Little Lulu Book Two: "The Fuzzythingus Poopi"

 

It took me awhile to get my copies of this book, which premiered on September 1st, but  I'm happy to say the Drawn and Quarterly production team did a splendid job on this volume.

The book has not received much publicity, but is handsomely mounted. Choosing the stories for this book, which span issues 7-26 of the original comic book series, was a challenge, because there are so many fine stories. I think we got a good mix of story types.

Here are the contents of this volume:

Introduction by Eileen Myles

“The Snowball War” (Marge’s Little Lulu #7, 1/1949)

“Tubby Takes Care of Things” (Lulu #7)

“Beautiful Lulu” (Lulu #8, 2/49)

“The Cloud that Ran Away” (Lulu #9, 3/49)

“Bank Robbery” (Lulu #10, 4/49)

“The Musician” (Lulu #10)

“Lulus Diry” (Lulu #10)

“Housekeeper Wanted” (Lulu #11, 5/49)

“The Sea Dogs” (Lulu #12, 6/49)

Untitled story: Lulu crashes the boys’ soapbox derby (Lulu #13, 7/49)

Untitled story: Lulu has an epic desert nightmare (Lulu #13)

Untitled story: Lulu saves the day with her police whistle (Lulu #14, 8/49)

Untitled story: Lulu helps a homeless ghost (Lulu #15, 9/49)

“Lulus Diry” (Lulu #15)

Untitled story: Lulu foils the boys’ beauty contest (Lulu #16, 10/49)

“The Deep Black River” (Lulu #17, 11/49)

Untitled story: Lulu foils a cat burglar (Lulu #17)

Untitled story: Lulu makes a poor girl’s Christmas special (Lulu  #18, 12/49)

“Little Lulu” (half-page pantomime gag, Lulu #10, 4/49)

“The Hairbrush Mystery”  (Lulu #19, 1/1950)

“The Little Girl with No Name” (Lulu #20, 2/50)

“Lulus Diry” (Lulu #20)

“Frog’s Legs” (Lulu #21, 3/50)

“Alvinsitting” (Lulu #22, 4/50)

“Junior Detective Tubby” (Lulu #23, 5/50)

“Great Day” (Lulu #23)

“Rainy Day” (Lulu #24, 6/50)

“The Old Master” (Lulu #24)

“Tubby” (half-page pantomime gag, Lulu #12, 6/49)

“The Fuzzythingus Poopi” (Lulu #25, 7/50)

“Friends and Enemies” (Lulu #26, 8/50)

“Tubby” (half-page pantomime gag, Lulu #10, 4/49)

Cover Gallery, issues 7-26

Afterword: “Sweat Equity: John Stanley’s Little Lulu Comes Together” by Frank M. Young

The third book is in production and promises to be the best volume in the series. I hope this information is helpful and that you'll pick up a copy of this book if you've not already.

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. 

Post-Mortem Post 008: New Stanley Material Discovered--Oswald the Rabbit Four Color 39, 1944

In all my years of research, I somehow overlooked this early 1944 one-shot, which is now important as containing John Stanley's first two long-form stories. This is a terrible quality scan, suitable for reading, but that's about it.

With beautiful cartooning by Lloyd White, the pun-filled main story, "Easterland," is a larval early effort, but full of Stanley tells, such as slurred language/slang, dubious authority figures, quietly absurd humor (the plight of the elderly rabbit at story's start; the out-of-control jelly bean factory and its buried inventor; the little piece of hard candy that imitates train whistles, etc.)

Stanley would include similar stories in his much-loved Little Lulu series, from 1946 on, as told by Lulu to her hellion-brat neighbor, Alvin. With this, Stanley's first fairy-tale, we see the glimmers of a street-smart, reactive retreat from the sugary tendencies of the fairy story. His humor throws a cold bucket of water on the genre, as did Tex Avery's cartoons such as Red Hot Riding Hood, Cinderella Meets Fella and A Bear's Tale.

Here is the whole issue. I will need to revise my 1940s comicography book now! I knew this would happen someday...

Easterland...

Post-Mortem Post 007: Wait And They Shall Scan--a VERY Early Stanley Story from Our Gang Comics 4, 1943

As odds and ends surface, which is occasional here, I continue to post new things, even though this blog is officially kaput.

