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...

OCD Eating and a Convergence of Creeps: Nancy and Sluggo Summer Camp special pt. III (conclusion)

As promised, here is the conclusion of the 1960 Nancy and Sluggo Summer Camp shebang.

"The Dinner Belle" contrasts two schools of cognitive biases towards food: the anti-anorexia of Eadie and the smug entitlement of Camp directory Simply.

John Stanley, like Little Orphan Annie's Harold Gray, tended to give supporting characters Dickensian names--ones that sum up their shortcomings or hang-ups. In Simply's case, his smug, naive expectations fully justify this type-naming.

Everything in this rambling book comes to a head in "Lost in the Woods." All storylines intersect, and McOnion gets a terrifying-yet-appropos comeuppance.

Also like Harold Gray, John Stanley was a strong believer in comics karma. Gray's comeuppances are usually of a brutal nature. Stanley's threaten their characters, but never result in death or serious injury. Mind-fudgery and status demotion are typical results of Stanley's comic karma.

"Lost in the Woods" is by far the liveliest, most genuine sequence in this narrative. Stanley weaves together the book's various threads into a colorful, amusing fabric.

Moments of strong physical/verbal comedy include McOnion's Page-O'-Terror (the larger one here) and Nancy's mistaking of the wild bear's "GRRRRLLLLS" for an echo of her panic-stricken cry to her peers.

Also impressive is how Oona and her world is suddenly whipped into the formula. We're glad to see Sluggo reach Camp Fafamama intact, tho' too late in the game to achieve anything more than arrival.

Stanley would do far better in the second and last Nancy & Sluggo special, which I'll run here sometime.

Stanley brings this narrative to a rousing close with a finale that anticipates the over-reaching anarchy of It's A Mad, Mad, Mad World, while also suggesting the madcap quality of Frank Tashlin's or Jacques Tati's movies. Rollo Haveall is the stimulus of "The Tiger Hunt."

 

Rollo's need for/contempt for his protector-slave Keggly is darkly amusing. I find especially funny Rollo's move into Keggly's shirt.

The energy level surges in "The Tiger Hunt," after maintaining too much of an even keel in earlier pages. It's a welcome shot-in-the-arm, and shows Stanley finally investing something of value into this rambling piece.

After a rare and striking full-page panel, this story resolves on an almost-heart-warming note, with the emotional reformation of McOnion. He still has it in himself to send Sluggo one psycho post-card, and this event gives the book's finale a slight kicker of anxiety. (So does the last-panel Pledge to Parents!)

Inside-cover gag page, anyone?

My feeling about this book, overall, is a qualified Meh. It has its moments, and contains some striking anticipations of Stanley's more assured, solid 1960s comedy style. It feels a bit dashed-off, and shows the clear limitations of the "Nancy" cast, in Stanley's estimation. Nancy is a cipher--brilliantly manipulated in Ernie Bushmiller's comics world, but not a strong narrative leader. She exists as a foil for Bushmiller's factory-fresh gag machine, and nothing more.

Only when Stanley works with his creations--McOnion, Oona, and Tweak--does this narrative reach out and grab us. As Rob Clough notes in his recent review of the first Drawn + Quarterly Tubby book:

[b]y nature, Stanley was a world-builder; he felt the need to introduce various comic foils, friends and antagonists for his central characters.  Part of that, I would guess, was Stanley’s way of giving himself raw material to work with; it’s his way of coming up with the variables for his comics writing formulas.

Stanley's Little Lulu casts a long shadow over his Nancy work. If I seem overly hard on this material, it's because it is regressive. Stanley did not grow as a writer with his time on Nancy. He reached into his recent past, and recycled formulas that had grown thin in Lulu's late issues. Though competent, and sometimes inspired, it lays listlessly next to Dunc 'n' Loo or his finest moments in Thirteen Going on Eighteen.

Half-strength Stanley is still far superior to most contemporary comics creators' efforts. Even when dialed down, Stanley couldn't help writing quality material. We remember McOnion's freaky pursuit of Sluggo, and the vagaries of Oona's mystical world. Other Stanley Nancy add-ons of note include the inept house-burglar, Bill Bungle (another Gray-hued name!) and Oona's self-obsessed miniature magician Uncle Eek.

I promise to be more enthusiastic in my next post, whatever it may be...

Lumpy Beds, Midget Magicians and Nose-Tweaking: Pt. II of the Nancy & Sluggo Summer Camp Special, 1960

On we go with the N&S summer camp epic.

We begin with two bed-related (and titled) vignettes, both which feature Stanley's answer to the Harvey Comics omnivore, Little Lotta--Eadie.

Eadie, who looks uncomfortably like Sluggo in drag, is a representative Stanley Type of the late '50s and early '60s--the abrasive, perpetually displeased misfit. These characters are typically socially self-destructive. Unlike the Tubby Type, this archetype is usually hostile and aggressive. This type is somewhat like Stanley's Evil Rich--except they're usually so disenfranchised they lack wealth of any kind.

