Self-Absorbed Scientist Invents Phonographs, Photographs; Fails To See Forest For Trees; Mute Assistant Suffers In Silence (two stories from Clyde Crashcup #5, 1964)

As John Stanley reached the prime period of his finest original series, Thirteen Going on Eighteen, in 1964, he still found time to write and re-invent licensed properties. This comic book was his last such effort until 1969.

Today's stories are typical of John Stanley the world-builder. Given a licensed character, he would extract the best aspects of that entity, discard the rest, and set up a new, better world for them to inhabit.

The John Stanley versions of Little Lulu, Tubby, Woody Woodpecker, Andy Panda, Tom & Jerry, et al, bear only visual resemblance to their official mass-media counterparts. All these characters ended up richer, more compelling and fully realized in Stanley's hands.

Only with his adaptation of George Herriman's Krazy Kat did Stanley fail to raise the bar set by the creator. Admittedly, Herriman is a tough--if not impossible--act to follow. Stanley tried hard with the Kat, and produced a compelling rethink that somewhat successfully translated Herriman's characters, settings and language to the mainstream comic book page.

Clyde Crashcup, a secondary feature on The Alvin Show, was certainly no Krazy Kat. But the character had potential for personality-based humor that was right up Stanley's alley. He championed the Quixotic, self-absorbed oddball. He genuinely enjoyed winding this figure up and letting him loose in the usually urban playground of his comics.

This was a formula of Stanley's work before the end of the 1940s, but it clearly spoke to him. He continually refined and rethought both this archetype and its place in his expansive comics world.

Crashcup's shtick is worthy of Stanley's humorous sensibilities. Completely self-absorbed, Crashcup is Barks' Gyro Gearloose turned inside-out. With great self-importance, he creates things that already exist. His voice-of-reason assistant, Leonardo, is appropriately mute--at least to us. He attempts to keep Crashcup from expending effort in creating the already-there. Lost in his own head, Crashcup ignores his voice of reason, and sees the process to its logical end. Leonardo suffers discomfort and stress, but he sticks by the wayward inventor, knowing these schemes are fated to implode.

This was Stanley's meat and potatoes--a theme which could be mined for endless variations. This harks back to Herriman, whose Krazy Kat sublimely explored this territory earlier in the 20th century. I'd love to know John Stanley's opinion of Herriman's work. To judge by his more delicate treatment of the comic-book Kat, Herriman made a big impression on Stanley. He followed Herriman's lead throughout his comics career.

Typically, Stanley would futz with a new licensed entity, uncertainly at first, get his bearings quickly, and refine both it and his process within a year. Crashcup followed this pattern. Thus, in this, the last issue of the title, Stanley has developed the simple premise of the character far beyond anything its creators cared to do, in their official version. Stanley saw the potential for comedy in places which now seem obvious, but may have been unknown, unlikely or ignored by others.

In these two stories, Stanley has relaxed into the characters, and into their place in the "normal" world that surrounds them. The Crashcup character is not a true Tubby Type (or ASS). He is an adult, and in control of his destiny. His self-esteem is ridiculously high, as is his enthusiasm.  These work against him--a serial fate that Leonardo vainly tries to stave off. By including the rest of the world into the Crashcup formula, Stanley improved the simple but clever set-up of the original character, and made him an inventor of comedic chaos.

The artist for this story must have laughed and groaned in unison as he surveyed the script. Epic scenes of pandemonium pepper this story, which starts in allegro and quickly moves to capriccio.

Crashcup's ability to literalize abstract ideas sets him apart from Stanley's other eccentrics. His apparently enchanted pencil is a wand of chaos, and it has profound effects on the inventor, his assistant, and (most importantly) the world around him.

Riddled with wordplay, "Invents Hi-Fi" is among John Stanley's most energetic stories. It shows his own "magic pencil" still in top form.

This issue appropriately ends with a story about Crashcup's excitable invention of the film camera. Leonardo is rightfully worried for his life...

Bah-da-DUMP! Thank you, ladiesangentlemen, we'll be here through Thursday. The rimshot-worthy punchline, Stanley's farewell to this brief romance, is entirely apt. The risible Crashcup is just the type to invent the already-invented camera, but forget that it might need film.

Assistant Leonardo's barely contained terror, on pp. 1-2, is a too-late breakthrough. One gets the sense that, had this series continued, Stanley might have done more with this mute sidekick.

The last tier of page three offers a rare piece of social satire. It pales in comparison to this scene from Harvey Kurtzman and Will Elder's Goodman Beaver, which offers the same basic message:

Kurtzman and Elder's cynical vision of urban America appeared two years earlier, in the August 1962 issue of Help! magazine. If Stanley kept up with the cutting edge of his peers' work, he may have seen this story, and taken inspiration from this jaw-dropping Breughel-esque spread.