Until recently, Our Gang Comics #4, with John Stanley's second published comics story, was only available in a terrible, terrible microfilm scan. This scan (which I gladly moved to my computer's recycle bin) gave the effect of reading this 1943 comic book through heavily silted, possibly contaminated water.

This story is not written by Stanley. The prolific Gaylord DuBois penned thousands of stories for Western Publications, from its early years in the comics industry through its transition from Dell to Gold Key Comics in the 1960s. This was one of his typical early '40s jobs.

Humor and subtlety were not DuBois' fortes. Ideally suited for the fast-moving, near-incoherent Tarzan series, beautifully illustrated by Jesse Marsh and almost impossible to read, DuBois was wise to leave funny animal comics as John Stanley proved himself capable of writing and illustrating.

This story is a nice example of Stanley's most careful, controlled and elegant 1940s cartooning. One cannot read it without imagining how much Stanley might have improved it, had he written it outright.

A Walt Kelly cover is always worth a gander, so here's the public face of this issue of Our Gang:

 And the story within...

Once Stanley's cartoon art has been properly savored, the flaws in the script become obvious. The two mice have constant exposition-filled dialogue, thus breaking one of the cardinal rules of great comics writing. It's a visual medium, so show it, don't describe it!

DuBois' script commits another sin: it talks down to its supposed audience of slow-learner tots. The basic concept--that the mice can't abide life inside the house, with Tom tormenting them, and fend for themselves in the outdoors (with stolen treats from the house to fortify them)--has promise, but its dullness becomes stagnant.

The sequence of pp. 37-40, in which the mice talk, talk talk about every step they take to make their home from found objects, is deadly. DuBois, like many writers for children in the 20th century, had the notion that young readers enjoy having every physical detail of an event described at length. More might have been done than the tepid series of events on these eight pages. 

It's possible Stanley may have punched up what he could, where he could. One of his early tell-tale tics--sound effects in speech balloons--happens on the story's final page, and Tom's utterance of "SCROWEE!" is an ur-YOW that brings a chuckle to the reader's lips.

Mandy, the black maid, is given textbook Hollywood Negro dis-dem-das dialogue that Stanley also used, later in the series' run (see THIS STORY for an example). Her vocal ramblings are more offensive from DuBois' purview. Like every character in the story, Mandy describes what she's doing, and what she will do, only in the "Ah's gwine to" mushmouth mode of black stereotypes.

Stanley's cartooning is among his slickest. His renditions of Mandy, on p.2 of the story, impress with their deft contours. Stanley's placement of areas of black is spot-on, and his pen and brush lines have real flair.

The coloring for this story has some innovative touches. The red sunburst in the last speech balloon on p.5 is a neat touch that, to my knowledge, was never repeated. Characters cast colored shadows on pp. 2-3--a practice soon abandoned, as the havoc of high-speed presses discouraged such touches.

Once again, I give public thanks to the scanners who have made so much of America's four-color history available to those who simply wish to read or study the work. A decade ago, many important comics remained unscanned--or existed in dreadful microfiche enlargements that are almost worse than NOT having the comics, period. It is easy to become spoiled by the breadth of crisp, source-faithful scans that exist on the Internet. It can't be said often enough that the work of these scanners has made it truly possible to write about comic book history. The work speaks for itself, and is seen in the context of its time, and of other comics creators' stories. The bad mightily outweighs the good, but it's important to see it all to achieve a rounded view of the history of American comics.

NOTE: I recently did one last clean-up/edit of the 1940s volume of my three-book John Stanley comics bibliography. If you've been waiting to purchase this book, now's the time. I'm finally satisfied with all three volumes. Until or unless new data appears, or educated guesses become proven reality, I am done with the books and will let them be.

See you next time--whenever that may be!

Post-Mortem Post 006: Stanley's Artistic Transition in the Early Little Lulu Comics

I've looked at some of John Stanley's Little Lulu stories so many times that it doesn't seem possible they hold anything left to discover.

The first 10 Lulu comics, published from 1945 to late 1947 in Dell Comics' blanket one-shot 'Four-Color' series, are a fascinating study. The style and themes of the long-running, best-selling Lulu comic book, launched at the start of 1948, were planted in these tryout issues.

