Self-Absorbed Scientist Invents Phonographs, Photographs; Fails To See Forest For Trees; Mute Assistant Suffers In Silence (two stories from Clyde Crashcup #5, 1964)

As John Stanley reached the prime period of his finest original series, Thirteen Going on Eighteen, in 1964, he still found time to write and re-invent licensed properties. This comic book was his last such effort until 1969.

Today's stories are typical of John Stanley the world-builder. Given a licensed character, he would extract the best aspects of that entity, discard the rest, and set up a new, better world for them to inhabit.

The John Stanley versions of Little Lulu, Tubby, Woody Woodpecker, Andy Panda, Tom & Jerry, et al, bear only visual resemblance to their official mass-media counterparts. All these characters ended up richer, more compelling and fully realized in Stanley's hands.

Only with his adaptation of George Herriman's Krazy Kat did Stanley fail to raise the bar set by the creator. Admittedly, Herriman is a tough--if not impossible--act to follow. Stanley tried hard with the Kat, and produced a compelling rethink that somewhat successfully translated Herriman's characters, settings and language to the mainstream comic book page.

Clyde Crashcup, a secondary feature on The Alvin Show, was certainly no Krazy Kat. But the character had potential for personality-based humor that was right up Stanley's alley. He championed the Quixotic, self-absorbed oddball. He genuinely enjoyed winding this figure up and letting him loose in the usually urban playground of his comics.

This was a formula of Stanley's work before the end of the 1940s, but it clearly spoke to him. He continually refined and rethought both this archetype and its place in his expansive comics world.

Crashcup's shtick is worthy of Stanley's humorous sensibilities. Completely self-absorbed, Crashcup is Barks' Gyro Gearloose turned inside-out. With great self-importance, he creates things that already exist. His voice-of-reason assistant, Leonardo, is appropriately mute--at least to us. He attempts to keep Crashcup from expending effort in creating the already-there. Lost in his own head, Crashcup ignores his voice of reason, and sees the process to its logical end. Leonardo suffers discomfort and stress, but he sticks by the wayward inventor, knowing these schemes are fated to implode.

This was Stanley's meat and potatoes--a theme which could be mined for endless variations. This harks back to Herriman, whose Krazy Kat sublimely explored this territory earlier in the 20th century. I'd love to know John Stanley's opinion of Herriman's work. To judge by his more delicate treatment of the comic-book Kat, Herriman made a big impression on Stanley. He followed Herriman's lead throughout his comics career.

Typically, Stanley would futz with a new licensed entity, uncertainly at first, get his bearings quickly, and refine both it and his process within a year. Crashcup followed this pattern. Thus, in this, the last issue of the title, Stanley has developed the simple premise of the character far beyond anything its creators cared to do, in their official version. Stanley saw the potential for comedy in places which now seem obvious, but may have been unknown, unlikely or ignored by others.

In these two stories, Stanley has relaxed into the characters, and into their place in the "normal" world that surrounds them. The Crashcup character is not a true Tubby Type (or ASS). He is an adult, and in control of his destiny. His self-esteem is ridiculously high, as is his enthusiasm.  These work against him--a serial fate that Leonardo vainly tries to stave off. By including the rest of the world into the Crashcup formula, Stanley improved the simple but clever set-up of the original character, and made him an inventor of comedic chaos.

The artist for this story must have laughed and groaned in unison as he surveyed the script. Epic scenes of pandemonium pepper this story, which starts in allegro and quickly moves to capriccio.

Crashcup's ability to literalize abstract ideas sets him apart from Stanley's other eccentrics. His apparently enchanted pencil is a wand of chaos, and it has profound effects on the inventor, his assistant, and (most importantly) the world around him.

Riddled with wordplay, "Invents Hi-Fi" is among John Stanley's most energetic stories. It shows his own "magic pencil" still in top form.

This issue appropriately ends with a story about Crashcup's excitable invention of the film camera. Leonardo is rightfully worried for his life...

Bah-da-DUMP! Thank you, ladiesangentlemen, we'll be here through Thursday. The rimshot-worthy punchline, Stanley's farewell to this brief romance, is entirely apt. The risible Crashcup is just the type to invent the already-invented camera, but forget that it might need film.

