Don't Mess With the One-eyed Wobblies: from Raggedy Ann and Andy #32, 1949

Are you ready for this? Because if you're not, I feel hesitant to put this story on the table. Get a cup of coffee, make yourself comfortable, take a deep breath, and read this:











Wow...


This is the ideal John Stanley mix of dark and light. The contrast of the title characters' cheery, mischevious, naive nature, and the embodiment of unseen but deeply felt terror that pursues them is stunning and haunting.

This is one of Stanley's most authentically dream-like stories. In this piece, he masterfully tapped into subconscious veils of primal fear, and the matter-of-factness of dream logic. All the elements are there: the deep, dark woods; a menace that is well-known but never clearly seen; random acts of mischief that engage the menace into pursuit; and, finally, a deus ex machina device that the characters regard as commonplace. It's here, and we know how it works, so let's use it, and see where it takes us.

Again with the large objects rising and descending! We just encountered this motif in "The Mighty Mites," and, of course, in "The Guest in the Ghost Hotel." The push-button elevator island is one of the most imaginative moments in John Stanley's career.

It's a perfect touch that the Raggedies don't make a big deal out of this dreamscape set-piece. It's a means to an end, and it rescues them from the One-Eyed Wobblies (who wouldn't really have a beef with them, had Andy not thrown sand in their eyes...)

That's another beautiful moment in this story--the childish provocation of the unseen threat. It's like a kid throwing rocks at a hornet's nest, or poking holes in an ant-bed. It's a very natural kid thing to do--an action that connects vividly with the reader, who has done (or will do) such things throughout their lives.

Stanley's language is a delight in this story, as well. After the incident with Andy getting lost in a tree, Ann begins to freak out. The nonchalant Andy tries to reassure her. Ann replies with an answer that logically sums up the crisis they face:

That is beautiful writing--it cuts to the heart of the matter, and expresses fear in colloquial kid-speak.

The Raggedies are perfect protagonists for John Stanley. They're non-entities which can be dropped into any situation. I like how unfazed they are by being plunged into the depths of the body of water (lake? ocean?) via the elevator-island. I suppose that, being sentient dolls, they need no oxygen intake. They can be plopped into any locale (the moon, Hades, Nebraska). All they have to do is act and react: instant story!

Stanley's writing lost much of this spontaneous vibe from the late '50s onward. His imagination didn't cease to function; I think his priorities as a storyteller shifted. He seeks firmer ground at all times, even when, as in the Yo-Yos stories of Nancy and Sluggo, his protagonists are pitched head-first into a nightmare world. Stanley strives to clearly isolate dream-logic events and conscious experiences in his later work.

I'm very fond of the dream-state he achieved in stories such as this and "The Guest in the Ghost Hotel." I am never quite sure if these stories' events are "real" or "dream." John Stanley was really onto something with this vein of stories. I wish he'd done more of these, but I'm grateful for those that exist.

Thanks to art spiegelman for tipping me off to this story's existence. I'm glad I finally found it, and can share it here.

The Tragicomic Debut of Peterkin Pottle: Raggedy Ann & Andy #32, 1949

Fireworks make me uneasy, and hot dogs make me queasy, so here's my way of sellybratin' the 4th with you! (Truth told, I'm going to a 4th soiree that promises to have both hotdogs and fireworks. I'll do anything for a clever opening sentence!)

Here is the long-sought debut of Stanley's first original character for the comic books: Peterkin Pottle.

He rated a significant fanfare for Raggedy Ann and Andy. They re-did the logo, and gave Peterkin a memorable front-cover send-off. Speaking of which...



Ad per the new house policy, no yakkin' from me 'til after the story. I apologize for the spectacularly poor printing job Western Publ. and Litho. did for this story. Could those reds be anymore off-register? It detracts from one's appreciation of Stanley's cartooning grace. Said grace, and complementary verbal wit, still shine through strongly...