John Stanley's three writer/artist issues (FC 74, 97 and 110) contain some of his finest early work. They show a comics creator working at the top of his early game, with promise and assurance in his purview. His take on the Marge Buell characters, which required the conversion of mute gag-panel figures into developed, vocal and interactive characters, took a few years to fully gel.

From the first "Lulu" story, Stanley's wit, and his understanding of what makes comics tick, keeps the work from seeming tentative or fumbling. The Lulu of 1945/6 may act more like Tubby, in his golden era of 1949-54, and less the voice of reason figure she becomes by decade's end, but she is a vivid, engaging character who is successfully different from the Buell iteration.

This work was done with Buell's input and blessing. She supervised, and was pleased with, Stanley's work. In early 1946, Buell might have  assumed that he would work on the series, as artist-writer, in perpetuity. She got another 14 years of comics stories from him, but not in the form she first encountered.

In a recent perusal of actual printed copies of the Four-Color Lulus, I've noticed how John Stanley transitioned away from his artist-writer role of the first three books. Above is an alphabet cobbled together from 1940s comics work that is certified (by others beside myself) as Stanley's, and Stanley's alone.

To Marge Buell's upset (at first), Stanley ceded the hands-on artwork of the still-new "Lulu" stories to the team of Charles Hedinger and Irving Tripp. Michael Barrier details the mild drama behind this change in his fine survey of the Oskar Lebeck-headed Western Publishing, Funnybooks.

It was assumed that Stanley, even early on, used his most typical method of writing comics--with vigorous pencil sketches on foolscap or typing paper, which he sent, via mail, to Western's Poughkeepsie, New York offices. As Barrier reveals, Stanley seldom made in-person visits to the offices, and preferred to work from home. He was not especially close to Tripp, or the other artists involved with Little Lulu.

His hand in these subsequent Lulu Four Colors appears to be more aggressive than historians may have imagined. Though he surrendered the task of the finished artwork, he continued to letter these stories until the last two try-out issues (158 and 165), published in the last half of 1947.

Here is a sample page from FC 115, with Stanley's lettering--and layouts more in line with his way of drawing--in evidence.

The spaciousness of the panels' layout--there is much breathing room in the boys' clubhouse, which appears to be the size of a grocery store--is in line with Stanley's earlier Lulus, and with his other work of 1946/7 in general.

This continues in issue 120. I've never run the very funny story "The Newspaper Business," so here it is. Again, note the wide-open feeling--and Stanley's distinctive lettering:

There is a lot of "air" around Lulu and Tubby in this story. Close-ups are absent, and the staging most often involves full figures, with plenty of background space around them.

This literal distance from the characters belies the closeness Stanley accords them as fictitious beings. Early on, the misconceptions of how the adult world works, by Lulu and Tubby, is a constant source of charming, anarchic humor.

They seem like little children, given the enormity of the space around them. This sense will gradually leave the series as it reaches its great period of 1949-54.

There are, of course, no surviving notes as to who did what--or why. Stanley's lettering in five consecutive Lulu comics (115, 120, 131, 139 and 146) suggests that he may have submitted his work as penciled stories on illustration board, with his lettering and balloons drawn in ink.

Despite a small loss of the impact of his drawing style, Stanley's eye clearly informs this story. Here are sample pages from the next three issues, all with Stanley's lettering:

 from "Lulu is Taken For a Ride," #131

 from "The Hooky Team," #139

 from "The Boy Who Came to Dinner," #146

Stanley puts a slight italic note into his lettering for issue 146. These three pages, though they show Stanley's drawing style absorbed into the work of the Hedinger-Tripp team, still feel like Stanley drew them.

A sea-change occurs with #158, published in August, 1947. Stanley's lettering is gone (this is Hedinger's lettering, I believe) and the more cramped, claustrophobic staging that will run through the first year of the monthly Little Lulu comic, launched with the January, 1948 issue makes its debut here:

Here is a sample page from the last of the 10 Four-Color tryout issues, #165:

The last tier of the page from #158 illustrates what I mean by "cramped and claustrophobic." It's not a huge difference from the earlier issues, but it's noticeable. Perhaps this is due to the speech balloons. They get bigger after Stanley lets go of his role as letterer. That is a likely agent in this smaller, tighter feel.

