forward by Jimmy Breslin; introduction by Steve Thompson    Tis the season of classic comics reprints, for sure!  First we have the complete Carl Barks Library getting under way, then we have the Simon and Kirby Crime, and now we have the first volume in Pogo: The Complete Syndicated Comic Strips.  (Intriguingly, the material collected in all three of these books centers on the year 1949; hmmm... seems worth pondering.)  This project has long been in development, and more than once delayed, but it realy is here, and it looks like it was worth the wait!  What we have here is a massive, 290 page, oversize, horizontally formatted hardcover with an embossed cloth cover and a lush wraparound dustjacket.  It collects the daily strip from it's start on May 16, 1949 through to the end of 1950, as well as the Sunday pages from their start on January 29, 1950 through to the end of that year, with the Sundays in fantastic full color, scanned from the original pages and then "lovingly and painstakingly restored by hand and computer."  And, as if that wasn't enough, as an added bonus we also get the complete  "beta" version of the strip that ran in the New York Star from October 4, 1948 through January 28, 1949.