My worst-condition Pogo comic: No. 4

I bought this tattered copy of Pogo No. 4 in the 1980s from a comics dealer on Ventura Boulevard for four bucks. I may have overpaid. The cover is falling apart (just looking at it seems enough to degrade it further), and it's not even attached to the rest of the book.

But the inside is packed with great stuff from 1951. There's "The Big Hink-cup," in which an early version of Bun Rab falls into a bucket of cake batter that Albert is making, then falls into Seminole Sam's carpet bag, and then… well, actually I don't know how it turns out because the last page of that story is missing. The next story pairs Sam with Porky Pine, who wind up inside an upright piano, which the easily angered Albert kicks into the swamp.

The best pages are the ones in which Albert gets so tangled up with a folding ruler that Pogo has to extricate his friend with a saw. Good stuff, and easily worth four bucks.