Other examples of this type include Buddy from Dunc 'n' Loo and the whiny hypochondriac from the first issue of Linda Lark, Student Nurse.

It's a genuine relief to get away from Eadie, and return to the inexplicable world of Oona Goosepimple. This story features Oona's miniature magician Uncle Eek--a classic John Stanley wild-card character. Again, note the different artist for this sequence.

This story boasts an abundance of the Stanley trademark I've named "floating eyes in blackness." Stanley leaned on this device heavily in the later 1950s. Although it spared the artist(s) the chore of drawing scenes full of characters, the solid black frames entailed much brushing-in of black ink, in those pre-Photoshop daze of olde.

"Noses are Red" offers up yet another Stanley character-type--the Terrible Thwarter/Obstacle. Eadie redeems herself as the vicious victor of the nose-fixated bully, Tweak, and wins some social acceptance. Good on her!

Back to the... endless... nightmare... that is... McOnion...

A curious Christmas-themed filler follows McOnion's latest threat to Sluggo.

What better way to end this suite of abuse/discomfort-flavored stories than another dose of Rollo Haveall? Once again, Rollo's lack of human warmth and disdain for the welfare of others brings a chill to the proceedings.

Rollo is on the dark end of Stanley Street. He never learns--or changes--as a result of his karmic come-uppances. He dusts himself off and becomes just that much more horrid for his troubles.

Rollo really bothers me. Fittingly, this second of three installments ends with a punchline of physical discomfort, bordering on torment. Stanley really puts his Nancy cast through a decathlon of suffering.

I've come to feel that Stanley didn't care for writing Nancy. A general tone of gruffness, coupled with contempt for its characters, suffuses his work on the series. It may be that Stanley was burned out on this kid-centric school of comics.

After perhaps 1,000 Little Lulu and Tubby stories, Stanley certainly had the right to feel written out on the genre. His interest, post-Lulu, lay in older characters. Melvin Monster is over-powered by its adult characters; Dunc 'n' Loo and Thirteen focus on characters at or near puberty-age. The "Judy Junior" feature from Thirteen is focused on the theater-of-cruelty misfortunes that befall poor Jimmy Fuzzi. It's not at all the emotionally varied and integrated world of Little Lulu.

Stanley's lone "Bridget" page (easily found elsewhere on this blog) still displays a sharpness and skill with kid characters. It's over after 36 panels, and all too soon.

Stanley's last two comic book projects, Choo-Choo Charlie and O. G. Whiz (one issue each) have child protagonists, but narrative stakes and, in O.G.'s case, eccentric, aggressive adults, overpower the proceedings.

Back to Stanley's Nancy. Nancy has none of the humanity of Lulu Moppet. Sluggo falls short of the bar that Tubby Tompkins set.  The rest of the characters, with the exception of the highly imaginative and inspired Oona Goosepimple, simply lack appeal and warmth. Oona's world, for all its flights of fantasy, is also a curiously cold, dangerous place.

Nancy's adult figures include some kind, helpful folks (e.g., the camp counselors in these stories), but the balance of them are dispassionate (Fritzi Ritz), sarcastic (Mrs. McOnion) or nutso (Mr. McOnion).

There is no sense of safety or comfort in the world of John Stanley's Nancy. Yes, there are brilliant sequences, and strong comedic set-pieces. We laugh at the comedy in Nancy, but we pay for it with the cruelty and emotional dis-connect of the characters.

It's not hack-work; almost nothing feels phoned in. Nancy was a necessary transition point for Stanley's work. Out of the emotional disconnect of this work would come the more character-rich Dunc 'n' Loo and the brutal-yet-deeply humane Thirteen Going on Eighteen.

We'll finish up this special issue next time.

Nancy and Sluggo Summer Camp special, 1960, Pt. 1: Serial Stalking, Addled Adults and Confused Kids

I've held off on using much material from John Stanley's Nancy and Sluggo comics, in deference to Drawn + Quarterly's ongoing series. It'll likely be awhile before they reprint the two summer camp specials of 1960 and 1961.

Thus, given the drying up of usable non-Little Lulu material I have, necessity commands that I mete out this 80-page giant for your reading and perusing pleasure.

This special comic book served as a gateway for the release of some of John Stanley's inner darkness. Said darkness bubbles up in the latter run of Little Lulu (the story "Hide and Seek," featured elsewhere on this blog, is a potent example).

The careful contrast of dark and light is the cornerstone of John Stanley's vision. At the end of the 1950s, the dark began to overwhelm the lighter aspects of his work. It seems inevitable that comic book creators' bitterness leaked into their work, as the years piled up. It happened to Jack Cole and Carl Barks, two other major creative forces of the American comic book. Their later work impresses--and depresses--with its glum, dimmed tone.

In Barks' case, it seemed to be 60-something crankiness. His 1960s stories cast an increasingly jaundiced, cynical eye on a changing, modernized world. Barks scowls at Space-Age America's fads and fancies, and declares most of it piffle.

In Cole's case, as my friend and colleague Paul Tumey has surmised, it might have been shame and feelings of personal inadequacy--the sense that nearly 20 years spent in comics may have been a squandering of his creative life-force.

