The Last of Little Lulu, pt. 3: selections from #134, 1959

Here is the third part of our extended look at the last four issues of John Stanley's Little Lulu.

Issue 134 is the first to contain non-Stanley material. It is the second piece in the book. It comes after one of Stanley's more typical late pieces, "The Star Gazers." This story is as talky as some of his Nancy material.

Talk is cheap, but Stanley enjoyed creating a kind of screwball chaos in his dialogue. A lover of convoluted crowd scenes, Stanley also sought to cram his comics panels with a Babel of balloons.

Stanley was a kind of Lubitsch of the comics. Like the director of such sublime movies as Trouble in Paradise and To Be or Not to Be, he had a good ear for dialogue. Lubitsch didn't write his own dialogue--he relied on writers such as Samson Raphaelson, Billy Wilder and Edwin J. Mayer. But, also like Stanley, he understood the cadences of dialogue, and how to present it with snap and flair.

Lubitsch had the benefit of movement and sound; Stanley had poorly printed ink on cheap woodpulp paper. A good idea is a good idea, regardless of its grandeur or humbleness. 

To start, here's the cover, drawn by Stanley...

"The Star Gazers" isn't about what its title might suggest. The story's only narrative stake is Pop's all-important visit to the Mayor. (What is it, exactly, that Mr. Moppet does for a living? He sometimes seems to be self-employed, as seen here. At times he works a night shift, and he's also heard to complain, vaguely, about "the office." I don't think his profession is ever clearly stated.)

The stake is rather low-key, by Stanley standards. This story really isn't about anything, except the kids acting out, and being kids. Thus, it harks back to the earliest Lulu stories, in which the kids are much more randomly kid-like. The personalities of Lulu, Annie and Alvin are set in stone here, but there's no concrete goal for them. The girls self-indulgently indulge wish on falling stars (no tangible payoff for them). Alvin has more of a case for action: he just wants to sleep.

"The Star Gazers" is a surprising anomaly from an author so fixated on narrative stakes. The characters are so surely defined, and likable, that this non-story still has great charm.

"The Case of the Missing Tickets" returns to the major Lulu formula I discussed last time. One important thing: Tubby doesn't bother with the "Spider" business here. He just sees an opportunity to perform a heroic duty, and be praised by his elders. Armed with that status fantasy, he wreaks havoc on the Moppet household, to the horror of its inhabitants.

"Missing Tickets" is richly Tubby-centric. As usual, his instincts are right, although his approach is too aggressive and insensitive for the world outside his enormous ego. The stakes are somewhat higher here, but the joy of the story is Tub's destruction of the Moppet household. Room by room, Tubby dashes everything into chaos. No stone is unturned. I love that he even examines the family financial records.

And, of course, there is the priceless moment on p. 5, where he passes the fridge and succumbs to its siren song. By this time, Stanley's comedy begins to strongly resemble that of Nat Hiken, the creator of Sgt. Bilko and Car 54, Where Are You? Hiken was a sort of rugged genius of situation comedy. He was hep to Stanley's credo that comedy is built from the characters up.

As well, Hiken understood timing, and the chain reaction of events that lead to humorous fission. I've recently been watching the 1955 season of Sgt. Bilko, and I'm struck by the comedic kinship of Stanley and Hiken's approaches.

This sensibility greatly informs Stanley's post-Lulu works, especially Dunc 'n' Loo, which Hiken could have filmed as a live-action sitcom.

More curious synchronicity occurs in this issue's fairy-tale, "Little Itch and the ANIMAL CRACKERS" (Stanley's capitalization, not mine.)

Around this time, veteran comic-book creator Dick Briefer worked up a sample sequence for a proposed daily newspaper strip. It featured his darkly comic re-imagining of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein monster, which had a successful run in 1940s and '50s comic books.

The story arc of these sample Frankenstein strips involves an ill-tempered magician who turns the gentle monster's best friends and associates into cookies. This fiend also urges Franky to eat his baked goods-cum-chums. He uses the exact phrases Li'l Itch speaks here, on the fifth and sixth pages of "ANIMAL CRACKERS," plus some equally amusing variants.

Many years ago, I bought a set of high-quality photocopies of the sample Briefer strips from an eBay seller. I know they must be around somewhere, but it's been years since I last saw them. I could not find any examples of the sequence on-line. I'm going on memory, but this is still a striking coincidence.

