From Our Gang Comics #18: Food and Fear in "Tom and Jerry"

I thought I'd posted all the "Tom and Jerry" stories written (and sometimes drawn) by John Stanley. This one was still waiting rediscovery. It's a relief--I am seriously low on new material to post, after three years and over 200 posts.

This isn't the post I wanted it to be. While I've been recovering from appendicitis, I've viewed the first seasons of writer-director Nat Hiken's two brilliant early TV sitcoms, Sgt. Bilko and Car 54, Where Are You? Dozens of times, I was struck by the similarities of Hiken's and John Stanley's work. They truly seem to come from the same comedic channel.

To do this post idea justice, I'll have to prepare several video excerpts from these two programs. The first seasons of both programs are readily available on legitimate DVDs. Those curious to explore this territory on their own are directed to those DVD releases, which are available from Netflix, I believe.

For now, here's another example of Stanley's low-key, high-stakes sitcomics via this obscure, rushed-looking entry in the "Tom and Jerry" series.

This particular issue of Our Gang Comics, with a cover date of July-August 1945, is from the late doldrums of World War II. Like several Dell titles of the era, this one was suddenly conflated to 36 pages from the usual 52. Existing stories were crudely re-formatted to fit on less pages.

This story appears to have been created for the more cramped page-count. Its artwork is particularly slap-dash. Traces of Stanley's layout drawings peep through here and there. The artist's energetic, loose brush-based style brings much energy to the pages. (It looks like it may be Otto Feuer doing these chores--what do you think, Thad K?)

Despite some reckless rendering that betrays the story's hasty production, its five pages of crowded, claustrophobic panels are full of Stanley's trenchant wit. Its theme of hunger and the existential search for food is a common Stanley subject.

There's a lot of chit-chat in this story. Stanley's rapid-fire banter is the saving grace of this minor episode. As is typical of this series, Stanley is more interested in the relationship of Jerry and Tuffy, the mice, and only brings Tom Cat in when it's time to raise the narrative stakes.

The Tubby-like attitude of Tom is particularly noticeable in this story. Tom's self-congratulatory chatter is genuinely amusing. He's not the cardboard villain of the MGM theatrical cartoons. He is a grade-A asshole, but his deluded high state of self-regard redeems him.

The interactions of Jerry and Tuffy, in the story's first three pages, are typically sharp. This verbal tennis would serve Stanley well in his later Little Lulu stories and, particularly, in the masterful writing of Thirteen Going on Eighteen in the 1960s.

The story peters out peculiarly in its last tier. That final panel is an enigma. I have no idea what's going on, or what the import of it is. Perhaps I'm just missing something.

Admirers of Stanley's pet phrases will enjoy the multiple CHOFFs and CHOMPFs that grace page two. The search for food quickly turns dangerous in Stanley's 1940s stories. Those in need of nourishment may become another character's entree or appetizer.

Though the back-and-forth dialogue of the two mice is deft and amusing, a certain grimness lays just beneath its surface. As in Stanley's later 1940s series, "Jigger and Mooch," the outsider characters (the mice) must go through a lot of trouble to keep alive and fed.

Stanley would refine this concept in Little Lulu, via the frequent hunger (and soliloquies on this state) of Tubby Tompkins. Tubby's broad character helps leaven the fear-factor of hunger considerably. We never worry that Tub will starve. In one of Stanley's greatest stories, "The Gourmet," Tubby shows his mastery of hunger, and his ability to manipulate adults.

Stanley's mice lead a much less secure existence. It makes them compelling characters, but the sadness of their plight always hangs in the air around them.

Jigger's search for food: from "Animal Comics" #24 and #26

"Jigger" was John Stanley's first original creation for comic books. Prior to this strip, Stanley had drawn some "Little Lulu" and "Woody Woodpecker" stories. This feature lasted for seven installments. With the sudden demise of Animal Comics in 1948, "Jigger" vanished.

Jigger and Mooch are two city dogs. They're homeless, and, in the tradition of John Stanley's marginal, outsider characters, they're driven by needs.

