Is This Stanley's Work? Two stories from Tip Top Comics 218, 1960

I haven't done an "Is This Stanley's Work?" post for a while.

But, first, a few words about Tip Top Comics.

Born in 1939, during the golden age comix boom, Tip Top was published by United Features Syndicate. At the time, they held a number of popular newspaper strips (Nancy, Li'l Abner, Tarzan, Ella Cinders, Captain and the Kids, et al).

Rather than widely license their characters to publishers such as Dell or National, UFS chose to repackage their back-dated properties into a poorly-printed monthly funnybook.

As such, Tip Top toddled along for years. Heavier emphasis was placed on Ernie Bushmiller's "Nancy" strips. Reprints of Charles Schulz's "Peanuts" and Gus Arriola's criminally under-reprinted "Gordo" spiced up the pot in the 1950s, as did reprints of Bob Lubbers' elegant artwork and layouts on the '50s "Tarzan" strip.

Dell licensed Tarzan in 1947. Jesse Marsh beautifully and boldly illustrated the ape man's exploits for the next two decades. They seem to have left all other UFS properties alone until their buy-out of the surviving UFS comic books in 1958.

EC Trivia Tidbit: Jack Davis and Harvey Kurtzman had their first published works in Tip Top!

Tip Top changed hands twice. After 187 UFS-published issues, St. John Comics took it over through issue 210. Like the companion Nancy and Sluggo book, it was absorbed by Dell/Western in the late 1950s.

Dell obviously held little hope for Tip Top. It was published quarterly: the kiss of death for a licensed anthology title.

Dell dispensed with comic-strip reprints and created new material. They pared it down to four features-- Nancy, Peanuts, Sluggo and the execrable Captain + Kids.

As John Stanley wound down his tenure with the Little Lulu family of titles, he took over the Nancy features--a classic lateral move. In Stanley's hands, Nancy & Co. smacked of Little Lulu & Co., with some telling distinctions.

Clearly weary of the Lulu formula (after hundreds of stories, he'd earned the right to be weary), Stanley explored darker motifs with the Nancy series.

His run on the Nancy/Nancy and Sluggo comics is brilliant work--as Drawn + Quarterly's reprint series will attest. Up until now, I've thought that Stanley had little-to-no involvement with Tip Top Comics.

I'll take a yack-break so you can see the cover to Tip Top 218. Dynamic graphics, eh?



Here's my theory about this work. I believe that Tip Top was edited in the West Coast offices of the Dell empire, while Nancy & Sluggo was created and edited on the East Coast.

Everything about Tip Top smacks of Western's California offices: mediocre cover schemes, inferior writing and editing, compared to the East Coast office's output, and a stronger sense of playing it straight.

Another tell: the Peanuts stories were produced by Dale Hale and Jim Sasseville, local pals of Charles Schulz who, at the time, lived in California. Schulz once noted that he allowed this original material because "...it gave me a chance to have a couple of friends do something."

The Nancy/Sluggo stuff in Tip Top feels like John Stanley's work, with some weird changes. My theory: Stanley wrote these, in his typical thumbnail-script form. The scripts were mailed out to California, where one of the heavy-handed West Coast editors did his or her worst to neuter them.

You can't keep a good man down. "The Empty Piggy Bank" teems with Stanley tells (aggressive physical movement, intense SFX and the unmistakable "Ha! Ha! Ha!"). His trademark "YOWs" are changed to less-appealing "EE-YOWs" by the clueless editor.

There are some great lines in this story--Nancy's quite correct thought-balloon about adults, on p.1, panel three, and her cutting-contest-worthy put-down of Rollo Haveall on p.4, panel 4.

I feel that this is Stanley's work, compromised by an unsympathetic editor. See what you think...










Sluggo and McOnion, his borderline-psycho neighbor, co-star in "Long-Distance Brawl." The California editor left his or her red pencil on the desk--thank goodness!--in this very funny, edgy, dark battle of wits.