This points out an important difference between Stanley and Kurtzman--two of the American comic book's finest writer-artists. Kurtzman was a social satirist, a teller of hard truths (until he was gelded by Hugh Hefner), and he unflinchingly pointed out, over and over, that the emperor was naked as a jaybird.

Stanley was a light comedian, not a social satirist, and his audience was mainstream American youth. By this time, Kurtzman consciously wrote for an older crowd. Most of the "chicken fat" in this spread would have made Stanley's editors nervous and/or outraged.

It's interesting to see this same general message delivered in the pastel-hued venue of the newsstand comic book. As it is the kind of moment Stanley assiduously avoided, throughout most of his career, it brings this sitcom-story to a temporary grinding halt.

The Formula Machine soon kicks in, and the remainder of the story takes place in one of Stanley's favorite spots for urban warfare--the public park. In Stanley's work, the park, a seemingly civil place, is a free zone for his characters to lose their cool, rebel against authority, fall into life-changing danger, and come to terms with their shortcomings.

Crashcup does all but the final, most important, step. To recognize the absolute folly of his existence would shatter him into a billion brittle shards. Though this story closes the book on Crashcup, one hopes that he eventually invents Fort Knox, and retires into a comfortable life of non-invention.

It's a pity that Stanley's tenure on this book ended here. It's evident that he had just scratched the surface of the refined version of this character and his world. This unfortunate event happened over and over in John Stanley's career.

In this case, Stanley was able to channel his creative energy into the brilliant, socially dysfunctional world of Thirteen Going on Eighteen. His triumphs in that series, in 1964 and '65, are among the mainstream comic book's rare moments of perfection. I hope our friends at Drawn + Quarterly will restore the remainder of that series to print soon.

Camping Expedition Incurs Casual Cannibalism, Skirmish With Bruin; Sandwiches Coveted By All: "Andy Panda," from New Funnies 86, 1944

Here's yet another early John Stanley effort, written, drawn and lettered by him in 1944.

Stanley's work in New Funnies and Our Gang Comics, in 1943 and '44, helped him assimilate the vibes of his talented peers at Western Publications. It also gave him a crash course in establishing a voice as a comedic writer.

Little Lulu, from 1945 to 1959, showed an immediate, ongoing sophistication of his distinct comics/storytelling process. In these 14 years, he achieved sublime highs in narrative stakes, compelling characterizations, and the dangerous dance of light and dark that is the heart of his work.
After a few uncertain-ish experiments in the early 1960s, Stanley emerged as a full auteur cartoonist, creating three distinct original series--Dunc 'n Loo (a collaboration with the brilliant Bill Williams), Thirteen Going on Eighteen and Melvin Monster.

That's the Cliff Notes version of Stanley's career. There are many more details, and aspects of Stanley's work, in the overall arc of his time as a comics creator. Each period builds on the one(s) before it, and masterfully incorporates narrative themes and approaches from past work, while honing it in the present.

Stanley's earliest work is well worth studying for its larval versions of the themes that define his mature output. To his credit, Stanley never wrote down to his presumed audience. Nor did his esteemed peers Walt Kelly, Carl Barks, Dan Noonan and editor-writer Oskar Lebeck.

In the years of 1943-49, their efforts for Western, published by Dell, were textbook examples of how to create successful mainstream comics that impressed and complemented their readers. It was a constant learning process for all parties involved. The quality of their collective output strengthens from year to year. Thus, a Carl Barks story from 1948 is likely far tighter and more compelling than one from 1943. The ritual application of the tools and themes of comic-book storytelling gave these talented creators a constant arc of improvement.

Digging backwards, as we 21st-century readers can easily do, it becomes apparent that the earlier work, while sometimes sloppier and less apt, does contain the same kernels of personality and inspiration that informs the later, more mature work. Missed opportunities and 11th-hour crises aside, there is always something to appreciate in John Stanley's early work.

Contemporary readers (save the addled few who saved back issues of their favorite comics) could not trace this growth back to its roots. Nor, in all probability, did they care to. Comics were part of the Great American Horn O' Plenty, alongside radio shows, motion pictures, newspapers, magazines, novels and plays--fodder for daily entertainment; filler for wayward hours. No one intended for any of this to have permanence. It was created to sell, be consumed, and left in its wake by the next, newest iterations.

The average 1943 film director would have laughed out loud at the concept of a "director's commentary." Similarly, the average syndicated cartoonist likely didn't think beyond their next deadline, nor imagine that anyone would consider their work something of lasting value.