The dogs like to eat; they always need food. They value their freedom; thus they need to avoid the dog catcher. They like a peaceful life; they need to escape bullying alpha-dogs.

These two stories show the severe visual metamorphosis of this Stanley strip. It ran in the high-quality Dell anthology Animal Comics. Under the flimsy roof of its slick-paper covers, a 1946 kid could find strong work by Walt Kelly, Dan Noonan, Oskar Lebeck and other Dell staffers of note.

Stories in this title vacillate from sedate story-book outings to sinister life-or-death scenarios. "Jigger" attempts to straddle the Animal Comics extremes.

Their grave struggles are portrayed with laconic gentleness. This off-beat approach is common in Stanley's 1944-46 efforts.

As with Stanley's best work, "Jigger" celebrates the eccentricity of its characters. The dogs' naivete, as they explore a puzzling human world, is similar to the experience of the mice in Stanley's earlier Tom and Jerry feature for Our Gang comics.

Notice how different the drawing and character design is in these two stories. The first story (if indeed fully finished by Stanley's hand) is quite primitive-looking. The drawing has some charm, but is several notches below the stunning work turned out by Kelly and Noonan.

In the third story (the second one here), Stanley has jiggered "Jigger." The characters are now ultra-stylized. Mooch is unrecognizable from his first appearance.

The pillow-like contours of the characters, drawn in thin, hard pen lines, are strikingly achieved. It is among the tightest rendering of Stanley's career. He would abandon this "clear line" style after "Jigger."

Stanley settled on the odd pen-name of "Biff" for this feature. What that means, I dunno. Stanley's touch is evident in the drawings of people, and in Jigger's simple, appealing design.

The setting is even more familiar--the urban Everywhere that also plays home to the Lantz and Lulu characters. It's not as cramped as the tenement settings of the later Dunc 'n' Loo strip, but it's not Suburbia, either.

The first story has one of Stanley's funniest comic-book sound effects--the CHISH and CHURFs of Mooch's successful digestion of a rubber dog toy. I doubt these unique SFX made a second appearance in the Stanley universe.

For your reading pleasure, here are the first and third episodes of "Jigger." Enjoy these stark but charming stories!

Existential fairy tale: John Stanley writes Raggedy Ann!

Thanks to Maggie Thompson for IDing this story, way back in 1975, in issue 16 of Michael Barrier's Funnyworld magazine.

I thought this had to be a Stanley effort when I read it recently. It follows the "Peterkin Pottle" story, posted here earlier this month, that led off issue 38 of Raggedy Ann and Andy.

Stanley shifts gears, in the wake of Pottle's heart-breaking escape from grim reality. His take on the world-famous interactive aggregations of fabric scraps is reminiscent of a contemporary series in Stanley's flagship project, the monthly Little Lulu magazine.

Each issue of Lulu features a loose, absurdly humorous and often dark "fractured fairy tale," as told by Little Lulu to her neighbor, Alvin. These stories often emerge under duress, to appease bratty Alvin's boredom or anti-social behavior.

John Stanley's brilliance as a storyteller and "idea man" never shone brighter than in these clockwork doses of genre revisionism. It remains one of the most impressive bodies of work in American comics.

These pieces operate on two levels: as tongue-in-cheek genre parodies, with Lulu always in the protagonist's role, and as a reactive, reflexive character; and as genuinely well-conceived, substantial, satisfying narratives.

This "Raggedy Ann" story, while much more casual in execution, is analagous to Lulu's stories-to-Alvin. The main difference is that there's no narrator, and thus no framework. The story happens in the comic-book here and now.

The two living dolls ramble into a quiet existential hell--a highly symbolic castle not easily exited. It's a scenario worthy of mini-comix legend Steve Willis. The loose, spontaneous and quite pleasing artwork strongly shows Stanley's hand--in the layouts, if not in the finishes.

It's quite possible Stanley may have written other Raggedy Ann stories for the later issues of their anthology comic. If I can track them down, I'll share them with you here. For now, enjoy this understated but brilliant free-form fairy tale.