We shall never know for certain what motivated Cole to the bleak themes and actions of his last years. Barring yet-undiscovered data, we may also never know for certain what changed Stanley's world-view at the close of the 1950s.

Stanley became less concerned with character, and more with cause and effect, in his post-Lulu comics. This is especially evident in his Nancy and Sluggo stories. The characters are almost completely shorn of defining characteristics. They're less characters than icons, symbols, or game-pieces.

Indeed, their stories read like chess matches. The storytelling passion that informs the best years of Stanley's Lulu is now cooled. An omniscient, indifferent hand moves the pieces around the "board" of the pages and panels. The moves and counter-moves of the game-pieces are still archly comedic. This is a masterful hand--one with experience and confidence. The personal connection is minimal.

Yet this wise guiding hand is not cynical. Perhaps Stanley decided to streamline his process. Streamlining and ease of efforts were goals of the Space Age mindset. The 19th century of America business had been all about doing big things the hard way. The post-war attitude was all about comfort, ease of use and not breaking a sweat.

In this push-button, spray-can age, the less effort expended, the better the product. Stanley does not break a sweat in his Nancy and Sluggo stories. Neither does he phone them in. In this first segment of the 1960 summer camp special, the Space-Age push-button approach dominates--as does a more reflexive, brassy comedic sense...

These books' inside front covers were illustrated contents pages that read like the pre-credits teasers of '50s TV shows. These panels are not direct lifts from the stories inside. They're bouillon cube moments that sometimes conflate events. All the major themes of Stanley's Nancy and Sluggo are highlighted on this black-and-white intro page.

As with the Little Lulu summer camp specials, this book is a suite of short, inter-connected stories. They cut back and forth to different sub-plots which, as the final teaser panel above notes, converge.

The most interesting character in Stanley's Nancy universe is Sluggo. He is the sort-of Tubby to Nancy's quasi-Lulu. Yet Sluggo is far more the outsider than the eccentric but socially connected Tubby.

Sluggo has no parents, no relatives, and no means of visible support. He lives on his own in a ramshackle (abandoned?) house, its lawn strewn with junkyard tidbits, its inside squalorous.

Sluggo's dilemma is known to all, and although he has some societal acceptance, he's still left to fend for himself. He is an abandoned soul just trying to cope.

In both the N&S summer camp specials, Sluggo is excluded from the woodsy ritual. As all his friends joyously prepare for their summer of sylvan fun, Sluggo faces a summer alone and further abandoned...

Desperate and hopeful, Sluggo tries to impress the powers-that-be, and to thus win a free ticket to summer-camp fun. His efforts to succeed incur the wrath of one of Stanley's most frightening characters, the sociopathic hair-trigger Mr. McOnion. Run, Sluggo, run!

The creeping, inexorable and passionless pursuit of Sluggo by McOnion is deeply disturbing stuff. It's clearly supposed to be funny. Its nightmarish quality (relentless pursuit, in which the pursued never escapes or gets ahead) is as vivid as the subconscious mind-fudgery of Stanley's "horror comics" of 1961-62.

Meanwhile, we encounter the other sociopathic anti-star of the N&S universe, Rollo Haveall. Rollo is easily the most malicious of Stanley's "evil rich" characters. He outdoes the worst excesses of Little Lulu's rich kid Wilbur, via his own dispassionate agenda.

Wilbur van Snobbe can be an a-hole, but he does have human feelings. Via his conflicts with Lulu and her friends, Wilbur occasionally cottons to the idea that humanity trumps material wealth. Rollo is a robotic blend of Richie Rich and Hitler Youth. Wealth automatically entitles him to do whatever he wants. He doesn't question his motives; he has been bred for superiority. If anyone is harmed, money will hush them up.

There's no joy in Rollo's antics. At first, his droll indifference to humanity earns some shock-value chuckles. But extended exposure to his toxic persona proves as disturbing as McOnion's slow... plodding... death march.

Stanley's most imaginative decoration to the N&S world was the other-worldly Oona Goosepimple. This Charles Addams-esque monster-child anticipates the "funny horror" craze of the mid-1960s, which included the popular TV series The Munsters and The Addams Family and John Stanley's original creation for comics, Melvin Monster.

Like Lulu's improvised fairy-stories, Oona was a release-valve for the formulaic constraints of this licensed property. It gave Stanley a place to express himself, and a forum for free-form thinking. His Nancy books perk up noticeably when they focus upon Oona and her inexplicable, topsy-turvy universe.

Note that the artist on this one story is not Dan Gormley. The pen line is looser and spikier. I'm not sure who illustrated "Oona Takes the Subway..." Tony Tallarico, possibly...?

We then return to the recognizable world for some campground shenanigans. Another Stanley invention, the gluttonous Eadie, appears.

We end this first installment with the pursuit of Sluggo by McOnion. His emotionally neutral affect is particularly disturbing here--as are his multiple-personality mood swings. This is Child Abuse 101, presented as zany Space-Age fun!

 to be continued...