Book Edition of the 1940s John Stanley Bibliography Available on Amazon!

THIS LINK will take you to the amazon.com page for the deluxe full-color version of the 1940s John Stanley bibliography. This is much improved from the original download version, with a great deal of new content, three complete comics stories, and seven essays on the significant Stanley characters of this decade.

The publication of this and the other two books in the bibliography is the culmination of years of research and hard work. I'm glad to be able to make these available in print form.

Casual Calamity Cubed: Three Stories From New Funnies 116, 1946

New Funnies was the most spontaneous and slapdash of the comics edited by Oskar Lebeck for Dell Publications. Its bar was set quite low. Quality of story and art material wavers dramatically from issue to issue.

In 1946 and '47, the title was a place for John Stanley to blow off steam, as he prepared for what he didn't yet realize was a 15-year run on Little Lulu. His story (and art) for that series is impeccable. Perhaps because the licensed property was of a higher status (and its creator was initially looking over the collective Lebeck shoulder), Stanley's Lulu is tighter, less risky and more grounded than any of his other work in comics.

While under close watch on the early Little Lulu one-shot issues (most of which you'll find elsewhere on this blog), Stanley catered to his chaotic, more off-the-cuff impulses in New Funnies. He did some of his best--and worst--work for the series.

At their finest, these stories are freewheeling, very funny and full of a street-wise charm, In their low points, they reveal their creator's burn-outs, hangovers or crunched-deadline hackwork. New Funnies was clearly not a high priority on either Dell's or Lebeck's agenda.

Offered today are Stanley's 31 pages of story for issue 116 of New Funnies, cover-dated October, 1946. I've isolated these three stories in a CBR file that you may download HERE. (If you don't like the CBR format, just rename the extension to RAR and open it with WinRar or other, similar programs).

Spoilers abound in the text that follows. Those who read the following without reading the stories themselves are living far too dangerously for their own good.

New Funnies Teachings: It's A Scary World Out There!

One of the key messages in John Stanley's world is this: the world is a scary place. Funny things may happen, triumphs may be scored, losses bettered, statuses and faces saved... but one never knows what's going to happen--or why.

This element, also familiar to readers of Carl Barks' comics, gives these so-called "kiddie comics" an edge seriously lacking in much of what passes for comics, period.

This message doesn't require the walking dead, heavy artillery, secret origins or super-powers... to experience the same, the reader only needs to open his or her front door, best foot forward, and step out into the world.

Culled from two issues of Walter Lantz New Funnies (113 and 120), this special "Scary World" edition of Stanley Stories features three stories, and is available as a .CBR file >>>HERE. <<< If you're not hep to the CBR revolution, just rename the file as an .RAR extension, crack it open, and read that-a-way.

Panda, Chicken Visit Land Down Under After Passive-Aggressive Outburst; Woodpecker Plays PI, Is Fall Guy For Evil Rich: two from New Funnies 112, 1946

I'm just coming off a long, complex coloring project for another artist-writer's graphic novel. This hasn't given me much time to think about ol' Stanley Stories. In my absence, the blog continues to thrive, with a strong daily readership.

With almost 250 posts on this blog, there's already plenty to read, but here's something old, something new...

1946/7 saw the end of John Stanley's work on the New Funnies title. Having begun his 15-year association with Marge's Little Lulu by then, Stanley had also honed his storytelling and humor skills. There was still much refinement to do, as today's stories show in abundance.

Lulu changed Stanley--arguably for the better, but at a price. Certain creative and comedic tendencies, tamped down by the requirements of the Lulu-verse, would disappear entirely from his work, not to resurface until the early 1960s.

Thus, most of John Stanley's work of the 1950s is compromised in some way--despite its high quality. The energy of "Little Lulu" is strait-jacketed, when compared to his work before and after the series. It suits the characters and material beautifully, but it does not appear to have been Stanley's natural inclination as a humorist and narratist.

As the 1950s Little Lulu material is Stanley's most successful and well-loved work, it creates a wide dichotomy. Is Stanley better when he is more restrained? Or is the pell-mell, impulsive Stanley of the work outside Lulu preferable? The latter includes his remarkable run on the 1960s title Thirteen Going on Eighteen, which many regard as Stanley's finest achievement in comics.

Truly a question for the ages (for the 130 of us out there who care about such things)...

Of Mice and Mensch: Woody The Exterminator, from New Funnies 115, September 1946

One of the small rewards of Dell Comics scholarship is in spotting the myriad in-jokes and self-references in which the creators indulged themselves.

The writers and artists of Oskar Lebeck's Western Publishing staff delighted in putting one another's names--and caricatures--all over their comic-book stories.

