Little Lulu: Working Girl

These wonderful tales by John Stanley never received the recognition they deserve. Dark Horse missed an opportunity by reprinting Little Lulu in those cheap, black and white, softcover volumes reduced from the original size in which - believe it or not - many stories were traced! They may have made a quick buck but Little Lulu was never meant to be seen that way. Here - at long last - we have these stories reproduced in glorious original color and at original comic book size. A delight to behold! There's an excellent, informative afterword by Frank Young. All the covers are beautifully reproduced. This is the first in a six-issue (not five) best-of series. In my opinion, Stanley's LL is way up there with Barks' ducks as the best, funniest, most original comics ever created. Highly recommended!

The age of peak reprint has helped John Stanley's rep like no other writer-cartoonist. Now he is finally seen as an equal to Carl Barks thanks to the extensive availability of his masterwork, the Little Lulu series. Unfortunately, the first several Lulu comics from the earliest Four Color issues have only been available in poorly traced modern versions for the last three decades (as seen in the Another Rainbow and Dark Horse reprints). Thankfully, Drawn & Quarterly has now remedied that by putting out this wonderful collection that uses Stanley's unaltered art as printed in the original comics. This is NOT a cheapo collection. The comics are vibrantly and cleanly represented as originally intended, which makes this first D&Q book an indispensable addition to your comic book library. The only caveat is that there is no table of contents listing where each story comes from, though I'm told by the editor this will be remedied in the next printing, which I will for sure be buying to show support for this important undertaking. Another downside is that this is not a *complete* collection. While it does include all of the contents from the first three Lulu Four Colors, the rest of the book is a curated selection. It's not a deal-breaker, as the missing stories were reprinted in versions that look just fine in the recent past, but it is worth noting. Either way, D&Q has provided a substantial helping of one of comics' Golden Age's shining lights. If you don't like these, you probably won't like any funny comic books.

Despite having been told by various friends over the years that I really needed to check out Little Lulu, I never did. For shame!However, it's a new day and I've seen the light! Part of the reason for my sudden willingness to dive into Little Lulu is that our 2 little grand-daughters are showing a wonderful sense of whimsy and are now old enough to start appreciating books, and I began thinking of some way to get them interested in reading. They love ghost stories, and I remembered that the writer for Lulu had also written 2 excellent and very frightening Dell comics in the early 1960s (Tales From The Tomb and Ghost Stories). Those 2 comics are probably way too scary for my girls, so I compromised and looked up Little Lulu on Amazon, and saw this book and the upcoming Volume 2 which has Lulu and ghosts on the cover. Interesting!When "Little Lulu, Working Girl" arrived, as another reviewer wrote, I was very impressed with its quality. The weight of the book, the quality of the paper, the old-comic coloring, the sewn binding... very nice. I read most of it in a single sitting. I was so impressed that I immediately ordered Bill Schelly's "John Stanley" book for a little more insight into the creator. It wasn't long before I was a confirmed Little Lulu and John Stanley and Marge fan.My only real complaint, and I know that beggars can't be choosers, is that this LL book series is slated to be a "best of" collection, and not a complete collection. Maybe a complete collection would be too ambitious for D&Q... maybe the market can't support the number of books that would be required, so I'll be content. I'm hoping that sales are so good for these first 2 volumes that D&Q reconsiders and publishes the complete collection. In a perfect world, D&Q's book, which is in the perfect format, would reprint the whole run. It's not as bulky, expensive and in black and white like the Another Rainbow collection (which is a beautiful set, but not one I want to send to my little grand-daughters.) I've never seen the Dark Horse volumes, but apparently they're on the small side, and my eyes aren't so good any more...Here's a few details about the contents-This "Working Girl" volume contains the complete contents of Dell Four Color #s 74, 97 and 110, which are the first 3 Little Lulu comics, and which apparently are the only ones drawn and finished by Stanley himself without assistance. The inclusion of these 3 comics complete and in color is a wonderful thing, because the only other versions available, which are reprinted in the Another Rainbow and DH sets, are Stanley's work traced by someone else. And in black and white, naturally. I've got the Another Rainbow set, and I don't think the traced versions are as bad as some people say, but the color versions here are definitely superior, no getting around it. As Frank M. Young says in his essay at the end of the "Working Girl" book, "The three Stanley-illustrated Lulu comics are presented here intact- the first time they've been correctly published since their original appearances." Thank you!After that we have one story from Dell Four Color #115, 2 from #120, 1 from #139, 1 from #146, 1 from #165, 1 from Little Lulu #1, 1 from #3, 1 from #4, 1 from #5, and 1 from #6. Sadly for me, 2 of the excluded stories are ghost stories, "The Haunted House" from DFC #115 and "The Timid Ghost" from LL#4. Also excluded are a ton of other really funny stories, including the almost surrealistic "Never Again" from DFC #165. Sob!!! As a consolation prize I've ordered myself a "complete" DVD of Little Lulu comics from a seller in England. We'll see if that works.By the way, my grand-daughters love this book! The oldest one, who is 7, read the whole thing in one day.Over and out!

