Walt Kelly on his early newspaper career

While in high school, Kelly started working part-time for the Bridgeport Post, and became a full-time reporter upon graduation. At the Post, he worked his way through most jobs on the paper in a then-standard apprenticeship. He did a number of cartoons for the Post, including illustrating the life of fellow Bridgeportian P.T. Barnum. These jobs "put printer's ink in his veins," and throughout his life Kelly considered himself a newspaperman, not just a cartoonist. He was justly proud of the fact that repeatedly during his career he was asked to write straight editorial pieces, not because he was a noted cartoonist but because he was known as someone who could dig out the facts and get them right.