UPDATE, 10/20/2010: The blog Mippyville posted the original version of this story, from issue 4 of Dick Briefer's 1946 Frankenstein comic book series. Briefer re-purposed this story for his sample daily comic strip sequence. The similarity of the two stories is striking. Did Stanley lift the idea from Briefer--or had he read this story, back in the '40s, and tucked it away in his sub-conscious?

Every Little Lulu drew its curtains on a solo "Tubby" story. This issue's example has a name more like as the title of an Edward Hopper painting than a comic book story--"Crowded Beach."

By its title, "Crowded Beach," the finest story of this next-to-last issue, suggests its creator's love of crowd scenes. Throughout Little Lulu, John Stanley devised many stories that use a mob of people. Stanley's crowds are typically reserved for story finales, where the mass witness of an embarrassing event amps up the humor.

Artist Irving Tripp was up to the challenge. Stanley's doodled script may have indicated the volume of beachgoers in each frame, but Tripp takes the time to give them a variety of looks and body types. He also manages solid compositions with numerous visual elements--not an easy feat.

Here, the crowded sand is the playing field for the eternal unsolved love-hate relationship of Tubby, Wilbur and Gloria. It's love on Tub's part, and condescension and manipulation, at best, from the fair-haired upwardly mobile W and G.

Against the remarkably dense panels of its five pages, "Crowded Beach" plays out the tragicomic desperation of Tubby's hopeless crush on unattainable ice-goddess-in-the-making Gloria. We see Tubby at his most emotional--his tantrum on pages 2 and 3, which climaxes with the second panel of p.3.

Yet, like Nat Hiken and Phil Silvers' Sgt. Bilko, Tubby is a schemer. Even when his status crumbles, he still has his wits--and his massive ego--to bolster his spirits and keep him going.

"Crowded Beach" is Stanley at his best. No narrative element is wasted, or underplayed. The story arc fits the disparate elements into a satisfying whole--and allots its main character an unusually busy playing field, and audience, for his unorthodox, vibrant personality.


Just one more issue to go...

The Last of Little Lulu, pt. 2: selections from issue 133, 1959

Let's continue our look at the final issues of John Stanley's Little Lulu. Here are 4/5ths of the contents of issue 133 (July, 1959). I opted to skip the fairy-tale piece. Why? I have to save some stories for future posts. Otherwise, this blog will become just me talking, talking, talking.

This is another strong issue, with more signs of the John Stanley to come. We see him adjusting and re-thinking his comix vocabulary. After a decade of sedate but intelligent writing on Lulu, Stanley begins to break out of the series' safe zone. He revives some of his stylistic tics from the 1940s, and hones his wit into a razor-sharp, brassy comic-book sitcom. This will be his standard operating procedure through the 1960s.

First, the cover. Lulu being bossy. Boys underwhelmed. Stanley's cartoon style is most evident in the sandbox's contents. Those warm, loose brush lines...

As said in Pt. 1, formulas run the Little Lulu show. Stanley set up a number of situations that he could use time and again, simply by filling in the blanks.

Among his most common set-ups is this one:

• Lulu is accused of a misdeed she did not commit, or upset by the loss of a needed object
• Tubby wanders into the picture; sees a mystery to be solved in his alias of "The Spider"
• Tubby returns with inspired-but-absurd costume; suspects Lulu's father of misdeed
• Lulu objects; Tubby insists he is right
• Tubby engages in a series of (usually destructive) actions, all of which make Lulu's already-shaky home status less tenable
• Lulu's father returns to scene of chaos; is upset; demands explanation
• Tubby accuses Lulu's father of misdeed/loss of item
• Lulu's father confesses; perfectly reasonable/mundane explanation follows
• Tubby exits victorious; if Lulu has been spanked or otherwise punished, no apology is tendered by her parents (save for rare exceptions)

Now you can write one of these stories! But, first, take a moment to read "Case of the Missing Skipping Rope," a solid late example of this formula...

Towards the end of his Lulu years, Stanley streamlined his formulae. A good pop-culture comparison are Chuck Jones' "Road Runner" cartoons. They are entirely built on rules and formulas. They become less elaborate, and more focused on cause and effect. Like Stanley's works, they focus on the highly delusional, self-obsessed anti-hero character (Wile E. Coyote), whose Quixotic actions are doomed to instant failure.