These references, given the general lack of documentation available at present, have become the only way we have to determine who's who in the Western world.

Michael Barrier has been exploring this phenomenon in his on-going research for an upcoming book on Lebeck and his genial comics empire--a book I can't wait to read.

"Send Me To The Electric Chair!": "Woody Woodpecker" from New Funnies 88, 1944: story and some art by John Stanley

Thanks, once again, to the kindness of comics and animation historian nonpareil Michael Barrier, I'm able to share with you another rare early Stanley story.

This is the second of his "Woody Woodpecker" stories. The first one, which appeared two issues earlier, can be found, in all its un-PC glory, here.

Woody was slow to appear in the pages of New Funnies--rather like Daffy Duck in the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies comic book produced for Dell in California. In several pre-Stanley issues, the woodpecker makes cameo stopovers in  otherwise namby-pamby, cuddly-wuddly, icky-poo stories.

In these tentative first appearances, Woody is nutty in a gormless way, and his lunacy is much gentler than his early animated persona. He is very clearly a puzzle to the unimaginative, bland creators of the pre-Stanley original material.

Western's editors seemed initially shy about these screwball, anarchic characters. Perhaps they thought their reckless antics would have a negative influence on young readers.

Far from it--these more lively, loose mischief makers were sorely needed to pep up otherwise stale funnybooks. These more hard-hitting, screwloose figures, more in line with the official animated versions, no doubt helped make the Dell cartoon-based titles more popular.

A Couple of Woodies For You: proto-Little Lulu items from New Funnies, 1945

The above detail is from the cover to New Funnies 97, which isn't featured here today. The focus is on a pair of early "Woody Woodpecker" stories that remarkably anticipate the themes of John Stanley's classic Little Lulu narratives--in both story and art.

Stanley's version of Woody Woodpecker is the gateway to his single finest characterization: Tubby Tompkins, from Lulu. This comparison has been noted, in depth, already in this blog. 

Today's first story, from New Funnies 96, has strong ties to the classic Little Lulu era. The use of snowball fights as a comedic status war is common in Lulu. Stories such as "The Big Snow Fight" (Four-Color 139, 1947), "The Snowball War" (LL 9, 1949) and "Prisoner of War" (LL 66, 1953), to choose just three, show Stanley's clever, vivid use of this childhood aggression-play as a ground zero of narrative stakes-raising.

Woody fights solo against "the South Side Gang," a cut-throat mob of dog-kids. Unlike Tubby, the woodpecker is a disenfranchised loner, and no mercy is accorded him at any point.

The theater-of-cruelty that would inform Stanley's Thirteen Going on Eighteen is evident here. Before Woody can perform his two acts of aggression, he has been repaid tenfold by the cute-yet-vicious humanoid tots.

After those two incidents, the South Side Gang literally attempts to seal his fate. They freeze him inside a snowball, then shove him downhill to his intended doom.

Woody's soliloquy, while the kids send him rolling, is almost chilling. "I must be SOMEPLACE... I can't be NO PLACE!"

Woody, in Stanley's hands, is forever "no place." Try as he may, he never fits into the world around him. He puts up a good fight, but the universe dishes out indifference all the same. Tubby never suffered anything remotely as bad--even in the clutches of the feared West Side guys!

Our second story, from New Funnies 104, is written and drawn by Stanley, in the style of his earliest Little Lulu stories. This story, cover-dated October, 1945, was drawn shortly after the first Lulu one-shot. Unlike the debut Lulu, which is crisply inked in pen, this story is finished with a brush. It gives the artwork a softer feel, and its style is obviously infected by the Marge Buell look.

It's worth comparing that first Lulu (there are two stories from that debut issue elsewhere on this blog) with this and other 1945-46 "Woody" stories drawn by Stanley. (Yep, you guessed it--many of those stories are also found deep inside Stanley Stories.)

Trainspotters will note an early instance of "ZAZ," plus moments of windmill action, a Charlie Chicken clone, one "YALP!" and a large, plump "YOW," as the 'pecker attempts to be helpful down on the farm. (Spoiler alert: he fails.)

Once again, the Thirteen-esque ballet of cruelty runs the show. Woody wants to please, to conform to normal routines. But he can't; no matter how carefully prepared, no matter how alert of conscious of his surroundings, objects living and inanimate are set to do him in.

For once, Woody is not an a-hole, and is genuinely sympathetic. The painful, humiliating battery he endures is, like some of Val's more awkward moments in Thirteen, almost too much. Stanley trafficked in such knockabout comedy, for his entire career, but he sometimes didn't know when to turn it off. But it takes someone going too far to know, indeed, how far "too far" really is.