This lack of permanence, I think, relaxed the best of these mass-market creators and allowed them to confidently, constantly produce work that both appealed, in the dollars-and-cents sense, and contained a hint of who they were as human beings.

That spark of self is what we respond to, when we encounter these works in 2011. It can be a self-aware, somewhat arrogant self (Al Capp, Orson Welles, Billy Wilder), an intentionally experimental self (Will Eisner, Edgar G. Ulmer), or a self so unaware of itself that it exposes the darkest corners of its creators' persona (Chester Gould, Alfred Hitchcock, Harold Gray, Jack Cole).

The lack of self is what makes MGM musicals, B-Westerns, et al, so damned uninteresting to our eyes.** Then, as now, the majority of mass-market material was crap. No amount of nostalgia can disguise this. Some of it is bearable crap; most of it is depressing, if not downright suicide-inducing!

That a movie, book or comics piece from 70 years ago can still speak to us at all, with any currency and vitality, is remarkable. Although we, the American Public, continue to wolf down new mass entertainments, we have trained ourselves to recognize the threads from the past that still reach us, or have the power to reach us, if we stop, look and listen.

This is all a big build-up to a rather average early John Stanley work. Thank you for indulging me while I think out loud.

The most fascinating aspect of this fair-to-middlin' "Andy Panda" story is never directly addressed by characters or creator. It's something we're really not supposed to think about. More about this after our feature attraction.

This was the first John Stanley story to utilize the four-tier page--soon to define his style as a comics storyteller. New Funnies was the first of the Dell titles to slenderize, due to wartime paper shortages. Page counts, through 1945, would ricochet from 60 to 52 to 36 pages, with no consistency. The four-tier page was an effective compromise: it gave Western's staff a chance to create rich stories in less space.

It was the best thing that ever happened to Stanley--and to Carl Barks. Both men found their rhythms as storytellers with that extra per-page tier. After the war ended, and America wallowed in its surplus of luxury, Stanley and Barks stuck with that four-tier format and achieved greatness as comics creators.

Stanley is still finding his vibe with this story. 1944 was an erratic year for him. He did not go from strength to strength. He often follows a near-brilliant story with a gormless one, and misses several compelling story opportunities. He finds his way in and out of high-stakes narrative situations, sometimes without the apparent understanding of what he's doing.

By 1946, high stakes are the keystone of his skill as a storyteller--and this understanding only gets sharper and clearer over the following decade. By 1956, Stanley is utterly in control of narrative stakes, and they seep into his stories organically. They also help to define the quirks and triumphs of his more detailed, richly delineated characters.

Stanley's narrative energy, in this issue, went into the first long-form "Woody Woodpecker" story, a more accomplished, decidely un-PC but absurdly funny piece. At this time, Stanley hadn't yet fully committed to making Andy's co-star, Charlie Chicken, a full-blown "Tubby Type" (or ASS). Andy and Charlie swap the roles of screwball in the 1943/4 stories. This adds to the hit-and-miss quality of these early entries.

Once Stanley made Andy the long-suffering Voice Of Reason, and Charlie the Aggressive/Alienated Status-Seeker, he was able to write a brace of near-brilliant stories in 1946 and '47.

Back to the fascinating subtext alluded to earlier... twice in Stanley's 1944 stories, he has chicken characters eating chicken. In a "Hector the Henpecked Rooster" story, we see the browbeating wife tuck into a large plate of scrambled eggs. In this story, Charlie Chicken has prepared sandwiches as a contingency plan for Andy's bad cooking.

The contents of these sandwiches are revealed by a thieving, self-centered squirrel who makes with some prehistoric "Tubby talk" while editing the contents:

I suppose this is one of those things we're not supposed to think about, when reading funny animal comix. Barks' duck characters frequently eat chicken and turkey, but never dine on their own flesh. Twice, in Stanley's 1944 comics, chickens commit casual cannibalism.

I'm sure this was unconscious, and not intended to raise red flags. It's just one of those creepy comic book moments that seemingly invite the reader to lose his-her suspension of disbelief and exclaim a bewildered "hunh?"

Stanley's cartooning dominates this story less than other 1944 "Panda" episodes. His hand is clearly evident in the story's lettering. To borrow a technique of Jack Kirby blogger Harry Mendryk, I have assembled a 1940s John Stanley alphabet, from the "Woody Woodpecker" one-pagers he wrote and drew in 1947/48. The look and feel of the lettering in this, and other 1944/45 stories, is identical to the characters of this assembled alphabet:

Someday soon, I'll assemble a complementary 1960s Stanley alphabet.

