Wednesday, August 26, 2009

SS Press: Cited in HoLLywood Eclectern #48

A tip of the non-Hatlo hat to Ed Buchman, who had a sort-of Stanley Stories special in his latest issue of the home-brewed Lulu-Stanley gazette, The HoLLywood Eclectern.

Ed kindly acknowledges some of the Stanley "finds" I've made via this blog. He also asks a question I seem to get a lot lately:

"What happened to the Stanley Stories website?"

It is, indeed, no longer. I forgot to renew my domain name. I still have all the files and data. It's just not on the 'net any longer.

The website was a chore to update. I dislike writing HTML code (lots of trial and erorr, er, error). As well, a source of personal frustration was the site's visual incompatibility with certain computers and monitors. Text that flowed like a natural spring on one machine looked like a 20-car pile-up on another.

I switched to this blog a year+ back. It's easier to update; I feel compelled to create new posts because I don't have to re-invent the effin' wheel each time I update.

A feature of the defunct website, one acknowledged and added to by Ed, is the "Stanleyisms" page. On this page, I picked what I felt were the Top Ten "Stanleyisms"-- quirks and techniques that often provide tells when I'm perusing faceless old Dell comix for possible John Stanley content.

These "Stanleyisms" are not all unique to John Stanley. "Yow" is the number one example. Thousands of funnybook makers have used "yow" before, during and after Stanley's comix career. By now, it's as much the signature of Bill Griffith's Zippy the Pinhead as it is a Stanleyism.

Still, if you find "yow" plus other prominent Stanleyisms, you've very likely located some of our hero's work.

Ed's 'zine has reminded me that I might do well to revisit "Stanleyisms" here on the blog, as a series of posts.

I'll include his fine additions of "EEYOW!" (which can have an unlimited number of Es, dependent on the issuer's state of panic, terror or shock); spots before the eyes to indicate illness, confusion, dizziness or displacement, and a brilliant observation on Ed's part of Stanley's skipping the B part of a narrative A-B-C line.

He offers an excellent example or two. One you can find on this blog occurs in the final two panels of THIS post's story.

This narrative motif is sparingly used in Stanley's career, but it's beautifully effective, and warrants inclusion as a bona-fide "Stanleyism."

If you'd like more information on Ed's charming Eclectern, write him at this address:

The HoLLywood Eclectern
c/o Ed Buchman
P. O. Box 4215
Fullerton, California 92834
USA

Thanks again, Ed! Keep up the good work!

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