Broken Frontier

Little Lulu Color Special.  Story and Art by John Stanley and Irving Tripp.  Based on the character created by Marge Buell.  Dark Horse Books, 2006.

Black Friday is upon us, the Friday after Thanksgiving when many retail businesses in the US go into the black for the first time all year.  The reason for the boom in receipts?  Holiday shopping!  Hanukah and Christmas are fast approaching, and it's time to start thinking about the next generation of comics readers.  What will you give the children in your life, to ignite a life-long love of comics?

Library of Babble has the perfect gift idea!

The Little Lulu Color Special collects over 200 pages of classic "Marge's Little Lulu" comics by John Stanley and Irving Tripp.  Originally published in comic book format in the 1950s, these entertaining comics are very funny and highly addictive.

Little Lulu Moppet is an 8-year old girl who enjoys being a girl.  In her red dress and her corkscrew curls, she lives the ideal little girl's life, playing with her friends, eating ice cream, going to the beach, and searching for buried treasure.  The artwork is simple, yet expressive, making it ideal reading for young people who like to take out paper and colored pencils and practice copying cartoons.  Young readers will learn several critical lessons of cartooning, including how to give expressions to faces, how to draw speech balloons, and how to draw characters in motion.  A word of warning, however: unlike many classic characters drawn in the "cartoony" style in American strips, Lulu has four fingers! 

The centerpiece of these comics is the remarkable storytelling.  The regular pace of eight panels per page provides a subtle and steady rhythm to the streaking momentum of these delightful stories.  They are perfect for young readers who often hurry to know what happens next.  The plot tends to go something like this: Lulu is confronted with a problem of some variety, and frequently the problem is the boys.  She thinks up a way to outwit the boys, and tells the reader she has a plan.  But she doesn't take the reader into her confidence and explain her plan.  Instead, in an even, regular cadence, she reveals the elements of her plan one step at a time.  And then, at the moment the plan comes together, it is revealed in full.  Lulu's plan becomes the punch line to an inspired yarn.

Little Lulu is an exceptionally intelligent little girl who uses her inventive wit to get herself out of scrapes, teach the boys a lesson, or keep a friend out of trouble.  The story of "The Peacemaker" is a wonderful example of Lulu's wit, charm, and ingenuity.

One day Lulu finds the neighborhood boys stockpiling rocks in expectation of a fierce battle with a rival group of boys from another neighborhood.  "Gosh," Lulu says, "somebody's li'ble to get hurt!"  She tries to talk the boys out of fighting, but the boys tell her she doesn't know what she's talking about.  As Lulu walks away, she wonders, "Maybe I can do something to stop them from fighting!"  Lulu sits on a rock, her head in her hands.  "But what?" she asks aloud.  She sits and thinks, and then says, "Hmm…I wonder if that would work?  It won't hurt to try it anyway!"  And in typical Lulu style, she enacts a clever scheme.  She writes letters to each gang, and hand-delivers them, skulking in order to ensure the letters are anonymous.  Showing quite a bit of spunk, she goes to an abandoned house.  "But it sure is spooky!  I--I wish there was somebody with me!"  After getting a scare from a cat, she puts her fears away and runs up and down the stairs collecting various items—the head of a statue, a dressmaker's mannequin, and an old sheet.  What could Lulu be planning?

Soon, the boys arrive, first one gang, and then the next.  They come because Lulu's anonymous letter was an invitation to come to the abandoned house for a big surprise.  The boys could not resist.  When both gangs of boys are in the house, fighting threatens to break out.  But then they hear a spooky sound!  "Woooooooooo!"  They turn in shock, and they—and we—see Lulu's plan enacted.  A spectral figure is coming toward them with its own head in its hand! 

It's the dressmaker's mannequin, wrapped in an old sheet.  Lulu is hiding under the sheet, holding the head and pushing the mannequin.  Terrified, the boys run away, up the stairs and into the attic.  "We're up in the attic!  We can't go any farther!" one cries.  "Quick!  The window!" shouts another.  But the boys are up too high to jump.  As fast as they can, they all take off their pants, and tie them together to make a rope.  They climb down the rope, and run away home.

"Boy, they sure were scared!"  Lulu says.  "Imagine running off an' leaving their pants behind!"  Lulu cuts the rope of pants in half, and delivers one half to each gang's clubhouse.  "I'm sure they'll be friendly from now on!…'Cause when kids get scared together, they're always friendly to each other!  But maybe they won't appreciate what I did for 'em.  So I guess I won't mention anything about it!"

While the preponderance of stories concern Lulu's battles with boys, the Little Lulu Color Special includes a sampling of several recurring favorites from the comics, including stories featuring "The Spider", a private detective invented by Lulu's friend Tubby who solves the case when Lulu is unfairly accused of being naughty.  While this collection of classic comics appeals to all ages, it might be just the item to capture your little ones and make them fall in love with our fine medium.