Loads of Stanley tells--"windmill action," "Ha! Ha! Ha!," floating eyes in blackness, SFX in balloons--distinguish this piece. As well, Stanley's dialogue. is peppered with sitcom-sharp barbs, retorts and hypothetical questions. The most affecting occurs on the bottom half of p.2, in which McOnion's emotional breakdown is shattered by a seemingly naive question by Sluggo.

Here's the story.









This is tip-top quality John Stanley work. The "Sluggo" stories in Tip Top are less compromised than the "Nancy" entries. I've spotted other Stanley pieces in issues 219, 220 and 222. It's possible that 221 (which I don't have at present) contains Stanley material, as well.

Dell ceased Tip Top with issue 225. This was published in 1961. The last three issues have no Stanley input. Some poor schmo tried to write like Stanley, and missed the mark horribly.

Caveat: early Dell issues of Tip Top do not have Stanley work. You can see just how bad the West Coast Dell writers could be in those stories. Ditto the "Captain & Kids" stuff. Hale and Sasseville's "Peanuts" material is an interesting failure--fascinating stuff for its intentions, and how close it comes to succeeding.

Let me know your thoughts on today's post. I'm fascinated that there are still Stanley stories left to discover...

great new blog on comix master JACK COLE!

Click H E R E to visit COLE'S COMICS, a fine new blog on the cartoon artistry of writer-artist Jack Cole--a person who, like John Stanley, merits the label of "superb comics creator." (I dislike the term 'genius,' and shun its use when possible. Now's the time to go back and tally up how many times I've used the word in this blog!)

Paul is a longtime friend. Many is the hour we've spent discussing comics, and Jack Cole has been a frequent topic of our talks. I'm excited that Paul has begun this blog.

If you think Jack Cole is just about "Plastic Man," you've got another think coming. Be sure to visit COLE'S COMICS regularly for great stories and compelling critical commentary!

Summer camp antics conclude: pt IV of the '57 Lulu/Tubby special

Just in time for the hottest day this year in Seattle-- here's the grand finale of this beloved 1957 Lulu-Tubby summer camp special.

"The Lost Mumday" walks the fine line between canned sitcom and perverse comedy-of-embarrassment. Mumday is a pervasive second-string theme of the Lulu-verse. The boys' solemn determination not to speak to girls on a selected day is forever destined to failure.

When Stanley has Tubby and Iggy indulge in some mild cross-dressing, and places them in the eye of the hurricane (the girls' camp), the story picks up appreciably. Iggy's failure to maintain the feminine ruse gives a potentially stale story a nice little lift.










"Voo-Dood It?" follows an innocent arts-and-crafts project to its unexpectedly nightmarish end. Tubby's infidelity to Lulu (by a blonde Gloria-esque hussy) causes the rotund one a great deal of superstitious anxiety. All's well in the end. Bonus points for the droll non-sequitir of "Do you like peanut butter?"









"Night Noises:" here's a beautiful story, with a noble blend of melancholy and machine-gun verbal laffs. I love the girl camper's comment that the sound of the katydids brings with it sadness--it signals the end of summer.

Three pages is all this poem-like story requires. This is my favorite story in the book.





In conclusion, "Summer Souvenirs" masterfully melds melancholy and mirth. Lulu's OCD-fueled rant, in the fifth panel of the first page, is one of the funniest moments in all of John Stanley's work.

Once again, this story is riven with melancholy. The kids have pangs of loss--the closure of barely-begun friendships, the return to the dullness of school and home life.

The story arc of souvenirs being traded is handled with real grace. Tubby delivers the final kicker, in a moment that brings his self-absorption and egotism to the fore. It takes the edge off the sadness that permeates these last two stories.









Tubby restores his old world, in full, in the book's inside-back-cover gag page. At the end, we are all reassured by the Dell Pledge to Parents. Remember--this has been a wholesome reading experience!

that Little Lulu 'n' Tubby summer camp thing III

As promised, here's part three of our '57 Summer Camp Funfest.

