Tootling Tubas, Iodine Indians and Fatal Cookies: Three Stories from the fourth Little Lulu one-shot comic, 1946: story and art by John Stanley

This continues a series of posts that focus on an issue of the John Stanley-written and drawn "Four Color" one-shot Little Lulu comic book.
Here are three of the four stories that comprise Four Color #120, which bears a publication date of October 1946. As ever, it's preferable to read these stories in color, as they were originally intended.

With this issue, John Stanley begins to take chances with the licensed characters of Marge Buell. This is the most New Funnies-like issue of Lulu. The story situations are quite akin to his contemporary "Andy Panda," "Oswald Rabbit" and "Woody Woodpecker" pieces.

They're much less about character-driven comedy than broad, escalating situations.  That said, Stanley's growing awareness of the potential of the LL cast further flavors these innovative stories. While Stanley the artist still struggles with the rudimentary/bad design of the Marge Buell characters, Stanley the writer cuts loose and tries for belly laughs and broader strokes.

The issue's first (and longest) story, "Tuba Trouble," anticipates 1950s sitcoms. The narrative centers around a wacky decision Lulu makes, and sees through to its absurd but logical conclusion. Stanley had a knack for this kind of story, and would return to this template more often in the 1960s.

Stanley's sitcoms have more depth and patience than is the standard. In this potentially I Love Lucy-style narrative, he is careful to keep character quirks in the foreground.

There is always a sobering moment in Stanley's work. For "Tuba Trouble," it is the sequence on the top half of page 2. Tubby's notion that parents own their children, and that corporal punishment is inevitable, even for the misdeeds of his friends, adds that note of gravity prevalent in the Stanley universe.

This early on, the kids' interactions with adults still have anarchic tinges. The Lulu cast would become conformists to social mores (with the important exception of Tubby) by the turn of the decade. Here, Lulu thinks nothing of hurling gravel through a window, or of stealing a neighbor's lawn mower to exchange for that decrepit tuba. Of course, she has her own logical rationale for each action.

In this sense, the early John Stanley Lulu character is more like the Tubby of his 1950s stories. Tubby is far more passive in these earlier pieces. Once Stanley figured his master plan out, and assigned the self-deluded, self-justifying persona to Tubby, Lulu becomes a steadfast, feet-on-the-ground assayer of logic and reason. This was Stanley's greatest alteration of the Marge characters, and what makes them so far superior to her gag-cartoon iteration.

The tuba--and its audio pandemonium--is akin to Stanley's "Andy Panda" stories. It's easy to imagine that series' upstart, Charlie Chicken, being obsessed with the windy brass instrument, and causing a public panic with its startling farts.

It is, of course, funnier to have a meek little girl behind this wind-breaking, and for her to be blissfully ignorant of the effect her tuba efforts have on the world around her. She simply wants to be included in her friends' pitiful music making. To the boys, music-making is an enforced torment, demanded of them by their seemingly irrational parents/owners. The beat cop's spiel about Sherlock Holmes may fortify Tubby and Eddie for the moment, but in the long run it's sheer hell for these kids, this music practice routine. The violin is a messenger of misery in John Stanley's world. Did he dislike the instrument? One wonders.

A half-page scene of public chaos highlights the penultimate page. Far funnier, though, is that page's second panel. We can only imagine the discordance produced by those kids. That Lulu's tuba-belching should outdo that cacophony is quite a feat.

Stanley aims for a dry humor in "Tuba Trouble." It succeeds in understating its turbid events. The effect is quite unlike his frenzied farces of the 1960s.

Next is "Indian Uprising." My apologies to any Native American readers of Stanley Stories. I have read all but three issues of John Stanley's output (and, thanks to Michael Barrier, I will soon have scans of those missing pieces). I have yet to see, outside of the notorious Li'l Eight Ball, a moment of outrageous ethnic caricature in Stanley's work.

After a gander at the opening image of the first Famous Studios Little Lulu cartoon, Eggs Don't Bounce, Stanley's Li'l Eight Ball stories seem much milder in comparison. The one ethnic group Stanley used in his work were Native Americans. Making light of "injuns" far outlasted other ethnic ribbings. Only in the last 10-15 years has mass media backed away from the "how! ugh!" vision of the "redskin."

No actual stereotyped Indians appear here--just their affect. The kids' fantasies are fueled by the Hollywood crap that encouraged these stereotypes. This vicious circle, whether consciously planned or not, fuels one of the most topsy-turvy stories in Stanley's Lulu canon.