At his best, Stanley pushed the boundaries of "too far" daringly, and endowed formulaic stories with a bracing comedic zest. This gives his stories an edge which makes them still relevant and funny.

Temper Tantrums and Crab-Apple Theft: Two Early Stanleys from New Funnies 89, 1944

Praise be unto the anonymous scanners who post entire issues of old funny-books online. Via their tireless efforts, we can actually read vintage comics, and regard them not as investments, to be sealed in a lucite cube, but as examples of American mass-media.

Here's an early New Funnies issue I've been searching for, free of charge, thanks to the kindness of "Sooth." These early 1944 efforts show us John Stanley still working out how to do comic book stories.  The results are hit or miss, but his hand is quite evident--especially in the first story.

Before that, a moment of time-worn patriotism:

Andy appears eager to obtain one of those war bonds! Does he have $100.00 in that piggy bank? We'll never know...

Stanley's cartooning enlivens this scrappy "Andy Panda" story. It proceeds, as do many of Stanley's early efforts, in a Carl Barks-ian fashion. The narrative stakes, as in Barks' early "Donald Duck" short stories, hang on the protagonist's ability to keep a promise or meet a clearly defined goal.

With his remarkable 1945 "Oswald the Rabbit" one-shot (found HERE and HERE), Stanley made his first foray into higher narrative stakes. Those two stories were a major step forward for John Stanley.

The stakes here are much lower. Again, as with the early Barks, 1944 Stanley stories stick close to the ground, and take place in a recognizable, habitable everyday world.

Stanley uses the time-honored ODTAA (One Damned Thing After Another) formula, in which the hero undergoes a pummeling series of frustrations. These take him from normalcy to anti-social isolation. This schematic was a mainstay of Barks' work, right to his career's end.

Stanley soon moved beyond this scenario, given his interest in richer characterizations and higher stakes. In this story, Andy and Charlie Chicken also swap status roles. Charlie is the anti-social rowdy at story's start. Andy, driven by his attempts to set a good example, despite overwhelming odds, ends up fuming behind bars, while his loose-cannon companion enjoys unfettered freedom.

This status swap would inform many of Stanley's classic "Little Lulu" and "Tubby" stories.  

Stanley's cartooning is over-wrought in this early effort. His style would become one of under-statement and economy. The background details of the first few pages take our attention frequently away from the actions of the protagonist and antagonists. By story's end, Stanley uses simpler, more diagrammatic images. 

The human figures in Stanley's early stories have a distinct look. The cat lady in this story is seen in many iterations, including the female adults in the earliest Little Lulu stories. These highly stylized humans are another reliable Stanley art "tell."

Notice the odd "Walter Lantz" signature on p.7, panel 4. What was up with that? It's worth noting that the signature appears in a panel in which Lantz's character runs in pain and terror. 

Less refined is this issue's "Woody Woodpecker" story. Most certainly not drawn by Stanley, it shows little care or concern. Stanley's next "Woody" story would inaugurate a series of strong, high-stakes narratives in this series that would last through 1947. 

Here, Woody is just an anti-social pest, dropped into a rustic situation where he encounters adversity and humiliation. He never eschews his gadfly status, bless his psychotic li'l heart!

As in Stanley's first Woody story (seen HERE), the world is very much against the woodpecker from panel one. He wants something that's not acceptable, or negotiable, to the world around him. Woody is a true "Tubby Type"-- see his self-justifying babble on p.1, panel 6. In his eyes, anything he thinks or does is A-OK. It's the failing of the world around him that it can't buy in to his desires.

This sounds exactly like Larry David's persona on Curb Your Enthusiasm. As I wrote in this somewhat controversial post, there is a direct link from Stanley's comics work to the recent trend of humiliation comedy on TV.

Even in his least significant stories--of which this is certainly is--Stanley's intelligence and comedic sense are evident. To read John Stanley's 1940s stories, with knowledge of what he would do in the '50s and '60s, is enlightening.

More Early Stanley Cartooning: Two Stories (and cover) from New Funnies 92, 1944

This 1944 issue of New Funnies has eluded me for years. Thanks to a complex series of events, I finally have it.
To my delight, it has two of John Stanley's most flat-out funny 1940s stories.

As well, its cover (seen, in inset version, to your immediate left) and its "Woody Woodpecker" story
are drawn by Stanley. The WW story is, to my best knowledge, the first strip in the series Stanley both wrote and drew. (I'm still missing issues 87, 88 and 89 of New Funnies, and, for all I know, Stanley may have some early artwork in those. Time will tell, as ever.)