I've decided against including all the activity pages. They eat up too much space. Altho' said pages may have nostalgic oomph for those who read this giant as a kid, they're low on actual do-I-really-need-to-see-this value.

Here are the next four stories in this epic shebang.

These stories have a less hard edge than contemporary pieces in the monthly Little Lulu magazine. This is not a complaint; it's an appreciation.

100 pages of high-octane sitcom might wear out its welcome, even on the staunchest reader. Thus, it makes sense to turn the intensity down a notch or three. Focus is more on characterization than boffo gags.

Stanley makes the assumption that the reader is hep to the relationships, social status, and personalities of his cast of characters. The subtleties of these stories are much better appreciated by those who know the lay of Lulu-Land.

"Package From Home" is part of a group of stories in which objects and individuals from the real world intrude upon the sexually segregated Eden of Camp Shakatot. You'll recognize the terrifying instrument that turns up in Tubby's from-home box.

Someone in my crowded urban neighborhood just got a puppy. The poor canine suffers from seperation anxiety. Night and day, he/she makes noises much like the ones I imagine emanating from Tubby's violin.

This story uses a Stanley device I haven't discussed here before. Throughout his career, and particularly later on, Stanley is fond of having his characters utter either "We're doomed... doomed... DOOMED!" or "you are doomed... doomed... DOOMED!"

Usually meant for comical effect--an over-reaction to a difficult but repairable crisis-- doomed...doomed... DOOMED! gains a more sinister edge from the late '50s on.

It deserves to be added to my list of Stanleyisms. Someday soon I'll do a revised post of Stanleyisms here, and include excerpts from various Stanley stories as illustrations.









"How To Handle Girls" plays upon the arrogance of Tubby and his clubhouse pals. More outside intrusion, in the form of sociopathic Wilbur Van Snobbe, befouls the lads' assumptions that they have the upper hand on Lulu, Annie, Gloria, et al.

Status shifts and social frustration are the themes of this story. Laffs galore via table-turning humiliation. The Wilburs of the world are always there to upstage the rest of us.






"Little Itch's Singing Lesson" provides the required fractured fairy-tale. Lulu's purgatorial duty is to tell these improvised stories to bratty Alvin, in a (usually wasted) attempt to calm him down. Alvin would be on some major anti-depressants today.

Stanley indulges in more verbal-visual comedy here. It's a shaggy-dog story.









"Surprise Visit" is the gem of this batch. Lulu's father is brutalized while trying to engage with his daughter in the increasingly dangerous--and socially humiliating--world of Camp Shakatot. While laughing at Mr. Moppet's misfortunes, the adult reader can easily sympathize with the surprisingly realistic mishaps that occur. The business with the oars is particularly spot-on.






"Stormy Night" provides an apt coda for this third helping.




In our next post, we'll wrap up this 100-page fracas. See you then!

Lulu and Tubby's 1957 summer camp epic, pt.2

Here's installment two of the Dell Giant Lulu/Tubby Summer Camp book of 1957.

It's a pity these summer camp comix have never been reprinted. It would be impossible to chop these up into isolated stories. Stanley, in these giant books, remarkably weaves a simple, casual narrative. Each story's events quietly pushes the story along its arc, like a local bus that makes many brief stops.

Each vignette depends on what's come before it--and what will happen beyond it--to properly work.

In a sense, these summer camp giants are prehistoric graphic novels. More-so than any other giant comix of the era, Stanley's make a conscientious effort to stay on-course, and to tell a story from start to end.

This subtlety has doomed them to extinction, it would seem. I don't know if Dark Horse, or Drawn + Quarterly, plan to include the many giants Stanley wrote between 1955 and 1962 in their respective reprint projects. If not, modern-day readers will miss out on some of Stanley's best writing.

