Three from Thirteen Going On 18 #15, 1965

Yes, it had to happen: a Thirteen Going On 18 post!

Longtime readers of this blog may recall my grousing sentiments that this was not my most favorite of Stanley's work. I've warmed to this series more since then. It is rough going, emotionally, at times. But Stanley did his allegedly teenaged audience a favor.

By laying the cards of teenage life, at its most humilitating and harrowing, on the table with an edge of frantic comedy, Stanley offered a ray of hope to his readers.

"See?" he seems to say, in each and every story. "You think you've got it bad? Compared to Val and Judy, you're doing fine! They survive the worst embarrassments and failures I can throw at 'em--and they keep coming back for more!"

In other words, it's worth the trouble to take it on the chin, and to just keep going. Coming from a self-identified sufferer of lifelong depression, Stanley's implicit message uses the most negative means to deliver an ultimately uplifting sensation.

This particular issue has a special story. David Lasky, my creative partner on the work-in-progress graphic novel, Don't Forget This Song, rescued this issue from a random box of 1960s comix at Seattle's most quirky funnybook emporium, Comics Dungeon.

It was a particularly hot issue of the book, so it seemed only right to choose it for today's post.

Here are three stories from this mid-series issue. The first two are quite hilarious, and have a shared theme of clothes getting ridiculously messed up.

Here's the cover, to start things off. I like the use of the butterscotch-yellow color for the speech balloon. The triangular shape of Judy's dress, the oval of the balloon, and the shared hair color of Val and the mannequin, set against the gray-green, slate blue and other earth tones is quite pleasing.

Oh, yes, and then there's the smart-ass gag:


"Unsuited For Dancing" is a rare story in which Val has the judgmental upper hand on her perennial beau, Billy. Billy and Val both give as good as they get here. Repartee suitable for a finer-quality sitcom or a screwball comedy fuels this quite funny story.

I find the status struggle of this story very well-wrought. It's hard to be partisan here: Val is a complete a-hole to Billy. She doesn't resist any opportunity to make a dig at him, insult his intelligence, and undermine his self-confidence.

Yet Billy retains his sense of well-being. If these two wed, you know they'd be one of those couples who bicker all the time, but seem to genuinely like one another.

"Unsuited For Dancing" shows the wide dynamics of Val and Billy's stormy but solid relationship. This is remarkable writing for a '60s teen comic.

Stanley's artwork on this series has always looked a bit rushed to me. That said, the verve of his brush line and the vim and vigor of his characters is always an utter visual pleasure. I've never used more Vs in a single sentence before!










"The Brush" is a simple short story, but it's full of funny moments. Stanley occasionally found sublime ways to comically show the passage of time. Such an incident occurs on the first half of the second page.

The last two panels of page three are brilliantly conceived.






There's no escaping the Theatre Of Cruelty that is "Judy Junior." This unusual episode, "White Boy's Burden," has no dialogue.

That's notable for this series. Stanley's usual bugaboo is to have evil, evil Judy Junior and her hapless foil, Jimmy Fuzzi, repeat each other's name in each exchange.

I find the pantomime of this story (a) beautifully achieved and (b) a most refreshing break from the yakketa-yakketa-yak of Stanley's later work.

The guy wrote brilliant comedic dialogue--don't get me wrong. At this point, the concept of "too much of a good thing" wasn't in his radar. He often effectively wields dialogue like a bludgeon in his comedic arsenal. It makes these comics a sometimes-exhausting reading experience.

And now, the suburban silence of our final feature today.




I do look forward to Drawn + Quarterly's books of this series--even tho' I own all the original issues in digital form. They deserve to be on bookshelves and in shops.

I'm curious to see if they connect with modern readers in the way Dark Horse's Little Lulu books have done. I've seen many kids get completely lost in those stories--they depart from the world around them as they read Lulu.

It's great to see 50+ year-old comix still have such strong impact.

I'm at a crossroads...