Few of Stanley's Little Lulu stories are as riotously funny as "Indian Troubles."  Sublime comedic timing and techniques abound--once again relayed with understatement. From Alvin's quiet defacement of a tulip patch to Lulu's word-for-word explanation (repeated for the authorities) of how her father got a mannequin head, instead of a cabbage, every moment is beautifully downplayed.

Tubby's boyishly vicious fantasy of the Old West, at story's beginning, gives further shading to his yet-unfinished persona. In this moment, this early Tub aligns with the mid-1950s model. As said, only the kids' use of iodine to darken their skin alludes to the "injun" theme. Notably, the kids are on the side of the Native Americans. They love the outlet to wreak havoc that the "redskin" persona provides.

Even so, the children never lose their mid-century suburban American-ness. The contrast of their attempts to break from the societal mold, and the irritation and embarrassment they cause the adults around them, is sublime. No need to push the PC Alert Button this time!

I've skipped the amusing "Newspaper Business" to conclude with an early instance of Stanley's meta-fairy tales. "Little Lulu and the Seven Dwarfs" is notable for its parody of the then eight year-old Walt Disney animated feature. With this cultural landmark as a compass, Lulu's selective corruption of remembered events and invented, personalized touches is laid bare for the reader to savor.

Notice, as well, the second of John Stanley's witches. The first appeared in this 1945 Oswald Rabbit story. While clearly based on the source material parodied, this ur-witch, who meekly appears in the story's denouement, roughly anticipates his 1950s creation, Witch Hazel.

From the start, Alvin is skeptical audience for Lulu's rewrite of "Snow White." It's fitting that the "rough kitchen boys" and the seven dwarfs resemble Alvin, who is the biggest thorn in Lulu's side.

Stanley indulges in a rare quotation from pop culture. He has the dwarfs singing their signature song from the Disney Snow White feature, "Heigh Ho." Litigation would ensue if anyone did this now, but in 1946, it probably passed by completely un-noticed.

Stanley's use of the song fuels a brutally comedic sequence in which Lulu is trampled by the dwarfs as they come and go from their mining work. This sequence ends with a sublime instance of discrepancy, via Lulu's understatement of the invented events of her imagination:

Lulu never strays far from her current reality in these on-the-fly fairy tales. Her inclusion of poison cookies, a reflection of a recent baking episode, informs her parody of Snow White, and tidily ties the story's events together.

This narrative decision ruins her appetite for the cookies she's baked--and thus the story ends, with story-teller berating herself for being too inventive.

As work concludes on the long-awaited Carter Family graphic novel, I will be away from the blogosphere for the next month or so. When I emerge, I hope to have some fresh Stanley material to share with you. In the meantime, be well and prosper!

John Stanley's World, Pt. VIII: A Walking Tour of Monsterville

During my recent enforced hiatus, my only reliable entree to the internet was via an iPod. The effect is like watching a fishbowl through the wrong end of a telescope. It's nice--very nice!--to be back to the dimensions of my laptop.

While I couldn't access this machine, I read books and did other things once so common-place, pre-internet. Among these readings was a revisit to the three volumes of Drawn + Quarterly's complete reprinting of John Stanley's 1960s work, Melvin Monster.

I've found Melvin rough going, due to its intense emotional darkness. That darkness serves a purpose, as I've come to realize. It is a constant reminder that we're not in our world anymore. We're visiting a warped, refracted place that has recognizable aspects to us, but which is essentially alien.

Monsterville, the setting of Melvin Monster, is among John Stanley's most compelling fictional worlds. As was the case with too many of his personal projects, the series ended just when Stanley put most of its pieces in place.

We never get a complete sense of what Monsterville is like--as we do with the Northeastern city that the world of Little Lulu occupies. Certain locales are ritually revisited, but we're left with the sense that there is much yet explored or documented. Nine quarterly 36-page comic books are all we have. Much of their action occurs inside one home, or on its immediate premises.

Though they're sometimes just sketched in roughly, much is said via the series' dilapidated urban-suburban settings. They are a grotesque mirror of the world of Little Lulu, Thirteen Going on Eighteen and other Stanley series.

This curious societal shambles--an acute mixture of order and chaos--is the backbone of Melvin Monster. While it borrows from Charles Addams' magazine cartoons, and captures the zeitgeist of the mid-'60s TV monster craze (The Munsters, The Addams Family), the atmosphere of Melvin is more deliberate, logical and haunting. It helps us understand--and ultimately accept--the emotional minefield of this brutal-yet-orderly world.

