STANLEY STORIES: A Stanley Surprise for The New Year: Lost LITTLE LULU Stories Discovered!

Thursday, January 2, 2025

A Stanley Surprise for The New Year: Lost LITTLE LULU Stories Discovered!

https://www.tcj.com/john-stanleys-lost-little-lulu-stories-a-significant-find/

Tom Devlin of Drawn + Quarterly made a remarkable find in the papers of cartoonist Irving Tripp. See the results of this hitherto-unknown final team-up with John Stanley on a one-off 1970 issue of Marge's Little Lulu and read my short piece about it all at the link above.

As a bonus, here are the other stories from this issue--not featured on TCJ's site due to ethnic humor that isn't intended as malicious but didn't pass muster for widespread use:

As said in the essay, in Stanley's world, anyone who's pretending to be what they're not (or 'putting on airs') is risible. Male hubris is the endless font of Stanley's human comedy, and these boys acting out their weird masculine frontier fantasy (in an area when the cultural harm done to Native Americans wasn't discussed or acknowledged) set themselves up for the proverbial pie in face. ("Pass the peace banana" is a sublime line of dialogue, IMHO.) No offense is meant in any way with the presentation of this story; it's a part of this discovery and of historial importance.

Two harm-free one-pagers round out Stanley and Tripp's work for this last waltz with the LULU gang:

I hope you enjoy seeing these hidden-in-plain-sight stories that evaded notice for half a century plus! I hope to have some good news concerning the future of John Stanley's work in reprint editions sometime soon. Thank you as always for your interest in this blog!

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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.