John Stanley’s Little Lulu stories for Dell Comics are some of my favorite comics from a lifetime of reading comics. As I felt when I was very young, I think the best stories are the tales that Lulu spins for her neighbor, Alvin. Alvin pesters Lulu to tell him a story, and to get rid of him Lulu has to come up with yet another in her long series about the Little Girl. This episode predates the very popular stories about Witch Hazel and Little Itch, always outsmarted by the Little Girl, but it still has a supernatural element. The Little Girl comes upon a school for ghosts while looking for her parents, a pair of sparrows. These stories are stories within stories. Alvin does something obnoxious. After all, he is a boy, a
brat! But as Lulu’s Mom tells Lulu’s Pop when Alvin interrupts their sleep, “Lulu will keep him quiet.” The framing devices for Lulu’s fanciful fabrications are funny.
From
Little Lulu #24 (1950). Story by Stanley, art by the Irving Tripp studio.
I love all the twists and turns of that story.
ReplyDeleteHi Pappy! Stanley was so ahead of his time...I wonder what he and Kurtzman could have done together, as they were both so into absurdity!
ReplyDeleteKirk, Brad...thanks for the comments. Stanley to me is right up there with Kurtzman and even Carl Barks as a master of story telling and making jokes in all the right places.
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