In what may be one of the bigger publishing news items of the year, Drawn and Quarterly announced last week they’re going to be collecting an assortment of John Stanley’s non-Little Lulu stories:
We’ll be starting off with a three volume set of Stanley’s Melvin Monster. During the “monster” craze of the Sixties, Dell Comics launched this short-lived but hilarious and weird series about a good little monster boy and his disappointed family. While primarily know as a writer, Stanley actually wrote and drew all nine issues of this series. This series will be designed by longtime Stanley champion Seth.
Next up, a three-volume set of the Stanley “Teen” comics–Thirteen going on Eighteen, Around the Block with Dunc and Loo, and Kookie. These frantic comics about teenagers and beatniks remain compelling 40 years later largely because of the skill that Stanley brought to his pacing, joke-writing, and character development. Thirteen is again almost all Stanley written and drawn and is one of the great “lost” treasures of silver age comics. Dunc and Loo and Kookie feature other artists (notably Bill Williams) finishing Stanley’s layouts but still maintaining that manic quality that was a Stanley trademark. Again, Seth will lend his design talents to this set.
So who is John Stanley and why should you care? He’s probably best known as the author of the acclaimed Little Lulu series of comics, which Dark Horse has been releasing in spiffy paperback format. As for why you should care, this essay by Jeet Heer, in which he compares Stanley to Carl Barks, makes a pretty good case:
But having read both Barks and Stanley, I’ve come to a heretical conclusion: that Stanley was a much greater writer than Barks. Compared to Stanley, Bark’s characters had a very narrow emotional register: Donald is capable of anger, shame, frustration and ambition; his three nephews are occasionally disobedient but mostly models of competence; Uncle Scrooge is a miser redeemed by his passionate attachment to what he’s earned. The more minor characters operate out of an even smaller behavioral range: Gladstone Gander’s laziness, for example.
At first glance, it might seem that the Little Lulu cast is suffers from a similar problem: Lulu is a do gooding busy-body; Tubby a showboat who loves attention; Alvin an annoying pest. Yet as you read more of the stories, you start noticing that there are all sorts of emotional shadings that make these characters more complicated. For example, for all their bickering Tubby and Lulu really are friends and enjoy each others company. They miss each other when separated. Nobody in the Barks universe seems to have this sort of affection: the nephews worry about Donald when he’s in trouble, but don’t really seem to care for him or need him. To use economic language, everyone in Barks is a profit-maximizer, out to better themselves (either by gaining riches like Scrooge or Junior Woodchuck merit badges like the nephews).
May 19th, 2008 at 1:51 pm
Comparing Barks and Stanley for “which is best” is a silly argument. Both are creative geniuses. One worked with cartoon animals, the other with cartoon kids.