late 1942, his first original comic story, "Albert Takes the Cake," appeared in the inaugural issue of Animal Comics. It was the first appearance of the character that would make Kelly famous, Pogo Possum.
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