Assistant Leonardo's barely contained terror, on pp. 1-2, is a too-late breakthrough. One gets the sense that, had this series continued, Stanley might have done more with this mute sidekick.

The last tier of page three offers a rare piece of social satire. It pales in comparison to this scene from Harvey Kurtzman and Will Elder's Goodman Beaver, which offers the same basic message:

Kurtzman and Elder's cynical vision of urban America appeared two years earlier, in the August 1962 issue of Help! magazine. If Stanley kept up with the cutting edge of his peers' work, he may have seen this story, and taken inspiration from this jaw-dropping Breughel-esque spread.

This points out an important difference between Stanley and Kurtzman--two of the American comic book's finest writer-artists. Kurtzman was a social satirist, a teller of hard truths (until he was gelded by Hugh Hefner), and he unflinchingly pointed out, over and over, that the emperor was naked as a jaybird.

Stanley was a light comedian, not a social satirist, and his audience was mainstream American youth. By this time, Kurtzman consciously wrote for an older crowd. Most of the "chicken fat" in this spread would have made Stanley's editors nervous and/or outraged.

It's interesting to see this same general message delivered in the pastel-hued venue of the newsstand comic book. As it is the kind of moment Stanley assiduously avoided, throughout most of his career, it brings this sitcom-story to a temporary grinding halt.

The Formula Machine soon kicks in, and the remainder of the story takes place in one of Stanley's favorite spots for urban warfare--the public park. In Stanley's work, the park, a seemingly civil place, is a free zone for his characters to lose their cool, rebel against authority, fall into life-changing danger, and come to terms with their shortcomings.

Crashcup does all but the final, most important, step. To recognize the absolute folly of his existence would shatter him into a billion brittle shards. Though this story closes the book on Crashcup, one hopes that he eventually invents Fort Knox, and retires into a comfortable life of non-invention.

It's a pity that Stanley's tenure on this book ended here. It's evident that he had just scratched the surface of the refined version of this character and his world. This unfortunate event happened over and over in John Stanley's career.

In this case, Stanley was able to channel his creative energy into the brilliant, socially dysfunctional world of Thirteen Going on Eighteen. His triumphs in that series, in 1964 and '65, are among the mainstream comic book's rare moments of perfection. I hope our friends at Drawn + Quarterly will restore the remainder of that series to print soon.

From New Funnies 121, 1947: Rogue Woodpecker Goes Out On Limb, Becomes Tree Surgeon; Opens Branch Office; Surprises Nurse

Here is the "Woody Woodpecker" story that immediately followed the "Andy Panda" episode I ran the other day. While the "Andy" story is a textbook example of Stanley's character types, and of his early skills as a comix creator, this "Woody" story is a playful eccentricity.

Like Carl Barks' version of Donald Duck, John Stanley's Woody Woodpecker burns through many occupations--usually in utter failure. Stanley's Woody, being even more of a creature of impulse, often gets himself into terrible crises, or causes scenes of utter chaos, when he attempts to make his way in the world.

Here's a curious, charming story in which Woody excels at a niche job, has a good social relationship with others in his world, and shows utter mastery of his skillset.

Stanley seems to have enjoyed himself in writing this story. It's bright, playful, loopy and bedecked with various Stanleyisms--including one of his most blood-curdling YOWs.

Here is an example of the light side dominant in a Stanley story. Dark elements decorate the narrative, but they don't drive it. Yet it isn't cutesy or feeble.










Doctors are generally on a par with antique dealers, art dealers, psychiatrists and the wealthy in John Stanley's world--fit only as subjects of lampoonery. Stanley plays this episodic, character-driven story as a light farce.

Satiric references to melodramatic radio serials and movies of the "Calling Dr. Kildare" persuasion fill this story. Certainly, the notion of unstable Woody being a successful practitioner is inherently funny.

Yet Woody is a success, throughout this story. He demonstrates a good plant-side manner, takes his work seriously, and adroitly solves others' arboreal troubles. He's even empathic enough to take the soused tree back to his office, fulfilling his punny promise to Miss Purkle, his smart-aleck nurse.

Some of Stanley's antipathy towards doctors comes through in the last panel of page three. His opinion of the medical trade improved during the 1950s. Doctors are depicted in Little Lulu as more high-status characters who do good for the world.