The basic affect of this world is recognizable--residential streets with houses, sidewalks, lawns, fences and evidence of public utilities. There are apparent businesses, at least one schoolhouse, and outlying, off-limits areas, shrouded by deep woods, that insulate Monsterville from the adjacent world of "human beans."

In early issues of Melvin Monster, we see the "human bean" world quite often. Melvin, our identification figure in these stories, is curious about this more orderly, less chaotic mirror-world, and wants to be a part of it. He is a reluctant member of Monsterville--he's there by birth only, and he doesn't cotton to its prejudices and values.

Yet Monsterville seems patterned on the "human bean" world, and exists as a corruption of that equally chaotic society.

This recalls the awkward-but-fascinating "Tales of the Bizarro World" series which ran in the DC Comics title Adventure Comics in the early 1960s. Sometimes scripted by Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel, the "Bizarro World" stories set an impossible, petrifying standard. Everything "right" had to be wrong, and vice versa.

This abnormal-as-the-norm bias also informs the monster TV sitcoms mentioned above, and tinges Stanley's Monsterville. This comedy of free-wheeling anti-conformism seems apt for anxiety-packed Cold War America. Average Joe and his offspring/spouse could enjoy some harmless chuckles at the addled mirror this school of comedy offered.

While none of these commercial efforts pointedly mocks the conformism of early '60s American life, the intent is still there. By making light of the bizarro-type characters' conformation to bass-ackward rules of disorder, these mass media outlets poke polite holes through the fabric of what we call structured society. (Thank you, Vermont Ferret, for this photograph.)

John Stanley is an outstanding humorist, and a superb storyteller, but he was not Harvey Kurtzman. He does not set out to show that the emperor is buck nekkid. If anything, he's on the side of the sublimely deluded, and loves to wind them up and watch them go.

The main gimmick of Melvin Monster is that Melvin is the only "normal" figure in an abnormal world. He experiences Monsterville as you or I might, were we dropped into it, and expected to thrive. He is aware of his difference, and that he is an outsider. Yet he's not a Quixotic comical figure, like Tubby Tompkins and other signature Stanley characters. He seems to be the voice of reason in this dark wilderness.

Because of his otherness, he is exquisitely sensitive, and a moving target for the hostilities of the "normal" world of Monsterville. From his ill-tempered, risible "Baddy" and passive "Mummy" to the homicidal schoolmarm, Miss McGargoyle, to friends such as the witch-in-training, Little Horror, Melvin's daily life is filled with hostile encounters with supposed friends and family.

He might as well be a closeted gay teenager in 1960s Birmingham, Alabama. Only by pretending to follow the norms of a world he dislikes and fears can Melvin make it through a day in Monsterville.

In one telling sequence, we're shown a scene of domestic distress caused by Melvin's affection for "human bean" ways:

 

The last page of the last issue of Melvin touchingly plays upon this dichotomy:

On this heart-breaking scene of wish fulfillment thwarted, let's begin our visual tour of Monsterville...

The first page of the first story offers significant exterior and interior views of average life in the community of Monsterville:

 
Decay, disorder and visual chaos are established straight away. The landscape of residential Monsterville would alter significantly in later issues, while retaining these key assets.

Here, we see stock Gothic mansions crowded together in an overgrown, foreboding terrain. Inside these homes, if Melvin's abode is typical, are broken windows, cracked plaster, peeling paint or wallpaper and threadbare carpets. These visual clues give us a strong sense of dust, mildew, dampness and grime. This house would probably smell funny, and give allergy sufferers a sneezing attack.

Again, this is on par with contemporary monster-sitcoms, especially The Munsters, which premiered on American TV in the fall of 1964. Given the lag in production time for magazines and comic books, it's very possible that Stanley either saw The Munsters, or had it suggested as a possible springboard for an original comics series.

Like Herman Munster (played with gentle charm by Fred Gwynne), Melvin's "Baddy" has a night job. His vocation smacks more of the "Bizarro World" than the TV sitcom:

This scene, from the second issue of Melvin, offers a rare full view of the house's front yard, and its entryway to the street. As with the "Bizarro World" series, rules dominate the world of Monsterville. Order and disorder fight one another, and typically cancel one another out.

