that Little Lulu 'n' Tubby summer camp thing III

As promised, here's part three of our '57 Summer Camp Funfest.

I've decided against including all the activity pages. They eat up too much space. Altho' said pages may have nostalgic oomph for those who read this giant as a kid, they're low on actual do-I-really-need-to-see-this value.

Here are the next four stories in this epic shebang.

These stories have a less hard edge than contemporary pieces in the monthly Little Lulu magazine. This is not a complaint; it's an appreciation.

100 pages of high-octane sitcom might wear out its welcome, even on the staunchest reader. Thus, it makes sense to turn the intensity down a notch or three. Focus is more on characterization than boffo gags.

Stanley makes the assumption that the reader is hep to the relationships, social status, and personalities of his cast of characters. The subtleties of these stories are much better appreciated by those who know the lay of Lulu-Land.

"Package From Home" is part of a group of stories in which objects and individuals from the real world intrude upon the sexually segregated Eden of Camp Shakatot. You'll recognize the terrifying instrument that turns up in Tubby's from-home box.

Someone in my crowded urban neighborhood just got a puppy. The poor canine suffers from seperation anxiety. Night and day, he/she makes noises much like the ones I imagine emanating from Tubby's violin.

This story uses a Stanley device I haven't discussed here before. Throughout his career, and particularly later on, Stanley is fond of having his characters utter either "We're doomed... doomed... DOOMED!" or "you are doomed... doomed... DOOMED!"

Usually meant for comical effect--an over-reaction to a difficult but repairable crisis-- doomed...doomed... DOOMED! gains a more sinister edge from the late '50s on.

It deserves to be added to my list of Stanleyisms. Someday soon I'll do a revised post of Stanleyisms here, and include excerpts from various Stanley stories as illustrations.









"How To Handle Girls" plays upon the arrogance of Tubby and his clubhouse pals. More outside intrusion, in the form of sociopathic Wilbur Van Snobbe, befouls the lads' assumptions that they have the upper hand on Lulu, Annie, Gloria, et al.

Status shifts and social frustration are the themes of this story. Laffs galore via table-turning humiliation. The Wilburs of the world are always there to upstage the rest of us.






"Little Itch's Singing Lesson" provides the required fractured fairy-tale. Lulu's purgatorial duty is to tell these improvised stories to bratty Alvin, in a (usually wasted) attempt to calm him down. Alvin would be on some major anti-depressants today.

Stanley indulges in more verbal-visual comedy here. It's a shaggy-dog story.









"Surprise Visit" is the gem of this batch. Lulu's father is brutalized while trying to engage with his daughter in the increasingly dangerous--and socially humiliating--world of Camp Shakatot. While laughing at Mr. Moppet's misfortunes, the adult reader can easily sympathize with the surprisingly realistic mishaps that occur. The business with the oars is particularly spot-on.






"Stormy Night" provides an apt coda for this third helping.




In our next post, we'll wrap up this 100-page fracas. See you then!

Lulu and Tubby's 1957 summer camp epic, pt.2

Here's installment two of the Dell Giant Lulu/Tubby Summer Camp book of 1957.

It's a pity these summer camp comix have never been reprinted. It would be impossible to chop these up into isolated stories. Stanley, in these giant books, remarkably weaves a simple, casual narrative. Each story's events quietly pushes the story along its arc, like a local bus that makes many brief stops.

Each vignette depends on what's come before it--and what will happen beyond it--to properly work.

In a sense, these summer camp giants are prehistoric graphic novels. More-so than any other giant comix of the era, Stanley's make a conscientious effort to stay on-course, and to tell a story from start to end.

This subtlety has doomed them to extinction, it would seem. I don't know if Dark Horse, or Drawn + Quarterly, plan to include the many giants Stanley wrote between 1955 and 1962 in their respective reprint projects. If not, modern-day readers will miss out on some of Stanley's best writing.

"Camp Shakatot," our opening story, offers a first page of intense verbal humor. It rivals "Two Foots Are Feet" [see earlier post for that story] in its carom of repetition.

Therein, we meet the obese, oblivious Ada Bump, a sort of female Tubby. Our hero indulges in some non-PC fat jokes, but leavens them with absurdity and more wordplay. The story's climax is like Samuel Beckett--only funny.













Tubby and bratty Alvin spice up "High Dive Expert," which is an otherwise slight story, distinguished by some delightful status switcheroos. Stanley indulges in more naturalistic kid chatter, as well.








Here's a page of Tubby-pleasing tips on how to prepare snacks in the wild--even in your backyard or airshaft!



And for our final feature today, "Paddle Your Own Canoe" shows the other side of the status fence in the girls' camp. A so-so story, it has some late instances of "windmill action" in the canoeing scenes. This Stanley device was largely abandoned after the late '40s.






More camp comix tomorrow, depending on how my lower back holds out...

Summer Camp, 1957-style, with Lulu and Tubby , pt. 1

Summer rapidly approaches. Here in the Pacific Northwest, while sunshine has mostly replaced rain and overcast grey, the temperatures remain in the highly reasonable 50s, 60s and (at worse) 70s.

I'm no fan of warm weather, so that's as hot as it ever need get for me. Alas, it will get hotter, and brighter, and increasingly less pleasant in the months to come.

I have no real cause for complaint--I live in one of the most temperate climate zones on this continent. If it's any consolation, I spent most of the first 30 years of my life in the dank jungles of the Southeast--Florida and Georgia--and I know all too well what summertime in a southern clime is like.

That said, John Stanley's summer camp comix transcend my adult perceptions of the season. How enjoyable summer seems in this handful of Lulu and Nancy summer camp giants! Tho' often fraught with peril, Stanley's camp comix capture, in crappily-printed words and pictures, the meaning summer has to kids.

To celebrate what little positive spin I can put on the upcoming season of squint and sweat, I'll be posting the entirety of Stanley's much-beloved, ne'er-reprinted 1957 Lulu and Tubby summer camp special.

I'm gonna try to do five posts, each with 20 pp., including all those easy-to-solve puzzle pages (which usually bear the ancient, frustrated scrawl of the c.1957 child who valiantly attempted their solution).

I'll write more actual commentary as the posts roll on. One thing that immediately strikes me is how formulaic these summer camp comics of Stanley's are. They tend to follow the same overall plot arc:

1) kids excited about immiment summer camp departure; attempt to take all personal belonging with them; action denied by sensible parents

2) one child, usu. aggressive male, denied camp attendance; said child sinks into isolation, depression

3) neglected child, via clever ruse or godlike financial endowment, gets to go to camp; is reunited with chums, regains status

That's about as far as we get in the first two stories presented here.

I'm fascinated by the work of cartoonists who are creative within strict formulae. This is something John Stanley and George Herriman share as comix creators. Come to think of it, Barks, Kelly, Mayer, Eisner, and Kurtzman also thrived while hewing to formula plots and hard-set guidelines.

Well, as said, there's more to come...

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