This story's brush rendering suggests the finishing hand of another artist. Stanley clearly wrote, penciled and lettered these 10 pages. The body language of Charlie Chicken reveals Stanley's input as an artist here. Stanley's figures are never static, even when standing still. Like his lettering, Stanley's characters have great verve and vitality--even when his early stories fail to completely hit their marks.

________

**--I can always count on Thad K. to call me out on vague statements. This is one of them, and one I feel needs appending. While I am, by and large, immune to the charm of the Arthur Freed musicals, it wasn't those, in particular, I meant to evoke. I was talking more like Maisie Goes To Rio or other unambitious, formulaic filler material.

As for Westerns, I'm a Budd Boetticher and Andre De Toth man. I enjoy John Ford's Westerns, to be sure, but I prefer the rawer, higher stakes of Boetticher's work. By "B Westerns," I refer to the churned-out Gene Autry/Roy Rogers/Hopalong Cassidy pictures of the '40s--all more or less identical; all made with an aversion to personality, aside from the box office-enriching presence of their stars. These movies were the template for TV at its most mundane; same ol' same ol', dependably issued on schedule. There might as well have been a border collie in the director's chair, for all the impersonality of the movies themselves.

Masked Rodent Serial Thief Attacks; Jam, Cookies Heisted; Several Traps Thwarted--"Andy Panda" from New Funnies 85, 1944

Thanks, once again, to that dauntless digital scanner known as "sooth." He/she has provided another early piece of the John Stanley puzzle.

I believe I have all of John Stanley's published comics work now, thanks to Michael Barrier's kind scanning of three remaining issues of New Funnies that were missing.

Back to our scheduled broadcast...

Another early New Funnies issue = another snappy, high-spirited romp from the learning-curve days of John Stanley's comics career. Stanley appears to have cartooned this story, which teems with his tell-tale character designs, poses and, most vividly, his distinctive lettering.

This ultra-cutesy cover kinda gives me the bends, but it, too, appears to be from Stanley's hand.

And now, onto our main feature...

This story seems to be a sequel (or re-think) of the "Panda" piece from two issues earlier. This story has a sounder narrative shell, but exists only as a set-up for pratfalls, mishaps and as a laboratory for Stanley's development of the "Tubby Type" (or "ASS"-- Aggressive/Alienated Status Seeker).

Like the early 10-page "Donald Duck" stories of Carl Barks, this chooses to stay close to home. The first panel has an exterior scene. From then on, it's INTERIOR: BUNGALOW. This seems to help Stanley-the-cartoonist. He keeps his figures and set-ups simple and clear.

Charlie's emergent cowardice, and the a-hole personality of "Th' Boiglar" squirrel, are the most noteworthy aspects of this early effort. His comic book swearing in the last panel gives this story a final belly-laugh.

Note the p. 7 walk-on by what appears to be Jerry from the "Tom and Jerry" series at Our Gang Comics. I'm certain he was not paid for this un-billed guest appearance.

Chaser: a one-page "Woody Woodpecker" gag page also written/drawn by Stanley. I'm curious if there is a similar page in the previous issue. (The Overstreet comics price guide says no, but it's full of wrong information on lesser-known comics, so the jury's still out.) Woody's series inaugurated with this unforgettable story in New Funnies 86.

I don't think I've run the two-pager that also appeared in issue 86. Here 'tis:

Both pieces are nice examples of John Stanley's vivid 1940s cartooning style. Nothing great was intended, or expected of them.

Stanley's love of filling a panel with humorous information--a staple of his finest work on Little Lulu, Tubby and his 1960s series--is evident in the fifth panel. Woody's visits to the cracker barrel are frequent, from the irritation shown by grocer McBooble. The grocer's irked resignation, and Woody's blatant abuse of their relationship, provide a small moment of brilliance.

Note the mouse on p.1 of this filler piece. I guess times were tough for Jerry in early 1944.

Halloween Hoo-Hah: "The Spook Tree," from Little Lulu 34, 1951

Apologies for the lack of postings here lately. In part, it's because I'm busy promoting one graphic novel and, with my friend and collaborator David Lasky, trying to finish the other, much bigger one.
As well, it's getting harder to find new material of interest, without resorting to the obvious. But resort I shall, today.

I'm sure many Stanley Stories followers have a modicum of patience for the more obscure material I present here. What the people want is more Little Lulu. Although her complete works have been reprinted, Lulu's pre-1955 stories have yet to be presented in accurate color versions. Like Harvey Kurtzman's self-drawn stories for EC Comics, Stanley and Irving Tripp's Lulu needs color to be complete.