I grew up on Bark’s wonderful duck stories and Stanley’s delightful and acerbic Little Lulu comics. Loved them. I have long since collected all of the great Gladstone and Another Rainbow Carl Bark’s Library in Color albums. But there has been a Little Lulu void. Gladstone did the Little Lulu hardcover albums- the comics were large but- no color! Dark Horse did the completely unsatisfying version that were black and white and way small.Now I find out about DQ’s new series, had an Amazon gift certificate, and took the plunge. I was hopeful after reading the reviews here, but was completely unready for the book I received yesterday.I took it out of the mailer and it was hefty and oozed sturdiness and quality. I carefully open the hardcover, and beheld lovingly reproduced large comic pages with beautiful original 1940’s color! I nearly gasped. Quality, heavy acid free paper bound into a lovely hardcover filled with comics! Oh, and a great foreword but Lulu fan and author Margaret Atwood, and an excellent commentary in the back by Frank M. Young.Finally, Lulu has been done justice! Yes, the color seems just a touch hot, as was mentioned in another review, (not much though), and the comic art is slightly, (again, not much) smaller than original Dells from mid forties (I measured and compared).This is far and away the best reprinting and presentation of Marjorie Buell’s creation that exists. I will be purchasing all of this series- what a bargain they are. Drawn and Quarterly should be applauded for this beautiful, nearly 300 page oversized book that lovingly reintroduces this innocent yet wise yet hilarious children’s comic to the world.

I grew up watching Little Lulu cartoons but wasn’t aware up until recently that they were based on comics. I bought this book for my 7 year old and read them with him. We both love it! Hours of fun, giggles & laughter. Shame I can’t get hold of the cartoons on DVD or Prime. Highly recommended.

It was a decent enough collection, it is great to have some Little Lulu but I doubt if I will buying the other volumes

Lovely big hard back book it’s better than I thought 🙌♥️

Sinceramente,La calidad de impresión, papel y notas es buena. Tuve interés porque, en la infancia mi familia tenía revistas viejas de Lulú que leía en una recámara una y otra vez. Significaba algo para mi poder leerla nuevamente. Descubrí que este volumen tiene números de mucho atrás. El estilo, las convenciones culturales de adultos y niños eran más conservadoras que en aquellos números que leí, pero igual le encontraba un sentido. Cuando quise compartirlo con alguien de esta generación no duró mucho antes de aburrirse y hacerme ver que ni la forma de comunicarse, el estilo del inglés coloquial en aquella época quedó en desuso, ni las propuestas de aventuras de los niños en familias de clase media trabajadora estadounidense de aquella época, les resultaban de interés.Así las cosas. Buena recopilación... pero no para tod@s.

I bought this book as a gift for my mother on her 80th birthday! Lulu & Tubby comics were popular in her childhood, but they are very hard to find now. She was delighted to be re-united with her old friends!The delivery date was exactly as promised, though it was not despatched for a long time and I was afraid that the deadline would be missed.I am giving 4 stars because this book is quite expensive. I might have bought more than one volume if I had not been deterred by the price.