When I began "Stanley Stories" as a primitive website in 2000, John Stanley's work was almost entirely unreprinted. Only the flawed but essential Little Lulu Library had been issued, and that was 15 years prior.

In 2009, we will see the publication of several new volumes of John Stanley comics--from Drawn + Quarterly's series of Stanley's 1960s work, to Dark Horse's continuation of the Lulu reprints (and, just announced, the run of Stanley's companion title Tubby) to the upcoming Toon Treasury, a thick hardcover book of great "kid's comics" from the 1930s to the '60s, including a substantial section on John Stanley, to which I contributed input.

All this reprinting is wonderful. It restores John Stanley's largely-unread work to a mass audience. I'm all for it.

What does it mean for the future of this blog?

I've gone out of my way to avoid posting any stories that already exist in an in-print, available edition.

With D+Q reprinting Dunc 'n' Loo, Nancy, Melvin Monster and Thirteen Going on Eighteen, and DH finishing the Stanley run of the Marge-based titles, that doesn't leave much wiggle room for me.

I'd like to get your honest feedback:

Would you rather I avoid this material, as it will be available in book form within the next few years?

Shall I restrain myself only to the material that will obviously never be reprinted (the Walter Lantz-based material, etc.)?

Or should I comment on stories without "reprinting" them here, and creating a redundancy with the soon-to-be-published books? As I understand it, none of these books will offer anything substantial in the way of introductions or critical commentary.

At least 60% of what I've posted on this blog, so far, will be in those books.

I enjoy working in this blog, and I feel that, in many cases, I am the first person to ever offer critical analysis of this work. Is that enough to sustain your interest as a reader?

Thanks. I await your input. I'm a worry-wart, so I may be fretting over nothing at all.

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UPDATE: Wow! Thanks for your comments! I feel utterly reassured!
Look for a new post with a couple of Stanley stories this weekend...

Happy B'day Jim: O. G. Whiz, Pt. 2

For our 50th post, here's the second half of the first issue of O. G. Whiz, John Stanley's last original work for comics.

"A Short Happy Life" is a bittersweet story with a cynical, satirical bent that reminds me of Gilbert Shelton's best work. There are faint echoes from Little Lulu's world in this story, but the outrageous corporate actions of the Tikkletoy Company steal the show here.

A SHORT HAPPY LIFE








Our last O. G. Whiz story--and Stanley's final published comix work--drives deeper into Shelton-esque territory. Both the shrill sitcom-stereotyped General Ponko, the colorful baddie of "A Tough Customer," and the battery of highly literal sound effects would fit just fine into any vintage "Wonder Wart-Hog" or "Freak Brothers" story.

Its seems highly probable that John Stanley's comix influenced Gilbert Shelton's profoundly dry, absurd style of humor--well before 1971, of course. I'd be surprised to learn of any 1971 underground cartoonist having noticed, or read, this particular comic book.

Cultural stereotypes seemed to reach some kind of zenith in the 1970s. As a side-product of "awareness" and "tellin' it like it is," florid-but-harmless caricatures like General Ponko were standard fare. Ponko is just a means to an end--a forceful figure to cause comic mayhem for a few pages.

Well, Jim, I hope you enjoyed this two-part post. And, of course, the same goes to everyone else. These stories aren't available anywhere else on the Internet, so save 'em for later enjoyment!

A TOUGH CUSTOMER

Happy B'day Jim: O. G. Whiz, Pt. 1

O. G. Whiz was John Stanley's last original work for comics. This may, in fact, be the very last comics work he did for publication. Very late in his life, Stanley sketch-scripted a couple of "Little Lulu" pages for the fan publication The HoLLywood Eclectern. They were finished by fan artist Larry Blake.

Stanley didn't do the finished art, but his hand is strongly evident in the character designs, layouts and body language of characters. He did draw the cover, with some assistance. It looks like a Gold Key staffer touched up the O.G. Whiz figure to make it smoother and more "commercial." The frogs and the startled secretary are in the loose brush style Stanley used on his 1960s comics:



This may be Stanley's talkiest comics work. His dialogue became heavier and more percussive throughout the 1960s, but never were his comix this verbose. It's witty, lively talk, with a touch of sitcom shrillness. These stories, in fact, have an unusual mix of visual and verbal humor.

