STANLEY STORIES: Dog Daze: the last of Jigg and Mooch

Friday, January 9, 2009

Dog Daze: the last of Jigg and Mooch

A combination of too little sleep, too much snow, and too hectic a schedule has rechristened my cold. I'm feelin' sick as a dog, so it's only fair that I post two Stanley stories about our canine companions, Jigger (now "Jigg") and Mooch.

These are the final stories in the feature's short run, from Animal Comics 29 and 30. I've now posted the full run of this remarkable strip.

Stanley signs these stories as "Biff." Here is his cartooning at its most austere. The clean, mechanical pen lines suggest Herge, or the ink and paint department of a Hollywood animation shop.

Jigg's language is spare. Punctuation is only used when absolutely necessary. Part of the language of comix is the avoidance of periods to end sentences and statements. Periods were avoided because printers mistook them for flaws and removed them, or else they failed to survive to the photostat/engraving stage. (The same thing often happened to Charlie Brown's eyes in the early days of Peanuts.)

! replaced . in the comix vocabulary! Thus, most early comix dialogue seems quite loud! Even the simplest statement is fired off with an aggressive exclamation mark!

Stanley chooses to end his sentences like this This makes for a curious reading experience Thank goodness for the enclosure of the balloon Otherwise, one would never be quite sure where one statement ended, and the next began

In the 1950s, Stanley got heavily into his ellipse period. This...could punctuate a sentence...in a number of ways...creating interesting...rhythms...

But enough of this! I hate to get bogged down in semantics Let's just...move on...shall we...

I feel rather written out on Jigger/Jigg and Mooch. I admire how Stanley kept his storytelling clean and direct. It's so nice to see an author write TO children, not DOWN to children. I think he best achieved this effect with this feature.

"Jigg" has an child's sense of urgency that is at the heart of the Stanley worldview: survive, move forward, stop and take stock of the world around you. A child can relate to this more than an adult, I think. The child in me still relates to it, very strongly...

From Animal Comics 29... a classic "mind-fudge" scenario:

The final story, from Animal Comics 30:

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THE JOHN STANLEY COMICS BIBLIOGRAPHY SERIES

I have compiled a detailed, fully illustrated (in color) story-by-story career bibliography of the comic book and magazine cartoon work of John Stanley, in three decade-specific oversized paperback editions. They're available in book form at Amazon.com.

You can read more about the 1940s volume HERE.

Check out the 1950s edition (the longest of the three books) HERE.

The 1960s volume can be previewed HERE.

Covers of the three books are seen below--and that of THE TAO OF YOW, a lavishly illustrated book of essays on John Stanley's world and his work, including expanded versions of essays first seen on this blog. TAO OF YOW may be perused HERE.

A FERVENT PLEA TO FELLOW BLOGGERS

I would like to suggest that the following grammatical and punctuation errors be avoided by one and all;

1) misuse of the possessive apostrophe-s. It's means "it is," not "its." Appropriate use, e.g.: "It's hot outside today." Wrong usage: "I looked at it's cover."

I see this horrid mistake committed hundreds of times daily on the Internet and elsewhere. If a word ends in an s, chances are someone will ram that apostrophe in there. (e.g., "Today's Special's").

Please, please, PLEASE--unless you intend to convey that a person, place or thing is being discussed, in the present tense, or is in use as a contraction of two words (i.e., "it is, let us, what is"), DO NOT USE THE APOSTROPHE!

2) misuse of the apostrophe in dates. Again: unless it is intended to convey the location or possession of a certain quality, such as "1867's drinking water supplies" or "1978's energy crisis," DO NOT USE THE APOSTROPHE! The same applies to the use of decade-connoting dates. It is the 1950s, or the '50s--NOT the 1950's or the 50's!

3) the two most abused words in the English language are "amazing" and "hilarious." It pains me to see these words used thousands of times a day in print and in conversation.

If everything is amazing and/or hilarious, then NOTHING is amazing and/or hilarious.

There exists a wealth of synonyms--delightful words that convey these two properties. Please, please, please use them in the place of these two horribly over-worked adjectives.

Visit synonym.com for easy access to other words that will help you communicate better and smarter.

4) When in doubt, use Spell Check.

Computer users have a luxury--we can instantly determine if a word we've typed is properly spelled. Any computer's spell checking program will inevitably have bugs, but most of the time it's quite helpful.

There is no good reason (aside from un-caught typos) that Internet writing should have spelling errors. We no longer have to interrupt our work, walk over to the bookshelf, pull out the dictionary, find the word, and return to our task. Right-click on a highlighted word and you'll know if it's correct or not.

The speed of the Internet sometimes inspires sloppiness--in myself and in others. In our excitement to get our writing on-line, it's easy to forget that finely-tuned prose may require a little more time.

It is worth the effort--and it takes little effort anymore--to double-check spelling before you make a post live. I often go over old posts and correct typos or poor writing. I feel it makes a difference, and that it supports my worth as a scholar and critic.

If this plea can prevent the egregious misuse of proper English in the blogosphere, my life will not have been in vain.