"Camp Shakatot," our opening story, offers a first page of intense verbal humor. It rivals "Two Foots Are Feet" [see earlier post for that story] in its carom of repetition.

Therein, we meet the obese, oblivious Ada Bump, a sort of female Tubby. Our hero indulges in some non-PC fat jokes, but leavens them with absurdity and more wordplay. The story's climax is like Samuel Beckett--only funny.













Tubby and bratty Alvin spice up "High Dive Expert," which is an otherwise slight story, distinguished by some delightful status switcheroos. Stanley indulges in more naturalistic kid chatter, as well.








Here's a page of Tubby-pleasing tips on how to prepare snacks in the wild--even in your backyard or airshaft!



And for our final feature today, "Paddle Your Own Canoe" shows the other side of the status fence in the girls' camp. A so-so story, it has some late instances of "windmill action" in the canoeing scenes. This Stanley device was largely abandoned after the late '40s.






More camp comix tomorrow, depending on how my lower back holds out...

Summer Camp, 1957-style, with Lulu and Tubby , pt. 1

Summer rapidly approaches. Here in the Pacific Northwest, while sunshine has mostly replaced rain and overcast grey, the temperatures remain in the highly reasonable 50s, 60s and (at worse) 70s.

I'm no fan of warm weather, so that's as hot as it ever need get for me. Alas, it will get hotter, and brighter, and increasingly less pleasant in the months to come.

I have no real cause for complaint--I live in one of the most temperate climate zones on this continent. If it's any consolation, I spent most of the first 30 years of my life in the dank jungles of the Southeast--Florida and Georgia--and I know all too well what summertime in a southern clime is like.

That said, John Stanley's summer camp comix transcend my adult perceptions of the season. How enjoyable summer seems in this handful of Lulu and Nancy summer camp giants! Tho' often fraught with peril, Stanley's camp comix capture, in crappily-printed words and pictures, the meaning summer has to kids.

To celebrate what little positive spin I can put on the upcoming season of squint and sweat, I'll be posting the entirety of Stanley's much-beloved, ne'er-reprinted 1957 Lulu and Tubby summer camp special.

I'm gonna try to do five posts, each with 20 pp., including all those easy-to-solve puzzle pages (which usually bear the ancient, frustrated scrawl of the c.1957 child who valiantly attempted their solution).

I'll write more actual commentary as the posts roll on. One thing that immediately strikes me is how formulaic these summer camp comics of Stanley's are. They tend to follow the same overall plot arc:

1) kids excited about immiment summer camp departure; attempt to take all personal belonging with them; action denied by sensible parents

2) one child, usu. aggressive male, denied camp attendance; said child sinks into isolation, depression

3) neglected child, via clever ruse or godlike financial endowment, gets to go to camp; is reunited with chums, regains status

That's about as far as we get in the first two stories presented here.

I'm fascinated by the work of cartoonists who are creative within strict formulae. This is something John Stanley and George Herriman share as comix creators. Come to think of it, Barks, Kelly, Mayer, Eisner, and Kurtzman also thrived while hewing to formula plots and hard-set guidelines.

Well, as said, there's more to come...

*******

Cat Logic Cartoons; puttin' the YOW in MEOW!

Conversation With My Cat - High Resolution from Jim Gill on Vimeo.

I'm proud to unveil a 3D animated cartoon made by Jim Gill and myself. We improvised the soundtrack. Jim then used the Blender 3D animation program to do the character animation.

I offered some suggestions, here and there, about expressions, eye moves, etc. It was Jim who did the animation.

If you've enjoyed my ramblings here, you might get a kick out of this too. Remember: the soundtrack is 100% improvised, on the spot!

Check it out at http://www.catlogiccartoons.com/ ! Join the mailing list, and you'll be updated each time we take leave of our collective senses and do another of these movin' and groovin' cartoon extravaganzas! Tell your friends if you enjoy it...