Book Edition of the 1960s John Stanley Bibliography is out!

THIS LINK will take you to the CreateSpace store page for this 112-page full color updated edition of the 1960s John Stanley Bibliography. In a few days, it will be available on Amazon, and I'll append this post to include that link.

This print edition, in an 8 x 10 trade paperback, is full color, and features a special 24-page section of stories written by Stanley and illustrated by his greatest collaborator, Bill Williams.

Any of these three books will make a superb holiday gift for the comics fan in your life. Please consider purchasing one or all of these books. Thank you!

Tales From The Tomb #1, pt. 4: Elemental Swamp Horror Takes Elder Dog's Life; Mordant Humor Dominates One-Page Fillers

Here's the last of Tales From The Tomb... "The Mudman." The Grand Comics Database claims this story was drawn by George Evans. I only wish it were... the GCD has some endearingly nutty errors. This is not George Evans' artwork, I assure you...

THIS is an example of George Evans' typically graceful artwork, just in case you're unfamiliar with his comix.











"The Mudman" has a Tubby-esque main character, given to some mild cognitive biases and full of chatter. If Tubby had been presented with a horrific event, as seen here, the results would likely be similar, especially this panel:



"The Mudman" offers the only bona-fide monster rampage moment in this unique anthology. Stanley obviously wished to end the book with a bang. His sense of comic absurdity barely keeps contained. Or, to be fair, I'll say that it's hard to read "serious" Stanley without an overlay of his strong sense of comedy.

Two tongue-in-cheek fillers end this book. "Asphalt Test," drawn by Frank Springer, is cut from the cloth of Dunc 'n' Loo, and is quite amusing:



"The 'Interview'" sends off Tales From the Tomb on an appropriate note of nuttiness.



Well, there you have it, folks. 80 addled pages of nightmare images, neurotic fantasies, a truckload of ellipses, and some undeniably effective moments.

Tales From The Tomb ended John Stanley's short-lived career as a writer of non-humor comix. I wonder what might have happened, had these comix been OK with people, and had Stanley continued in this vein.

I'm glad he didn't, as we might not have his mid-1960s auteur period, where he was a total cartoonist for a few happy years. But, as daffy as some of these stories are, they are always compelling and colorful and, even when their scare-concepts fail, or are staged ineptly, damned imaginative.

As I said in a prior post, there are no other horror comix like John Stanley's. We can only be thankful that this eccentric outburst saw print.

Look for the final Halloween Little Lulu post--on Halloween! See you then...

Tales From The Tomb #1, part 3: Padded Therapist, Tragic-Mystic Cat, Grouchy Scion of Wealth All Involved in Horrific Events

We're on the home stretch of Tales From The Tomb...

Today's posting offers two of its freakiest stories, plus one of its most oddly moving and, dare I say, poetic.

Freak flags fly first with the slice of psycho-horror that is "Crazy Quilt." This is THE story from TFTT that most who read it as kids remember with a shudder. Well, just see for yourself...







"Crazy Quilt" is, at once, John Stanley's kookiest piece, and one of his most revealing as a writer.

The concept is sheer nightmare lunacy. It is a perfect sort of childish bad dream. Being quilted, in the cold light of day, may not strike a mature adult as terrifying. It might actually be a virtue in colder climates.

But from the viewpoint of a child, to whom the world is a sweltering mass of unknown and untested things, this concept is most potent. The idea that a comforting, warming object like a quilt could become something frightening and dangerous is appropriate for a child's imagination.

For a man who said "I don't believe in therapists and pills," Stanley turns in a stellar performance-in-words via poor Miss Birkley, the protagonist. She twists and turns on the psychiatric couch as she tells her story, rich in details and punctuated... with... synapses. I feel that Stanley sympathizes with her.

Therein, we find an interesting variant on the "you are doomed... doomed... DOOMED!" bit that appears in some of Stanley's later Little Lulu stories, and in the harrowing encounters, in Nancy and Sluggo, between Sluggo and the push-button psychotic McOnion.

The rich attention to detail, in Miss Birkley's theraputic monologue, anticipates the nervous, similarly vulnerable dialog of Stanley's Thirteen Going On Eighteen. Stanley's dialogue grew longer and more intense in the 1960s. This talky trend reached an apotheosis in his last work for comix, the first issue of O. G. Whiz (which you'll find in an earlier installment on this blog).

The villain of the piece, of course, is the psycho-therapist-slash-quilter.

Next is a curiously poignant story with subtle scare elements--"The Cat That Was Part of The Night."












"The Cat That Was Part of The Night" suggests a lost Val Lewton horror movie of the 1940s. It is more about domestic tension and dysfunctional adults than horror, per se.

The most charged moments in the story concern the trauma of separation between the little girl, Sue, and her black cat Sammy.

We've seen a dress rehearsal for this scene in the "Li'l Eight Ball" story from New Funnies #101, which was posted HERE not so long ago.

In both stories, Stanley invests the moment of separation with much drama. He is better able to voice this pain in "The Cat..."
Here, he paints a strong portrait of an effed-up family dynamic. Dinah is a commonly-seen 1960s Stanley character--the shrill harridan whose job in life is to bitch and moan and make the world around her tense.

Dinah and Jerry do not get along very well. Jerry is a passive schlump, while dominating Dinah rides him with gusto. Both adults use the child, Sue, for emotional target practice, scoring indirect but vicious hits on one another in her name.

Sue has retreated into a pacifying bond with her cat, Sammy. She describes him poetically on the story's third page:

"Sammy is black--like the night! Sammy is a little part of the night! If he's put out he'll go back into the night!"