Wow... a sweet, charming ending! This story may surprise those Stanleyphiles who groove to the harsher, darker, mean-streets side of our hero's writing. Indeed, this maiden voyage of Pottle differs from subsequent episodes in several ways.

From the start, poor Peterkin's fate as alienated schlub is set in stone. When reading this story, I had the sudden realization that, via Peterkin, Stanley got a handle on the character of Tubby Tompkins, from his million-selling Little Lulu comix.

Before PP, Tubby is a more generic wise-guy character, all bluster and little or no neurosis. In "Pottle"'s wake, Tubby gains some of Peterkin's psychological profile. By writing and drawing this feature, Stanley got the elements that made Tubby the most fascinating member of Lulu's dramatis personae.

Peterkin anticipates some of Tubby's classic self-absorption in the fantasy sequence. Peterkin's intro as the hero is handled with sublime understatement. As with Tubby, Peterkin is, in his own mind, the cool/calm/collected master of his universe... able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, etc., etc., etc.

This discrepancy between Peterkin's inner world, and the harsh reality of real life, becomes a core of Tubby's persona in the 1950s. This is a classic Stanley anti-hero trait. Woody Woodpecker displays this same flight from reality in several of his Stanley-authored stories.

Altho' Peterkin is immediately subject to neighborhood cruelties, he seems less malformed--and more misunderstood/sympathetic--than he'd be in later episodes. Indeed, the improbably touching wrap-up is unique to this series.

I prefer Stanley with dark and light interwoven, as in this story, and as in the best Lulu stories. "Pottle" gets amazingly grim and harsh in its later episodes. There's a Walter Mitty-ish aspect to Pottle, in this story, that is lessened as the series rolls on.

Stanley's darkness is so intense, and so effective, that it can be hard for me to take. I think it reminds me a little too much of my own troubled childhood (heck, let's make that adulthood, too, while we're at it).

My unease at the dark side of John Stanley is a testament to his effectiveness in that regard. He could get under the reader's skin, and dig into the nerve center, while ostensibly serving up a souffle of "kiddie komix" a la Dell.

Note that Stanley illustrates this story with pen and ink. He switched to brush for later Pottles. Stanley got great with the brush in his 1960s comix. He was much stronger with the nib in the '40s and '50s.

This is beautiful cartooning--dig those animals, for example! Tigers, elephants, rhinos, gorillas, lions--all rendered with impressive grace and style! Stanley's lumpen human figures contrast strinkingly with the bold, expressive images of animals. That tiger on p.3, panel 4 is spectacular cartooning!

Western Publ. and Litho. were idiots not to realize--and exploit--Stanley's talents as a "name" cartoonist, as they did with Walt Kelly. Small wonder Stanley became embittered in later years. He (and Barks) got a raw deal in the long run.

At the time, as they did their greatest work, both creators were given a great deal more free room than most of their comix colleagues. Imagine a Barks or Stanley working for DC, or Timely...no, I take that back. I can't imagine it.

Creative freedom vs. public acclaim... a few fortunate comic book creators (Jack Cole, to name one) had both, but the combo proved most elusive and rare.

Come back tomorrow, as I've got yet another treat for you--from this same funny-book! Yow!

Enjoy today's hot dogs, watermelon, numerous beers, fireworks, and traffic jams! Drive safely and responsibly--I want to see you all here tomorrow!

Oswald the Rabbit and The Easter Party; Four-Color #183, 1948

Here's another 32-page Stanley story from 1948--one that is, to my best knowledge, new to the Internet. These are my scans.

Read, enjoy, and then we'll talk...


































<*><><*><><*><><*>

Three persistent second-string Stanley themes merge in this story: the all-powerful, manipulative rich, evil midgets posing as children, and magicians.

All of these themes surface in Little Lulu and Nancy from time to time. It's notable to find all three in one story.

Less plot-driven than most of Stanley's book-length stories, "Easter Party" has an engagingly loose, spontaneous feeling. I don't think Stanley spent much time or effort in writing it.

