A Cockeyed Cure For Well-Being: Clyde Crashcup #3, 1964: story by John Stanley, art by Irving Tripp

SPOILER ALERT: Once again, I've gathered today's stories in a stand-alone CBR format, which you can download HERE. I put in some time straightening and brightening the pages, and I think it improves the reading experience.

Don't dig CBRs? Rename the file as an RAR extension, unzip it, and read the pages that way. You'll want to read the stories before you partake of my commentary on them.

That said, let's get this show on the road...

Addled Inventor Creates Already-Extant Mammals, Ungulates, Junk Mail; Mute Assistant Suffers Self-Evident Fate With Stoic Calm; three stories from Clyde Crashcup 2, 1964

It's getting tougher to find something suitable to present to you, here at Stanley Stories. Yet there are a still new-to-blog goodies lurking in ye olde archives.

People seemed to dig the previous two Clyde Crashcup posts. Thus, lightning strikes thrice and a post is born.

I've said everything that needs saying about Clyde Crashcup, and where it fits in the John Stanley canon, elsewhere on the blog.

John Stanley (and two of his finest artists, Irving Tripp and Bill Williams) seemed to enjoy themselves with this five-issue series. There's a genuine sense of fun in their DNA. Much less joy is evident in other post-Little Lulu work-for-hire projects, such as New Terrytoons (and, arguably, the later run of Nancy and Sluggo).

Crashcup's built-in Quixotic qualities were tailor made for the John Stanley sensibility. As well, the series offered catnip to its creator: a single situation that could be milked for endless variations.

Here, for your summer reading pleasure, are three stories from this second issue of CC. Well, four; first is a one-page filler illustrated and lettered by Irv Tripp...

A Clyde Crashcup Christmas: A Rambling Yuletide Epic From 1963

I thought I'd used up all the Christmas-themed Stanley Stories. Hidden in plain sight, perhaps waiting for this moment, was Stanley's last, and longest, Yuletide-themed narrative. It occupies 40% of this uniquely schizoid holiday special, published in late 1963:

This 84-page book was illustrated solely by Bill Williams. The "Alvin" stories, which eat up almost 50 pages,  are obviously not Stanley's work. They're talky, static and witless.  Worst of all, they're written down to a presumed audience of Keane-eyed tiny tots.

The 34-page "Clyde Crashcup" Christmas adventure, with its myriad Stanley stylistic tells, augmented by Williams' lovely cartooning, is a lost bridge between their epic collaboration, Dunc 'n Loo, and Stanley's late auteur work.

Yes, I just did a post on this character. I hope the repetition isn't a bore.  Irving Tripp, and other staff artists, did the finishes on the five issues of the regular Crashcup book. It's a real treat to see Bill Williams' animated, jolly cartoon style applied to these characters and their world.

Williams' artwork makes even the dull "Alvin" segments bearable, despite their absolute lack of narrative interest. When his energy as a draftsman meet's Stanley's as a storyteller, the results are always dynamite.

I have a sneaking suspicion that this story may have been created as a stand-alone 36-page comic book. No attempt is made to cohesively connect it to the "Alvin" sequences. The episodes are shuffled amidst "Alvin" material and kiddie activity pages.

Stanley's other giant-size comics (done with the "Little Lulu" and "Nancy and Sluggo" characters), which can be read elsewhere on this blog, weave subtly inter-related stories. The individual pieces can stand alone. Read together, they're a loose-flowing, understated narrative. Stanley does enough call-backs to prior stories, late in these books, that they emerge as a satisfying whole.

These come too late to have been potential candidates for Dell's Four Color one-shot series. Western Publications had long split off from Dell, into Gold Key Comics. The Four Color series expired with issue 1354, cover-dated April/June 1962. Post-Western Dell published a series of one-shot 84-page giant comics (including Stanley's notorious Tales From The Tomb). For a penny over the price of two newsstand comics, readers got an extra 16 pages of (usually vacuous) content. Such a deal...

As a last hurrah for the Williams-Stanley collaboration, this episodic comics novella has a certain wistful charm.  As with his earlier Christmas comics, Stanley sneaks in some dryly amusing twists of irreverence--a much-needed alternative to the reverential quality of many such episodes. Here goes...

The most amusing moment in this piece occurs in its second chapter. Crashcup envisions Santa Claus as a person meant to take away unwanted things. In a rare moment of connection, Clyde listens to Leonardo, his voice of reason, and has a remarkable reaction, in the form of a Tubby-esque tantrum/rant:

This moment captures the essence of the attitude of John Stanley's favorite character type. The entire page brims over with playful anger, as Crashcup poo-poohs the notion of Santa Claus as a giver of gifts, and not a junk removal service.