It's not bad work, by any means, but suddenly the Lulu comics don't look exactly right. This uneasy transition will consume the 1948 stories, and continue until Tripp steps into the majority role as artist in 1949. In that year, the classic look-and-feel of Little Lulu blossoms, and Stanley, Tripp and the other members of Team Lulu enter the series' true golden age--one that will continue at least to the end of 1954.

P.S.: I have recently published a full-color, 8" by 10" trade paperback of some of my favorite essays from this blog, plus a couple of all-new pieces. It's called The Tao of Yow: John Stanley's World, and is available HERE. I suggest you buy copies from the re-sellers, who are simply ordering their own copies of this print-on-demand book and selling it for several dollars less than amazon.

Post-Mortem Post 003: The Fine Art of Comics Pantomime, with Little Lulu and Company

John Stanley was a great storyteller. His ability to spin multiple variations on a number of stock plots, and bring something fresh to the table each time, is downright enviable.

At the core of his storytelling skill is a sardonic, droll sense of humor. Stanley often indulged in slapstick on the comics page, and did it well. His true gift was an understated, subtle comedy, deeply rooted in the myriad flaws and quirks of characters he made his own and knew like his own children.

In my recent updating and book publication of the three-part John Stanley Comics Bibliography (see links at foot of post), I've been reminded of the grace and charm of his pantomime one-page gags in early issues of Little Lulu. These were in line with Marge Buell's original vision of the character. They expanded beyond Marge's one-panel chuckles, as did Stanley with all the characters he grandfathered over from the Buell version.

Stanley's "Lulu" and "Tubby" stories are dominated by talk. Traditionally, the author offered a great deal of character information from how his comic figures act, react and think. At his best, Stanley can make pages of dialogue riveting. His love of language, and his word-smithing, are evident in each line he wrote for the hundreds of thousands of speech balloons he filled.

A constant of Stanley's Lulu and Tubby work are one-page pantomime pieces. These items, usually landfill in poorly-planned comic magazines, were treated as equals to the longer, dialogue-driven stories by their creator. There is no sense of haste or waste in these pages. As with the text feature, Lulus Diry, these apparent fillers are as rich and rewarding as any other components of the series.

Stanley did another string of impressive one-page pieces for the magazine New Funnies, featuring his rendition of Woody Woodpecker. Those may be read HERE. The "Woody" pages, drawn by Stanley, traffic in the typical sassy dialogue exchanges of his longer stories. The Lulu pages are almost exclusively mute, and require the reader's utmost attention to small details. Their rhythm, flow and structure are striking. They're often laugh-out-loud funny, and offer a taste of Stanley's driest wit.

Here is a selection of some of my favorite panto pages from early issues of Little Lulu. Spend some time with them and you'll be rewarded...

two pages from Little Lulu one-shot #110

two pages from Little Lulu one-shot #120

two pages from Little Lulu one-shot #97

two pages from Little Lulu one-shot #115

Little Lulu one-shot #131

two pages from Little Lulu one-shot #139

Little Lulu one-shot #146

Little Lulu one-shot #158

two pages from Little Lulu #1

three pages from Little Lulu #2

Little Lulu #3

Little Lulu #4

Little Lulu #6

Little Lulu #8

Little Lulu #13

John Stanley's hand as cartoonist is keenly felt in the earlier pages. This sheaf of 23 pages offers a quick look at the visual evolution of Lulu, from Stanley's cartooning to Charles Hedinger's to Irving Tripp's.

Stanley entertained an ambition to be a magazine gag cartoonist. He had one cartoon published in the New Yorker in 1947. Roughs exist for several other well-executed gag cartoons, but I don't think any others were published in his lifetime.

As Lulu became more formula-bound, the gag pages acquired a more mechanical flavor. By 1955, they are more filler than inspiration. That said, Stanley wrote one of his most inspired single page strips late in the Lulu game, for issue #94:

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To learn more about my just-published complete John Stanley comics bibliography, please click HERE. The books are available on amazon.com and createspace.com. These lavishly illustrated books are a great holiday gift idea for the comics-loving person in your life...