Stanley's comix stories are often surprisingly literate. While he seldom indulges in George Carlson or Dr. Seussian wordplay, he writes with a keen sense of the music of words. His dialogues never seem forced, and typically reinforce the world-views and manias of his characters.

He handles expository dialogue especially well--no mean feat in the often-telegraphed manner of 1940s and '50s comix writing. I appreciate his conscious efforts to keep his dialogue active and uncluttered.

I offer this story for its stark contrast to my prior post. It's as light as Tubby's "Hide 'n' Seek" is pitch-black.

From Clyde Crashcup #1, 1963: Our Hero Phones It In, While Passing Time Before Final Spate of Comix Masterworks

In recent posts, we examined the curious horror comix of John Stanley. They were created as Dell struggled to reinvent itself as a viable force in the comix biz--despite Gold Key, the rechristened Western/K.K. Publications, having made off with all the licensed properties and the better artists.

Dell was left with John Stanley, a major talent who was equally at a crossroads. He'd found anonymous success writing, laying out and sometimes drawing other people's characters, for nearly 20 years.

In this time, Stanley had tried to create and sustain a couple of original comix creations (Peterkin Pottle, Jigger and Mooch) but saw them both quickly die.

It was evident that Stanley had the ability to do this on a larger, more successful scale, as his pal Walt Kelly had done with "Pogo Possum"-- a Dell Comics debut that was, by 1962, an internationally celebrated major syndicated newspaper comic strip.

With the gifted, expressive cartoonist Bill Williams, Stanley tried again, in 1961--right before the Dell/Gold Key rift-- with a picaresque urban sitcom, initially titled Around The Block, but soon changed to Dunc 'n' Loo.

This eight-issue series is among John Stanley's finest comix work. It is my personal favorite of all his original creations. If you're a new reader to this blog, use the Search function to find some selections from this series in earlier posts.

That the series lasted for eight quarterly issues says that it must have sold at least decently. Most unknown new titles failed after two or three issues.

On its own, Dell tried hard to regain its footing. They acquired new licensed properties, as quickly and randomly as they could sign the contracts. By this time, they had characters from the emergent limited-animation TV cartoons to consider.

They wisely acquired the entities of Ross Bagdasarian's popular The Alvin Show. Spin-offs of songwriter Bagdasarian's novely pop hits, under the alias of "David Seville," Alvin and his chipmunk brethren briefly tickled the collective American fancy in the early-to-mid 1960s.

The TV cartoons were of better quality than the thuggish output of Hanna-Barbera, but far less witty than Jay Ward's visually primitive Rocky and Bullwinkle.

Among The Alvin Show's sub-features was "Clyde Crashcup," an eccentric would-be inventor, whose shtick was inventing things that already existed. Talk about your cognitive bias issues! Here was a character concept seemingly tailored to Stanley's interests as a writer and comedian.

Crashcup is a sort of grown-up Tubby Tompkins or Peterkin Pottle. Despite the cautious whisperings of his voice-of-reason sidekick, Leonardo, Clyde refuses to accept that his ideas have already been thought out and seen to fruition. Time and again, he is driven to do things the hard way, just to prove that he can do it.

Dell bravely launched a Clyde Crashcup title, which lasted five issues, and entrusted it to Stanley. The end results seem a bit off to me. Perhaps Stanley was still dispirited from the debacle of his 1962 horror comix.

Dunc 'n' Loo's final issue was yet to be published when the first Crashcup appeared. Was the writing on the wall for Stanley's superb original concept? Whatever the reason, Stanley's Creatometer is set to "MEDIUM" here.

The three stories presented here, from the title's debut issue, teem with Stanley themes and -isms. Missing is the dynamic drive, the bustling, roughhousing urban wit that distinguishes Stanley's best work of the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Clyde Crashcup Invents The Cow










Clyde Crashcup Invents The Desert Island







Clyde Crashcup Invents The Broom







I have no data to back this up, but I begin to suspect that the villain of the piece may be editor L. B. Cole. He edited the horror comix and other Stanley-penned projects from Dell's awkward transitional era.

