Post-Mortem Post 009: The Sweetie Pie Conundrum

As I've studied the output of Western Publications, and tried to determine which of their published comic book stories are the work of John Stanley, I've had my doubts about several pieces. Most of them I've included, with my reservations noted, in the three-book, decade-specific bibliographies I have self-published, and which are available on amazon.com.

The gag cartoonist and animation creator Sam Henderson brought to my attention two issues from Dell Comics' one-shot series, known to collectors and historians as "Four Color Comics." The books were based, as were almost all the Four Colors, on a popular culture property. 

Nadine Seltzer's newspaper comic panel Sweetie Pie was one of several imitations of Hank Ketcham's popular Dennis the Menace, which debuted in 1951. Seltzer's feature was syndicated by Newspaper Enterprise Association, which offered its clients--mostly urban evening dailies and small-town papers--a package of comics, columns and features, which they were free to use as needed. The panel ran from 1954 to 1967, but is rarely found in client newspapers which seemed to use most, or all, of the NEA allotment.

Drawn with an attempt to achieve the elided elegance of Ketcham's cartooning, Sweetie Pie suffered from the main flaw of its inspiration source: a grating main character and a general mood of anger and violence. None of these brat-kid strips from the 1950s have aged well. Seltzer's derivative strip was popular enough in its day to be twice collected in paperback books, and twice in original comic book series.

The Ajax-Farrell imprint, best known for its nightmarish, bizarre horror titles, edited by the enigmatic Ruth Roche, released two all-original Sweetie Pie comic books in 1955 and '56. They were clearly based on the Dennis the Menace comic books published by Standard/Pines, which began in 1953. 

The two paperback collections were published in 1955 and 1957, concurrent with the Ajax-Farrell comic books. Four-ish years later, with the panel cartoon among the lower ranks of syndicated comics, Dell's pair of Sweetie Pies saw print. The first issue, #1185, has a publication date of May-July 1961. The follow-up, #1241, has a November 1961/January 1962 date. 

These two books coincide with John Stanley's last few Nancy and Sluggo comics for Dell. Like those comics, the Sweetie Pies were drawn by Dan Gormley, in a style not far from his take on Ernie Bushmiller's Nancy. The stories feel like John Stanley's work, with elements of his Nancy and later Little Lulu stories. Yet there's something off about them. If they're Stanley's work, they are diluted, sedated stuff. They're quieter than Stanley's work of the period, which was given to much flailing of arms, shouting and dashing about.

Stanley's comics got louder from 1956 on, with characters using their outdoor voices at top volume. From Marge's Little Lulu #101, 1956:

And, more appropriate to this post, a sample page from the first issue of Around the Block with Dunc 'n Loo, which saw print around the time of the first Sweetie Pie:

There is some variance in volume in the following stories--and other touches familiar to Stanley's 1950s and early '60s work. Here is a selection of stories from the two Dell Sweetie Pie comics. See what you think:

"Clothes Make the Dummy" uses a story gimmick John Stanley made hay with in two stories--a long narrative from Henry Aldrich #4 and a short piece from Marge's Little Lulu #11, 1949.

Its mistaken-identity angle--with the disguised dressmaker's dummy confused with "Shiek Aboo from Abool-Bool"--is in line with the sitcom frolics of Dunc 'n' Loo or Kookie, two original Stanley series from this period.

Sweetie Pie and Lester are almost interchangable with Nancy and Sluggo, or a blander version of Little Lulu and Tubby. Sweetie Pie is something like the earliest Stanley version of Lulu--a mischief-maker and know-it-all. As those qualities rubbed off on the Tubby character, by 1949, Stanley made Lulu a fully recognizable and more complex being.

Like some of Stanley's lesser 1950s jobs, the story feels more-or-less like the man's work, but lacks the fire and wit that informs his best material.

Two stories from the second Sweetie Pie continue this vibe.

"Pitcher's Plight" could be the work of the late Jack Mendelsohn, whose wit and fondness for wordplay complements John Stanley's. That's just a wild guess. Its theme of a character fixated on one trait or profession, to the befuddlement (and endangerment) of others, is a plot device Stanley used many times in his career. The story is amusing, but something doesn't gel.

"The Eyes Have It" is more in line with Stanley's work of this period in its use of a brassy, oversized adversary-- the Terrible Thwarter/Obstacle persona that I discuss in this 2009 essay. In both stories, the character of Sweetie Pie sits between Stanley's Lulu and Nancy. She is more a mischief-maker than post-1948 Lulu and has the blunt unlikability of his Nancy. She's an improvement on Seltzer's one-note mayhem tot. If this isn't Stanley's work, it's someone who followed his lead, and took a licensed property, threw out 95% of the character's shtick and reimagined the entity and its world.

