Why ‘Little Lulu’ Works

Rick Marshall

Rick Marshall was Online Managing Editor for ComicMix before joining MTV's SplashPage. Previously, he was Online Content Manager for Wizard Entertainment. He has written for several daily newspapers, alternative weekly newspapers, trade magazines and online media, and was named "Writer of the Year" by the New York Press Association in 2005.

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4 Responses

  1. Mike Gold says:

    I've got to admit, I really like the phrase "Tubby-centric."And if you paint him purple, it could be Tele-Tubby-centric.

  2. Michael H. Price says:

    First encounter with LITTLE LULU as a comic-book property — apart from the SatEvePost gags and the Kleenex advertisements — came via a huge stack of all kinds of funnybooks given to me by an older kid who worked at my uncle's movie theaters.Once the folks had censored out all the CRYPTs and CRIMEs and such, only LULU and POPEYE and some DCs and Dell Disneys remained. Not a bad deal, all told — especially after I had sneaked out to the alley after bedtime and reclaimed the crime-and-horror books from the trashcan. (These got stashed in the Secret Clubhouse.) LULU always rang true with me, Secret Clubhouse and all, and the stories tend to hold up over the long term. Strong sense of absurdity, there.

  3. Vinnie Bartilucci says:

    Back in the early days of Valiant, Shooter actually had the rights to reprint any of Western Publishing's titles, including Little Lulu. He jokingly told the head of Western that if he did, he wanted to title the book "TUBBY (with Lulu)". He was jokingly slapped down.

  4. Mike Gold says:

    Whereas I regard John Stanley as one of the medium's true greats, Rick's absolutely right about the formula. I recently read one of his Nancy stories (yep, Ernie Bushmiller's Nancy and Sluggo) and it easily could have been a Little Lulu. I think I stopped reading the Dark Horse reprints after about six volumes… at least temporarily. For the record, it was Irving Tripp who usually finished off Stanley's scripted layouts.