Cole's editorial hand pressed down hard on Stanley. This must have frustrated the author. With Western, Stanley was given free berth to flex his comedic muscles and write dense, rich stories, usually full of melancholy and macabre themes. Little Lulu was among Dell/Western's bread and butter titles. They weren't about to mess with a winning formula.

[SIDEBAR: I'm still uncertain why Stanley left Little Lulu in 1959. This is where comix history fails us. No one thought to ask these questions while Stanley was still around to answer them. If Stanley was sick of writing LL, why did he immediately take over Nancy and Sluggo, which was basically Lulu Redux, and write it with such vigor and commitment for the next few years?

Did Dell's editors feel that Lulu was, by 1959, a finely-oiled comix machine that any writer and artist could take over? Stanley's successors tried their hardest to ape his writing, comedic style, timing and comix vocabulary. Their work was clearly patterned on what Stanley did with the series, in the 14 years he ran it.

I wish I knew the answer. End of sidebar.]

Staples of Stanley storytelling-- cramped urban environs, pirates, witches, invasive landlords, cognitive biases, frenzied physical action, SFX in balloons, balloons with motile tales, vivid onomatopoeia--abound in these comix. Yet the end results seem diluted and dis-spirited. Perhaps Cole's hand was too heavy for Stanley's work. Perhaps this was just a paycheck project, done without much TLC.

These remain appealing stories--of much higher quality than Dell's other creators--but they seem tame and timid, in the wake of Dunc 'n Loo, and following Stanley's bravura run on Nancy and Sluggo. One can see glimmers of Stanley's cartooning style in some of the character poses--including the Little Lulu perennial of upraised, smiling faces:



The cow in the first story is unmistakably Stanley's design. Compare it to the animals in his later Choo-Choo Charlie stories (see link elsewhere amongst the posts.)

The witch at the end of "Broom" is a double for Lulu's Witch Hazel:



I have a feeling that Stanley's scripts, as turned in, were a lot more vivid and appealing than the pale finished stories. I am still exploring the early post-rift Dell titles for other possible Stanley material. These comix are works of corporate turmoil and indifference--confused moves from a vulnerable former giant of the comix world. While clouded beneath heavy editorial hands, there may be more undiscovered works of John Stanley hiding in their forgotten pages.

Snowpocalypse now: "Andy Panda" from New Funnies 82, 1943

Here's another super-early John Stanley "Andy Panda" story.

The refreshing wintry landscape should be a balm to those already suffering the onset of spring/summer heat and humidity.

This early on, Stanley's work has much in common with his transcontinental rival, Carl Barks. Both creators gave their 1943 efforts an open, bouncy, spacious feeling, with an emphasis on high-speed, knockabout comedy.

When wartime paper restrictions doomed the three-tier page layouts of most Dell features, in 1944, that sunny spaciousness almost never returned to their collective pages.

Barks and Stanley would indulge in pastoral pieces (Barks far more than Stanley), but the space restrictions permanently altered both creators' approaches towards making comix. Through force of habit, both artists became instilled with the desire to cram more action into less space.

This story is a prime example of the "open" 1943 sensibility. Altho' filled with vibrant slapstick and wild physical action, there is a sense of space in these panels that is refreshing.

As well, the narrative is akin to many a Barks farce, with our heroes ending up in some far-flung place, due to their cheerful ineptness, which unleashes a [literally] snowballing chain of events.

This is a type of story Stanley would quickly stop writing. From 1944 on, his stories' conclusions have a gravity that is often deeply felt by the reader. One always feels that Barks' Donald and the nephews, even if stranded in Timbuktu at story's end, will easily make their way back to Duckburg in time for next month's romp.

Stanley characters regularly face sobering and bracing finales. They will, just as often, be evicted from their homes at story's end, or have to accept a mixed bag of good and bad outcomes.

I'm not saying one approach outdoes the other; both are potent formulae. Both served these two towering comix creators very well during their long careers.

It is neat to see Stanley "doing a Donald" with this very funny, lively early farce.

The 1943 issue I scanned this story from must have gotten damp some time ago. Opening its bag unleashes an assault of vintage mold and mildew fragments. Tho' unseen on the pulp paper pages, they are deeply noticed by my sensitive sinuses. Whew!

By scanning this story, I no longer need to reopen this bio-degradable Pandora's Box. Hurrah!