Stanley's Tubby is a much richer, more nuanced character than Jones' coyote. Tubby is a frequent victor, but he's as likely to be the victim of his grandiose schemes and his stratospheric self-regard. His deep belief that Lulu's father is a career criminal gives this series an added edge.

Stanley knew how to write to children. He connects to their value system, and offers, through his Lulu stories, an escape from their generally disempowered status. As adult readers, we still face status loss and disempowerment on a daily basis. Thus, these stories connect to our adult value system. They also provide a bridge to our earlier lives. It's a strong, silent connection that is at the heart and soul of this series.

"The Feud" is a welcome deviation from the rigid Lulu formulae. While the story has a typical series setting (the boys' clubhouse), it tweaks the typical battle-of-the-sexes plot line.

Yenta-Lulu, in her typical role of the Voice Of Reason, runs the gamut of thoughtful, creative (and socially acceptable) role-playing scenarios in an earnest attempt to reunite Tubby and Willy. Being typical stubborn males, their ridiculous grudge is surprisingly tenacious.

It takes a taboo set-up (Pop's pipe) to lure the two ex-chums out of their costume-based beef and, through the transformative powers of nausea, embrace each other.

This story has a high percentile rate of a Stanley tell: spots-before-the-eyes. This is among the few Stanley tells that were not copied by other Western/Dell writers. Stanley drags this out anytime one of his characters is made dizzy, nauseous or otherwise discombobulated.

He makes strong use of spots-before-the-eyes in his 1960s work.

Another Lulu Formula is Tubby's horrid violin playing. This is not a plot formula; it's a situation based upon an inevitable given. Tubby lacks musical talent. Like many kids of his era, he is forced to learn an instrument. He doesn't like playing the violin, and he really, really, really sucks at it.

Though even his parents acknowledge that Tub is a total wash on the instrument, they insist that he continue. His anti-music has the power to remove dental fillings, break glass, and, as seen in "Music Hath Charms," repel his greatest social foes.

"Music Hath Charms" gives us the quintessence of Tubby Tompkins. He is cowardly, arrogant, presumptuous, has a high self-regard (in the face of obvious evidence to the contrary), and inducts a kindred spirit into his exhausting scheme.

Few fictional characters can paint themselves into a corner like Tubby. Over-reaction, paranoia and a desperate need to keep his ego on HIGH are strong agents in his on-going festival of humiliation comedy.

Lulu is, apparently, no great shakes at the keyboard. I would love to hear her faltering renditions of "The Pink Panther Theme," "Fur Elise," "Linus and Lucy" and other pre-teen piano favorites. Alas, I am flesh and blood, not aged ink and wood pulp.

Staying on the Tubby tip, here's "Camping Out," a story which strongly anticipates Dunc 'n' Loo, Thirteen and other late Stanley masterworks.

It's arm-thrashing, neighborhood-rousing situation comedy here--incisively fueled by Tubby's quirks and shortcomings. Tub is similar to Thirteen's Val in his eccentric, excitable and wrong-headed behavior here.

Stanley gives us a glimpse of Tubby's parents alone in their home, obviously relieved not to have their eccentric spawn inside. Their son has interrupted many nights of rest and relaxation--just by being himself.

The story's ending has a classic Stanley touch--Iggy asks Tubby a question so obvious and essential that no one else has even thought of it. Stanley often ends stories this way. It's a clever off-beat, and it suggests there is more to this narrative that the page or printing press allows.

In this sense, the lives of the characters continue in the reader's mind. This may account for the enormous appeal of Stanley's Lulu cast. Like Charles Schulz's and Daniel Clowes' characters, they have a life beyond their two dimensions and the still-frames of their comics panels.

Color note: I'm a devotee of night-time scenes in color comics. Always have been. Thus, I dig the very simple but creative suggestion of night in this story's last page. Western's crude presses could not offer much in the way of color variance. The uncredited colorist solved the problem very well here.

Western's particularly monotonous color palette becomes part of the narrative rhythm of Stanley's Little Lulu. Lulu's dress is always that raw magenta; Tubby's tie is a constant flat cyan. The grass is usually a parched yellow. Trees and shrubs are two flat shades of green. All browns are the same fecal shade.

The unvaried colors reinforce Stanley's strong characterizations and settings. Inevitably, Lulu loses much of its impact in black and white. The popularity of the Dark Horse black-and-white books (which I see in almost every household I visit that has kids) is a credit to the compelling aspects of John Stanley's comedic and narrative sense.