All the supernatural elements in this story occur off-stage. We see them through Sue's eyes. She becomes chillingly cruel as she watches Dinah being shredded to bits by the resurrected cat:



In the cold light of day, police surmise that it was your run of the mill raspberry bush scratch/broken neck combo. But Sue knows better.

"The Cat That Was Part of The Night" is the most powerful and convincing story in Tales From The Tomb. I wish the artwork were stronger. The artist does a sort of pastiche of Jack Kamen, George Evans and that Madison Avenue drawing style of the Space Age. The results are, like much of this book, oddly primitive. Yet they somehow--if just barely--succeed.

Back to Wonkyland for "The Long Wait"-- no relation to the Mickey Spillane novel of the same name.








The Tales From The Tomb formula--novel concepts made zany and dream-incoherent--reach their peak in "The Long Wait."

In this story, Stanley calls one of his pet themes--that rich people are no damned good--and gives it a new twist.

Here, we see a very rare instance of a wealthy person (and an admitted scoundrel) willing to atone for his misdeeds. Despite the physical improbability of the story's last panel, "The Long Wait" impresses with its blend of grim ritual and of a miscreant baring his soul and confessing his crimes.

Rich, detailed dialogue fills this story. Mr. Drone's ironic recitation of the "classic" version of his life story, followed by what really happened, is among Stanley's most impressive writing. As well, the interactions of Drone and his man servant, Robert, in a situation usually played for black comedy in Stanley's world, are handled here with impressive gravity.

The concept for the story's shock ending is worthy of the best of the E.C. horror comix. Its shoddy treatment by the artist really robs this piece of its potential impact. As it stands, its blend of grave, affecting dialogues and a kooky finale are par for the TFTT course.

And now, to clear the palate, here's another one-pager, "Goblin's Ball"-- a goldmine of runaway ellipses...

Until... next... time...

Tales From The Tomb #1, pt. 2: Male Wallflower Bewitched at Formal Dance; Adulterous Swinger Compresses Due To Prank

Ah, you’ve returned! Heh, heh, heh! You’re wanting more from Tales From The Tomb, are you?

Well, let’s set up the next mind-fudging batch of stories from this notorious John Stanley effort. It's important that these stories not be read with the expectations of ordinary horror comics.

The effect of these pieces like something like the moment you wake up after a bad dream. You try to put all the pieces together of the brain salad your subconscious has just served up. Important threads--things that would make the dream's events seem logical-- are forever lost. You're haunted with the effect, rather than the actual events.

That's how these stories roll. 

First up is “Oh, How we Danced.”

Poor “Lonely Les!” Even Tubby Tompkins fared better when he courted Gloria, so many times, in such utter vain.

The story's next-to-last page, with its repetition of the word "no," is striking in its intense, frenzied despair. Many modern-day comix artists try to create this sense of hopelessness and darkness in their work (which is usually autobiographical). This page comes out of nowhere in the comix landscape of 1962.

“Oh, How We Danced” attempts a haunting atmosphere, which the artist (Ken Bald?) does well with. This is the most impressive and successful story in the book, in my humble opinion. I wish the ending were given another page. It's very breathless, and teeters on incoherence. Again, when viewed from the dream angle, this fuzzy narrative style works very well.

This would have made a good Twilight Zone episode.

Next is a two-page quickie.




I confess that the payoff to this short-short story makes no sense to me. Perhaps the semi-capable artist forgot something? Perhaps the editor was snoozing? I dunno.

More links to non-horror Stanley Stories here... the husband and wife bear some resemblance to the McOnions of Stanley's Nancy and Sluggo comix.

We conclude today’s broadcast with the appropriately 13-paged work of wonder that is “Two For The Price Of One."















"Two For The Price Of One” has significant thematic ties to Stanley's Little Lulu and Tubby stories.

As a story, it's similar to the improvised tales told by Lulu to bratty neighbor-kid Alvin, in every issue of John Stanley’s Little Lulu.

As well, its plot--of a scheming person seeking mind-fudgery via an elaborately orchestrated hoax--is also cut from the cloth of many a Lulu/Tubby classic.

And, lest we forget, Stanley called upon midgets often in his stories to be deus ex machina figures--to raise stakes or confound the protagonists and antagonists of his stories.

However (and you knew there had to be a ‘however’), few of those deliberately humorous Lulu/Tubby stories could boast such a nutty set-up, married to such a whacked-out, zonky conclusion. Stanley does set it up, with the butler's voodoo doll... but the delayed reaction of the squashing throws a monkey-wrench into the proceedings.

When the a-hole main character assaults the butler, shaking him and insulting him, I'm reminded of Stanley's Thirteen Going on Eighteen. Comedic moments frequently surface in these horror stories, furthering their narrative incongruities.

This is perhaps the most E.C.-like story in Tales From The Tomb. This one begs for an artist of the skill-level of Joe Orlando or George Evans to have illustrated it.

Note the vivid use of comix “typography” in all of these stories. They're written and laid out with real gusto. Stanley wasn’t slacking his way through this project.

Something many Tales From The Tomb stories have in common is their shaggy-dog nature. This story, in particular, is more like a Don Martin Mad Magazine gag piece than a bona-fide horror story.

It does start out in best E.C. fashion. Once the midget angle appears, any resemblance to a traditional horror or suspense story goes out the window. The story's punchline beggars the imagination; it prefigures some of the grotesque imagery of Stanley's Melvin Monster stories.

I must confess that these stories have grown on me as I’ve been posting them. They’re still daffy as can be, but they’re like a force of nature. Just as you can’t tame a hurricane, nor stop a blizzard, you have little choice but to stand back and let Stanley’s horror comix go about their inexorable, zany-dark way.

Coming up next: the immortal “Crazy Quilt”—easily THE most wacky story in Tales From The Tomb, plus other mind-skewering meisterworks!