I was recently gifted with super-hi-rez scans of "The Spook Tree," which is among the best of John Stanley's many stories with supernatural themes. Since it's Halloween and all (and since I've exhausted the available stores of horror-themed Stanley comix), it's time to put this one on display.

To read this story in color--even crappy high-speed press Dell Comics color--is preferable to seeing it in brutal black and white.

"The Spook Tree" is the rare Stanley supernatural piece that doesn't try to blur the boundaries of consciousness. Unlike "The Guest in the Ghost Hotel" or the untitled "Li'l Eight Ball" story from New Funnies #101, "Spook Tree" is, like one of Lulu's on-the-fly fairy tales, framed and contained.

Lulu's dream reflects her own social biases--that Tubby thinks only of himself, and that he patronizes Lulu, whom he thinks "hasn't got any sense." It includes a great deal of personal anguish. Twice, Lulu emits the wail of the lost and disconnected in John Stanley's world:

BAW! is the anti-YOW! These three-letter words convey the polarity of experiences in John Stanley's world. YOW can connote joy, anger, fear, surprise, irony, and other emotions. BAW is the banshee call when all is lost.

Both words were an established part of comics' vocabulary before Stanley used them. In his stories--particularly the Little Lulu pieces of the 1950s--these two simple words are the ultimate signifiers of his characters' well-being (or lack of same).

Stanley's most affecting use of BAW is in that "Li'l Eight-Ball" story from 1945:

As I commented in 2009, this is one of the most forlorn tiers in comic-book history. In the context of the story, it imbues the stereotyped Eight-Ball with raw, real feelings of sorrow. Due to the racial stereotyping, it's an awkward moment, viewed in a 21st-century perspective. But intense vibes of sadness come from these two panels.

The coloring of "The Spook Tree" is as harsh and flat as Lulu's self-fulfilling dream-fate. Earlier issues of LL with night scenes chose a softer, more atmospheric palette, as in this excerpt from issue #26:

The starker affect of the colors in "Spook Tree," whether intentional or not, support the jarring, edgy turns of the narrative.

Page Four uses a linear technique unique to this story. In panels three to six, radial black lines, with a yellow undercoat on plain pulp paper suggest the disorienting harshness of a street lamp on a dark night. The lines, connected to a sun-like disc of yellow, have a condemning quality.

As with most of her made-up fables, this fantasia seems self-punishing. In her waking state, Lulu is a sort-of authority figure. She accepts a great deal of responsibility, and enforces a kind of playground jurisdiction with her friends. She is called on to keep Tubby and Alvin in line (often by their parents) and speaks up when she sees them misbehave.

With the aid of her friend Annie, she often thwarts Tubby's elaborate schemes. In landmark stories such as "Five Little Babies" (LL #38), she subjects Tub and his clubhouse pals to epic public humiliation. Perhaps her role as victim, cast-out and put-upon, in her self-spun stories, are her tacit way of balancing her wheel of kiddie karma.


Little Lulu, though rooted in a recognizable, workaday reality, often excurses into the supernatural. Many of these instances occur in Lulu's improvised stories, or in her dreams (see "The Throw Rug", in issue #64, for another striking variant of this theme). "Haunted houses" recur in both dream and non-dream stories, with the children's imagination (and willingness to be scared) the crux of most instances.

Just beneath the benign surface of Little Lulu is the message that the world is a potentially frightening, harmful place. This notion, because it is real, carries more weight than the ghosts, goblins or spooks of Stanley's harmless fantasy sequences. This sense informs all of Stanley's work, and becomes more pronounced--and almost unbearable--in his Nancy and Melvin Monster stories.

In Little Lulu, this sense of unease, seldom stated outright, governs the stories, and gives them a gravity unlike any other mainstream American comic books. It's so deeply woven into the stories' fabric that it often flies below our radar. To notice this sense of unease is to read Little Lulu in an entirely new way.

The balance of light and dark is pitch-perfect in the Lulu stories of 1950-1955. It's easy to take these stories for granted. They lack flaws, and never rustle the reader's suspension of disbelief. By peeking under their entertaining surface, we see how complex these stories really are--and why they remain as potent in 2011 as they were in 1951--the year "The Spook Tree" was first published.

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SPECIAL THANKS to Thomas H. Buchanan, who tipped me off on how to disable Blogger's lightbox display. Now you can view the pages of each story without that annoying hassle. If you have a blog on this system, and are bugged by the lightbox, here's all you need to do.

In Dashboard mode, choose the 'Settings' tab. Then choose the 'Formatting' sub-tab. On the list of options in Formatting, change the lightbox setting to 'no'.