STANLEY STORIES: August 2019

Tuesday, August 20, 2019

Book Revue

Just a couple of recent developments you folks might find of interest...

I spent the past two years restoring Cecil Jensen's indescribably droll, dark and whacked-out newspaper comic strip Elmo. It ran from 1946 to 1948, and it defines the notion of a concept that came before its time.

The strip was scorned by the public-at-large, badly printed in the few newspapers that carried it, and destined to be a forgotten treasure of 20th-century American pop culture.

No longer. This 206-page 8.5" square trade paperback contains the entirety of the original run of Elmo, augmented with a biographical introduction by myself (which contains several examples of Jensen's editorial cartooning, for which he was best-known).

The comic strips have been painstakingly restored from the best sources I could locate, and it took a lot of hard work to bring this book to fruition.

As with my four books on John Stanley, Elmo is self-published, and can be purchased HERE for $14.99 USD. You may preview the book at this link. If you appreciate the humor of John Stanley, I think you'll cotton to Elmo.

And, of course, coming on November 26th is this book--the first in a six-volume series that collects my favorite Little Lulu stories and reprints them accurately for the first time at full comic-book size and in color. The first volume, Working Girl, features the three debut Lulu comics, which were John Stanley's work from cover to cover, art and story. A selection of stories from the next seven one-shot trial issues and the first six issues of the regular series rounds out the first volume.

Prior reprints of these three comics were done from amateurish tracings which Bruce Hamilton commissioned in the 1980s. Those impostors are a vulgarity, and can be discarded. This is the real deal. The production staff at Drawn + Quarterly have done these stories proud. All but one issue used in this volume comes from my personal collection--as will the bulk of the stories in subsequent books.

Each book has an afterword by me discussing John Stanley's career and spotlighting a handful of exceptional stories--kind of a fancy, tangible version of this blog in its heyday.
Little Lulu: Working Girl may be pre-ordered HERE. These books will come out on a regular schedule. I'm working on the scans for the fifth book in the series at present. It's my hope that these books will establish an adult readership for Little Lulu. I am honored to be the co-editor of this book series.

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.