In another recurring Stanley theme, a pair of criminal types, played for laughs, rock Crashcup's dreamboat and attempt to harness his redundant inventions for their own profit. These Ivy League thugs are a far cry from the criminals in an early Stanley masterpiece, "Little Lulu Is Taken For A Ride." A comparison of these two stories shows how Stanley's approach and comedic vision changed  from the 1940s to the 1960s.

The 1947 story devotes more on-screen time to the ponderous fumblings of the Laurel and Hardy-esque crooks. They are depicted with more gravity. Despite their quirky personalities, it's evident that they mean business. The criminal element in this Xmas story is more stream-lined and Space Age-oriented. They dress like Madison Avenue junior execs, own a getaway helicopter, and have ambitions to nose in on Santa Claus' business, the better to make it turn a profit.

The bad guys are just as self-deluded as the good guys in John Stanley's world. To remind us of this, one of the two "Baby-Faced Bank Robbers" makes this sublime Tubby-esque utterance:

Williams' cartooning really works with the 1960s vision of John Stanley. Their body of collaborative work is a bright spot in an uncertain age for the American comic book.

I'm struck by the moment, on the second page of chapter 5 ("Polar Problems"), when Crashcup and Leonardo fall from their balloon to what seems like certain death. Crashcup does not attempt to invent a way out of dying. It's a rare moment when the pivotal Stanley character-type is jolted out of their self-immersed reverie, and is unable to function through the lens of their cognitive biases. Thank goodness for that chimney!

Which leads us to another subtle joy of this story--Stanley's depiction of a temperamental Santa Claus. I suppose anyone would be caught off-guard by two men in lab coats dropping down their chimney! The touch of crankiness in Stanley's Santa is a small but divine detail.

Such flourishes, including Crashcup's floridly alliterative speeches and Leonardo's body language, in reaction to Clyde's dithering self-delusion, are present in Stanley's work from his first stories. It's one of his strongest hallmarks as a writer and humorist--these little touches that don't necessarily call attention to themselves. They idly bob on the surfaces of his stories, and if you notice them, you're rewarded for your effort.

Next time, I hope to have something to share with you that I guarantee you've never seen before! Keep checking back here...

Self-Absorbed Scientist Invents Phonographs, Photographs; Fails To See Forest For Trees; Mute Assistant Suffers In Silence (two stories from Clyde Crashcup #5, 1964)

As John Stanley reached the prime period of his finest original series, Thirteen Going on Eighteen, in 1964, he still found time to write and re-invent licensed properties. This comic book was his last such effort until 1969.

Today's stories are typical of John Stanley the world-builder. Given a licensed character, he would extract the best aspects of that entity, discard the rest, and set up a new, better world for them to inhabit.

The John Stanley versions of Little Lulu, Tubby, Woody Woodpecker, Andy Panda, Tom & Jerry, et al, bear only visual resemblance to their official mass-media counterparts. All these characters ended up richer, more compelling and fully realized in Stanley's hands.

Only with his adaptation of George Herriman's Krazy Kat did Stanley fail to raise the bar set by the creator. Admittedly, Herriman is a tough--if not impossible--act to follow. Stanley tried hard with the Kat, and produced a compelling rethink that somewhat successfully translated Herriman's characters, settings and language to the mainstream comic book page.

Clyde Crashcup, a secondary feature on The Alvin Show, was certainly no Krazy Kat. But the character had potential for personality-based humor that was right up Stanley's alley. He championed the Quixotic, self-absorbed oddball. He genuinely enjoyed winding this figure up and letting him loose in the usually urban playground of his comics.

This was a formula of Stanley's work before the end of the 1940s, but it clearly spoke to him. He continually refined and rethought both this archetype and its place in his expansive comics world.

Crashcup's shtick is worthy of Stanley's humorous sensibilities. Completely self-absorbed, Crashcup is Barks' Gyro Gearloose turned inside-out. With great self-importance, he creates things that already exist. His voice-of-reason assistant, Leonardo, is appropriately mute--at least to us. He attempts to keep Crashcup from expending effort in creating the already-there. Lost in his own head, Crashcup ignores his voice of reason, and sees the process to its logical end. Leonardo suffers discomfort and stress, but he sticks by the wayward inventor, knowing these schemes are fated to implode.