Panels such as these two, taken from other stories, would cause a casual reader to think "John Stanley:"

These two books could be the work of another writer doing their best impression of John Stanley, or Stanley at a lower ebb, trying to make a living in a business that would soon chew him up and spit him out. In either case, the pair of Sweetie Pies are a small conundrum stuck in an obscure corner of comic book history.

Post-Mortem Post 005: The Second Nancy and Sluggo Summer Camp Special

Every so often, I get an e-mail from someone who has read and enjoyed this blog during its heyday. Though I consider Stanley Stories a done deal, I have done an occasional "post-mortem post."

These include material I've recently discovered, or oversights that really ought to be added, the better to make this site an exhaustive reference of the work of John Stanley.

Longtime reader B. Baker wrote recently, and requested that this second and last Nancy and Sluggo summer camp special be posted. It's still summer, so the time seems right.

I've written much about Stanley's Nancy comics elsewhere on this blog. As well, the 1950s and 1960s volumes of my illustrated Stanley comicography (available HERE and HERE on amazon.com) offer basic information on Stanley's creative involvement in this series.

This second 84-page graphic novelette is the lesser of the two Nancy annuals. The 1960 annual is one of Stanley's most satisfying, cohesive longer works. It's arguably the finest of his Nancy run--tense, edgy and amusing, with constant status shifts.

Stanley sleepwalks through much of Nancy, with refreshing pauses when newly-created secondary characters pique his interest. The series' humor is hard-edged and not always appealing. Character relationships are often brutal and loveless. Nancy and her Aunt Fritzi, for example, appear to barely tolerate each other's presence. Their existence together seems the result of an unspoken, half-hearted truce.

Ernie Bushmiller's original template is also troublesome, in this regard. In the Bushmiller world, events occur in one-gag increments. Fritzi's impatience with Nancy was a constant source of quick-laff set-ups. Perhaps Stanley chose to follow that, no questions asked, as it was one of the popular comic strip's backbones. That we see longer sequences, in which Nancy and Fritzi bicker, taunt and belittle each other, brings the laffs to a screeching halt. In these moments, Nancy threatens to become Edward Albee's Comics and Stories.

Sluggo is the character that most sparks Stanley the writer. As a student of social status, with a soft spot for life's underdogs, Sluggo seems to speak to Stanley. He is the lowest of his many low-status figures. He is not self-absorbed or full of hot air, like Little Lulu's Tubby. Nor is he zany and free-wheeling, as in Stanley's version of Woody Woodpecker.

Sluggo seems numbed, resigned to his fate and unable to change anything in his life. He is befriended by Nancy, and other kids, but shares none of their daily comforts. He is, on one hand, a child's fantasy of independence. No parental figures overshadow Sluggo. His next-door neighbors, the McOnions, are negative-image parents. They take some interest in Sluggo's well-being, but any benevolence is shattered by husband Bunion "Bunny" McOnion's schizophrenic mood-swings.

Freedom's price-tag is that Sluggo lives a life of flux. Nothing is certain, nothing stays the same for long, and his well-being/sense of self is in a perpetual state of challenge. It's a good life if you don't weaken!

Mr. McOnion is the most constant figure of threat and doom in Sluggo's life. In the first Nancy annual, Stanley makes his most memorable use of this twisted relationship. The re-match seems redundant here, but its less terrifying turnout suggests that someone might have mentioned to Stanley that he overdid the darkness in that first annual.

Whatever the case, this is still an amusing, if spotty, comic book. Good moments outweigh the bad, and as with the first annual, there seems a spark of life and interest in its contents. Here's the entire book, minus activity pages. Enjoy...

Post-Mortem Post 001: Sluggo goes Peanuts: two super-obscure Stanley stories

I warned you that I'd come back, from time to time, after "officially" ending this blog. As I make new discoveries, or find new information that either confirms or corrects my past presumptions, this blog will remain on life-support.

If/when I complete and publish the John Stanley bibliography for the 1950s, it will consist of 11 years of stories. Near the end of that era come two small surprises from a semi-likely source.

For years, I've suspected that Dell's Peanuts series might hold some John Stanley material. No one had bothered to scan these comics and share them on the web until last month. Said it before, saying it again: kudos to the folks who scan old comics and remove them from obscurity and inaccessibility. Their work is a powerful help for today's comics scholars.

In a just world, Stanley might have been assigned Charles Schulz's characters, rather than the cast of Nancy and Sluggo, in 1959. Schulz understandably wished to keep the comic book version close to home. His friends Jim Sasseville and Dale Hale wrote and drew the new material, in the spirit of the mega-popular daily strip. You can read an interview with Dale Hale about his work on the Dell Peanuts title HERE.