The anonymous artist was not among Western Publishing's finer craftsmen. His work appears in New Funnies during that title's Stanley period. The boldness and agitation of his figures may stem more from Stanley's layouts. His actual drawing leaves much to be desired. The lack of polish hurts the story overall.

Stanley's protagonists, as here, are usually under-priveliged: in need of money or security. The rich, always a symbolic figure in the Stanley universe (and usually sinister in nature), serve as a temporary open door to a better world.

The Van Doughs are, as Stanley's rich go, benevolent--if self-absorbed and presumptuous. At story's start, Mrs. Van Dough stalks Oswald and his domestic partner, Toby, through a department store. She demands Oswald's presence at her son's party. To her view, he has nothing better to do, being a mere peasant.

Unlike the rich families of Lulu and Nancy, the Van Doughs are seemingly kind people. Stanley's dislike of the rich never lets the reader feel comfortable in such refined surroundings. There is always an element of threat.

In this story, the threat comes in the form of a masquerading midget who impersonates the Van Doughs' wussy son, Algernon. Mrs. Van Dough notices that her formerly benign son is now a grade-A asshole, but assumes it's just a phase he's going through. She has garden parties and croquet matches to think about. She is also (ahem) nearsighted. This is the perfect ailment for a wealthy Stanley character. It's also the lynchpin of the story's wafer-thin plot.

No Mr. Van Dough is seen. Makes one wonder, as Stanley typically has his wealthy married and settled. Perhaps he was a casualty of the Great Funny-Animal world war--erased before his time.

The centerpiece of "The Garden Party" is a lengthy battle-of-wits between Os and Toby and the faux-Algernon. The mean-spirited, larcenous fake Algy does his best to publicly humiliate and confound our heroes as they blunder their way through an improvised magic act.

This section of the story reads like a storyboard for an animated cartoon. It shows Stanley's cleverness and resourcefulness. Such a sequence would be tedious in most funny-animal comix. Like Carl Barks, Stanley had an understanding of formulae, and how to confound them.

The breezy grace of this long sequence is unique in Stanley's work. It's refreshing to see him let go of the narrative, and just let amusing things happen, one after another.

The magic act is a perfect set-up for these seemingly spontaneous events. Poor, bland Oswald is given quite an honor; the magician is a special figure in the Stanley universe. Whether a stage conjurer, or an actual wizard-type (e.g., Uncle Eek in Nancy), the magician enjoys a special status.

It's a kind gesture to Oswald, who had been abandoned as a screen character after the 1930s. Stolen from Walt Disney in the late 1920s, Oswald was continued, after a brief transitional period, by Walter Lantz's animation studio.

The Oswald cartoons of the pre-code talkie era are imaginative, freaky things. A young Fred "Tex" Avery was on the Lantz staff at the time, and certain cartoons from 1930-1934 show his developing sense of humor.

Oswald followed the blanding trend of Mickey Mouse as the '30s staggered on. His newfound wimpiness proved his undoing. A cuter, cuddlier, less dangerous character runs out of things to do. Oswald was quietly dumped at the end of Lantz's 1938 cartoon season.

He was revived for one mediocre musical cartoon in 1943. Though he appeared on Lantz-made TV shows in the 1960s, his career as a screen star was kaput. He was used in merchandising and licensing. Early TV reruns of his Lanta cartoons may have revived his marketability in the late 1950s. His last funnybook appearance was in 1962.

You can see some of Oswald's animated antics on DVD: Disney put out a two-disc set of all the surviving silent cartoons. Selections from the talkie Lantz era are on the two sets of Woody Woodpecker and Friends, also indispensible for the cartoons directed by James Culhane.

Oswald was also among the first licensed characters for the funny-books, via his February, 1935 appearance in the first issue of New Fun Comics. an early effort of the company soon known as DC,

There you go: all the Oswald Rabbit factoids you didn't think you needed to know. Well, now you do. And, now--adieu!