The same basic problem plagues both Melvin Monster and the "Bizarro World" series: there must be some sort of societal order, but how does a community that thrives on anarchy still have rules? These rules are strictly followed--especially in the "Bizarro World," which has its own, often-repeated code:

The logic-implosion of this Code is a detour I'm not willing to take in this essay. Suffice to say that Stanley's Monsterville is a more loose-knit community. Traditions and rules of monster conduct are often recited and referred to, but the stakes for a non-conformist are much lower here.

More street views of suburban Monsterville show evidence of public utilities, and thus societal structure. They have paved sidewalks, fire hydrants, telephone poles and power lines:

No cars, trucks or other engine-based vehicles are seen in Monsterville. Melvin's friend, Little Horror, has a variety of witches' brooms, but I doubt those would merit the civil inclusion of traffic lights, which nonetheless exist in this community:

Monsterville appears to have at least one newspaper, seen here:

Melvin's home has a television. Whether this is local programming, or "human bean" TV, picked up via aerial, is never made clear:

Though yard neglect is the standard here, property lines are denoted by fences and other markers:

 

We only see the more urban side of Monsterville once, in issue 8 of the series:

These settings are sketchy, vague and generic. They are akin to the similar environs of Little Lulu and Thirteen Going on Eighteen:

Stanley cares far less about detailed settings, as a writer-cartoonist, than do his collaborators. Irving Tripp (seen above, in the Lulu sequence) and Bill Williams (below, in an example from Dunc 'n' Loo) who endow the fictive-real worlds of John Stanley with solid, substantial detail:

To Stanley, the characters were the story. Though he does indulge in more atmospheric landscapes in Melvin Monster, he keeps the settings as low-key as possible throughout the series. The one aspect of Monsterville lushly detailed are its tangled, shadowy landscapes and woodlands. Those forlorn scenes of open fields and thickets, dense with overgrowth and neglect, are a haunting visual component of the series.

Stanley's scenes of the woods, in particular, achieve a sense of aching desolation comics wouldn't see again until the publication of Charles Burns' Black Hole:

Stanley had a knack for cartooned landscapes, seen in his 1940s work for Little Lulu and his original series "Peterkin Pottle" and "Jigger and Mooch." This sensibility informs many of the great 1950s stories he both wrote and drew, including the seminal story "The Guest in the Ghost Hotel." You can find this story elsewhere on the blog, or in at least two current reprints.

In the pastoral scenes of Melvin Monster, Stanley flourishes as an expressive cartoonist. The mood of those shaggy fields, and those clusters of trees and thickets, bring this fictive world to life.

Before Stanley abandoned the connection to the world of "human beans," he played with the contrast-complement of these two simultaneous universes, as in this four-page story from issue 3:

Melvin Monster is a blend of familiar John Stanley events and archetypes. A strong interest in horrific themes is evident throughout his career. An overwhelming amount of Little Lulu's improvised fairy tales have horror motifs. The most recurrent of these, Witch Hazel, has a doppelganger in Melvin's Miss McGargoyle.

This choice of subject matter was not unusual for Stanley. Shoved into the forefront of Melvin Monster, macabre elements become the norm, as seen through the eyes of a developing child who struggles to accept or understand them.

Despite the heaviness and harshness of its ritual events, there is a playful, lighter side to Melvin Monster. A key to appreciating this series is that we realize this is not our world. It looks somewhat similar, but it plays by different rules. Black is white and good is bad in Monsterville. Parents would tend to be gruff, abusive and moody; physical violence, bullying and other assorted assaults are the commerce of daily society.

Stanley doesn't make a big deal of any of this. He presents it straightforwardly, without much back-story or build-up. We aren't constantly reminded of the dos and don'ts, as in the "Bizarro World" series. Thus, we must make peace with the Medieval cruelty of Monsterville, and appreciate what good citizens its residents truly are, given their circumstances.

Monsterville is a slice of John Stanley's world that ended far too soon. The glimpses and passing scenes we get, in the nine issues of Melvin Monster, establish it enough that we can fill in the missing pieces--as Stanley surely would have, had the series lasted longer. It is a troubled and troubling world, but one worth our attention.

P.S.: This is a rare example of a John Stanley series that's been recently reprinted in full, via Drawn + Quarterly's lush hardcover three-book set. The reproduction in those volumes is far, far better than the motley scans seen here. If you don't own those three books, please consider buying them. Consider this essay a compliment to those D+Q volumes.

P.P.S.: RIP, Megaupload. The bad guys have won a big one here... The extent of how much this sucks will no doubt grow larger in the next few days. The Internet, as we once knew it, is rapidly changing for the worse...