Stanley's vivid, spiky pen line and his more streamlined approach to cartoon art make his work a pleasure to look at--and to read.

This post is an extension of my prior entry--it again focuses on the 1940s comic book art of John Stanley. These two stories also showcase his skill as a comics comedian. Stanley's knack, even in 1944, lay in heaping stakes-raising situations atop one another. This house of cards proves shaky shelter for his befuddled protagonists. Their uncertainty and discomfort feed into the growing dilemma, and fan the flames of Stanley's four-color comedy.

Stanley's approach to character is also streamlined. His best characters have less subtle shadings than, say, Carl Barks' ducks. Stanley was never prone to moments of reflection, as in this famous sequence from Barks' 1949 story, "Luck of the North"

Stanley's characters tend to lead such rich inner lives--or are intensely focused on managing the path of those self-centered "Tubby types"--that they have little time or space for such quiet reflection.

In general, Stanley's characters are slaves to his narrative whims. Things happen because they're there. Things happen TO Barks' characters--his narrative sense is much more built on coincidence and the random whims of fate.

Stanley's characters almost always WANT something specific. This desire--usually Quixotic, at best--drives them into the narrative. Barks' characters are goal-oriented, and often desire a certain state, or thing. Barks' sense of story and comedy often takes them AWAY from their goal. The comedic tension of his best stories involves their frustration at not attaining their ideals or intended ambitions.

Much more can be said about the Barks vs. Stanley topic. I'm sure that what little I've said here will irk some readers; so be it.

Up first is a very funny "Andy Panda" story. The finished art and lettering are not Stanley's. The finishes look much like some of the Stanley-written work for Animal Comics, at the same time in 1944. The inker sticks very close to Stanley's layouts.

Early in this series, Stanley didn't hesitate to swap the roles of Andy Panda and his domestic partner, Charlie Chicken. Here, Andy is the impulsive chaos-causer, and Charlie the woebegone voice of reason. This welcome trade-off creates some hard-edged screwball comedy. Read 'n' enjoy!

Andy and Charlie leave a trail of destruction in their combined wake. Their obliviousness to the cause-and-effect arc of their actions--and their good-natured attitudes--are worthy of several strong belly-laughs.

Andy's decision to attend the baking contest in drag, while a necessary stakes-raising plot wrinkle, throws another screwball element into an already heady mix. Their destruction of a streetcar (always  a talisman of narrative complexity in Stanley's world) with their anti-cake is among the funniest moments in all Stanley's work. That Andy is dressed in high heels and a Carmen Miranda hat, while all hell breaks loose, and that he retains his momma garb at story's end, adds further shadings of absurd humor.

In the end, these agents of chaos come out winners. No recriminations for their reckless actions--it's cash and acclaim for the cross-dressing bear and his faithful, bemused poultry pal. The absolute lack of morality in Stanley's 1940s work (save for a few moments in his early Little Lulu stories) is refreshing. It gives his work a modernity that makes it still fresh and readable, almost 70 years after its creation.

I've saved the best for last. This beautifully cartooned "Woody Woodpecker" story seizes the comedic potential of the character far better than any of his contemporary animated cartoons. As in the Walter Lantz cartoon shorts, Woody is an agent provocateur, all too ready to grind an ax if someone or something offends him.

In Stanley's hands, this potentially abrasive character earns our sympathy, even as he wreaks havoc in an escalating war of wills with a pragmatic park employee. The urban public park, with its un-comfy benches, forbidden flower beds and fountains, rolling hills, winding paths and fluffy trees, is a familiar stage setting of John Stanley's world. This park turns up time and again in his Little Lulu and Tubby stories. It's an open backdrop for the rollicking chaos of this six-page story.

Again, hard-edged comedy drives this story--Woody's ass-prodding on page one, his anarchic alteration of the sign on page two, and, of course, his desecration of the statue of James J. Twaddle. Woody's a-hole tendencies get the best of him, and he goes too far. His silent, story-closing humiliation seems apt.

Stanley's cartooning seethes with energy here. His characters are constantly in frantic motion, and their poses and body language add a great deal to the story's effect. What could have easily been six pages of knockabout filler brims with comedic life. The more angular, stylized tendencies of Stanley's cartooning are on attractive display here--the Twaddle statue, for example, and the more propulsive running poses of the woodpecker.

Had Stanley focused more on being a cartoonist, we might not have the body of Little Lulu stories--the cornerstone of his reputation as one of comics' finest writers, past, present or future. The literature of comics would be the worse for the lack of Lulu. The published examples of his 1940s cartooning are skillful and expressive, and show a potential that would not be fully realized for another 20 years.