Number 422


Two by Stanley


We've got a double dose of John Stanley today. I woke up Monday morning and said, "I've got to see some Walt Kelly and some Stanley this week," so here we are. Check back to Monday's posting for the Kelly.

Sluggo is a character just made for Stanley. He's the kid who makes it by himself, an orphan in a big world. He's also hated by his neighbor, Mr. McOnion. The story is from Tip Top Comics #220, 1959.

I got the Heckle and Jeckle story from Gold Key's Mighty Mouse #172, dated 1980, but it's reprinted from a 1960 comic. I think Stanley got the essence of the characters very well. The panel of the guy in bed with a bugle caught me by surprise. How did Stanley come up with this stuff? Not only in this strip, but over and over again, story by story, comic book by comic book, year after year. What an amazing writer John Stanley was.

Number 375


Nancy and Sluggo's weird world


Frank Young at the Stanley Stories Blog has some great analysis of individual stories by John Stanley. He hasn't gotten around yet to the Oona Goosepimple stories from Nancy comics of the late '50s. I believe they were inspired by Charles Addams' cartoons in the New Yorker magazine, but after using that inspiration, Stanley went strictly on his own. This is the last example of an Oona story I have, from Nancy #178, September-October 1960. It follows the formula set by earlier stories.

I'm also including a couple more stories from the same issue that I found funny and strange in their own ways. "The Sponsor's Message" at only four pages is a sharp satire on television advertising to children.

"A Trip To the Moon," starring Nancy's pal, Sluggo, is strange when viewed in a certain light. I'm sure Stanley meant it to be his take on the then-infant space program, and Sluggo, in his own way, outsmarting the egghead rocket scientists. I think you can also take it that this parentless child, who lives on his own and by his own wits, is being manipulated by a group of men. It's kind of creepy, really, if you think about it. It's probably better just to think about it from Stanley's comic 1960 perspective, which is the way I read it when I bought it new.