This was Stanley's meat and potatoes--a theme which could be mined for endless variations. This harks back to Herriman, whose Krazy Kat sublimely explored this territory earlier in the 20th century. I'd love to know John Stanley's opinion of Herriman's work. To judge by his more delicate treatment of the comic-book Kat, Herriman made a big impression on Stanley. He followed Herriman's lead throughout his comics career.

Typically, Stanley would futz with a new licensed entity, uncertainly at first, get his bearings quickly, and refine both it and his process within a year. Crashcup followed this pattern. Thus, in this, the last issue of the title, Stanley has developed the simple premise of the character far beyond anything its creators cared to do, in their official version. Stanley saw the potential for comedy in places which now seem obvious, but may have been unknown, unlikely or ignored by others.

In these two stories, Stanley has relaxed into the characters, and into their place in the "normal" world that surrounds them. The Crashcup character is not a true Tubby Type (or ASS). He is an adult, and in control of his destiny. His self-esteem is ridiculously high, as is his enthusiasm.  These work against him--a serial fate that Leonardo vainly tries to stave off. By including the rest of the world into the Crashcup formula, Stanley improved the simple but clever set-up of the original character, and made him an inventor of comedic chaos.

The artist for this story must have laughed and groaned in unison as he surveyed the script. Epic scenes of pandemonium pepper this story, which starts in allegro and quickly moves to capriccio.

Crashcup's ability to literalize abstract ideas sets him apart from Stanley's other eccentrics. His apparently enchanted pencil is a wand of chaos, and it has profound effects on the inventor, his assistant, and (most importantly) the world around him.

Riddled with wordplay, "Invents Hi-Fi" is among John Stanley's most energetic stories. It shows his own "magic pencil" still in top form.

This issue appropriately ends with a story about Crashcup's excitable invention of the film camera. Leonardo is rightfully worried for his life...

Bah-da-DUMP! Thank you, ladiesangentlemen, we'll be here through Thursday. The rimshot-worthy punchline, Stanley's farewell to this brief romance, is entirely apt. The risible Crashcup is just the type to invent the already-invented camera, but forget that it might need film.

Assistant Leonardo's barely contained terror, on pp. 1-2, is a too-late breakthrough. One gets the sense that, had this series continued, Stanley might have done more with this mute sidekick.

The last tier of page three offers a rare piece of social satire. It pales in comparison to this scene from Harvey Kurtzman and Will Elder's Goodman Beaver, which offers the same basic message:

Kurtzman and Elder's cynical vision of urban America appeared two years earlier, in the August 1962 issue of Help! magazine. If Stanley kept up with the cutting edge of his peers' work, he may have seen this story, and taken inspiration from this jaw-dropping Breughel-esque spread.

This points out an important difference between Stanley and Kurtzman--two of the American comic book's finest writer-artists. Kurtzman was a social satirist, a teller of hard truths (until he was gelded by Hugh Hefner), and he unflinchingly pointed out, over and over, that the emperor was naked as a jaybird.

Stanley was a light comedian, not a social satirist, and his audience was mainstream American youth. By this time, Kurtzman consciously wrote for an older crowd. Most of the "chicken fat" in this spread would have made Stanley's editors nervous and/or outraged.

It's interesting to see this same general message delivered in the pastel-hued venue of the newsstand comic book. As it is the kind of moment Stanley assiduously avoided, throughout most of his career, it brings this sitcom-story to a temporary grinding halt.

The Formula Machine soon kicks in, and the remainder of the story takes place in one of Stanley's favorite spots for urban warfare--the public park. In Stanley's work, the park, a seemingly civil place, is a free zone for his characters to lose their cool, rebel against authority, fall into life-changing danger, and come to terms with their shortcomings.

Crashcup does all but the final, most important, step. To recognize the absolute folly of his existence would shatter him into a billion brittle shards. Though this story closes the book on Crashcup, one hopes that he eventually invents Fort Knox, and retires into a comfortable life of non-invention.

It's a pity that Stanley's tenure on this book ended here. It's evident that he had just scratched the surface of the refined version of this character and his world. This unfortunate event happened over and over in John Stanley's career.

In this case, Stanley was able to channel his creative energy into the brilliant, socially dysfunctional world of Thirteen Going on Eighteen. His triumphs in that series, in 1964 and '65, are among the mainstream comic book's rare moments of perfection. I hope our friends at Drawn + Quarterly will restore the remainder of that series to print soon.