Stanley was certainly not out of ideas, this late in the game. The series' premise is simple but clever. Stanley did favor certain physical types. The 140-something Titus Tootle Tikkle looks like the witch/teacher from Melvin Monster, without a wig. Thutnose, O. G. Whiz' rival, bears a strong resemblance to "Baddy" from Melvin Monster and the menacing Buddy from Dunc 'n' Loo.

And, finally, O. G. Whiz is a plumper Melvin Monster with Caucasian skin and specs.

Stanley's last comix work reminds me of Jacques Tati's final narrative film, Trafic, which was also released in 1971. I doubt Stanley saw that movie, but the corporate setting, inventive humor, and gadgetry have some vague thematic link to Tati's under-appreciated film.

Here are the first two O. G. Whiz stories: "Orvie's Rapid Rises," which functions as an origin story, and "The Bubblegum Bogeyman," which sets up the dysfunctional relationship of jealous executive Thutnose and de facto authority-figure Whiz. Their personal dynamic is similar to McOnion's and Sluggo's in the Stanley Nancy comix.

The printing on this comic book, typical of 1970s Gold Key product, is wretched. By this time, plastic plates were used at the press. These held ink poorly, and delivered a fuzzy, grungy quality to both linework and color.

I've gone through four copies of this comic, in a vain attempt to find one that's decently printed. They probably don't exist. It's sad that Stanley's final published work was given such shabby treatment. But, of course, no one, not even John Stanley, could have known this was it.

O. G. Whiz continued for a year without Stanley. It was then revived for a little over a year in 1978. Apparently, something happened during or after the publication of this first issue that caused Stanley to leave comics for good. Whatever the story is (and I hope it comes to light someday), Stanley left comix with a decided, brassy BANG--not a whimper.

ORVIE'S RAPID RISES










THE BUBBLEGUM BOGEYMAN








To be continued in our next post...

Dog Daze: the last of Jigg and Mooch

A combination of too little sleep, too much snow, and too hectic a schedule has rechristened my cold. I'm feelin' sick as a dog, so it's only fair that I post two Stanley stories about our canine companions, Jigger (now "Jigg") and Mooch.

These are the final stories in the feature's short run, from Animal Comics 29 and 30. I've now posted the full run of this remarkable strip.

Stanley signs these stories as "Biff." Here is his cartooning at its most austere. The clean, mechanical pen lines suggest Herge, or the ink and paint department of a Hollywood animation shop.

Jigg's language is spare. Punctuation is only used when absolutely necessary. Part of the language of comix is the avoidance of periods to end sentences and statements. Periods were avoided because printers mistook them for flaws and removed them, or else they failed to survive to the photostat/engraving stage. (The same thing often happened to Charlie Brown's eyes in the early days of Peanuts.)

! replaced . in the comix vocabulary! Thus, most early comix dialogue seems quite loud! Even the simplest statement is fired off with an aggressive exclamation mark!

Stanley chooses to end his sentences like this This makes for a curious reading experience Thank goodness for the enclosure of the balloon Otherwise, one would never be quite sure where one statement ended, and the next began

In the 1950s, Stanley got heavily into his ellipse period. This...could punctuate a sentence...in a number of ways...creating interesting...rhythms...

But enough of this! I hate to get bogged down in semantics Let's just...move on...shall we...

I feel rather written out on Jigger/Jigg and Mooch. I admire how Stanley kept his storytelling clean and direct. It's so nice to see an author write TO children, not DOWN to children. I think he best achieved this effect with this feature.

"Jigg" has an child's sense of urgency that is at the heart of the Stanley worldview: survive, move forward, stop and take stock of the world around you. A child can relate to this more than an adult, I think. The child in me still relates to it, very strongly...

From Animal Comics 29... a classic "mind-fudge" scenario:








The final story, from Animal Comics 30: