The Little King by John Stanley

Sing little bird, sing!!

Hey there!
Here goes a really dig story likely written by John Stanley.
I was reading some Four Colors last week when this story, published in issue 494 of the series, (1953) blows into my mind.

Frank Young brought to us the other The Little King story from this issue some time ago. It was posted then on the Stanley Stories blog section "Is This Stanley's Work?"
As usual, Frank outlines the reasons that lead him to think this issue was written by Stanley (in this case in collaboration with Thomas Andrae, a student of John Stanley's work). And, as always, the result can't be other than a great essay. And, despite he considers this work isn't top-tier Stanley, to me it has been, indeed, kinda like a space-flight.

The story opens with a great first panel: The Little King (TLK) sighs while he's watching a songbird. That's a brilliant and very significant touch, since this fine first panel captures the essence of the story with just a few strokes of the brush. Sighing involves the appeatance of an intense desire represented as a window between two worlds. Beyond this Sigh a bird's singing the joy of life outdoors, a Wild World (to make use of a more Emersonian term). What we understand at once is that The Kingdom is a prison for the king.

I bring up Emerson's Transcendetalism not by chance, since it always has seemed to me that there's certain transcendentalist instinct sticking its nose into a great part of Stanley's works -so often hidden by the other Stanley "deviations", such as absurdity and a gloomy sense of the world. We can see several times in many of his stories how the main character goes deep into the woods in search of something:

"A monologue rampant with self-justification and childlike insecurity about status"

They usually are scenes full of life and monologues (Frank would them "Tubby talks"). These solilochies are often a display of the self and the very moment in which the character shows himself. "In the world of words, the imagination is one of the forces of nature", quotes Wallace Stevens, and this could be a good statement for this sort of settings, uh? I can imagine a sticker with this sentence as a slogan and a smiling Tubby face in the middle!

TLK storms this world through the window tempted by a flying white kite. Right there is a boy waiting for him. He borrows his kite and, straight afterwards, asks the boy his name. It sounds a little beat rough and naive when he does that. Even more after a phrase like "by the way". I could think of few better ways to introduce a character, but here Stanley shoots at point-blank range. The scene gains all its sense when the boy replies to him: "Everybody calls me Kit".
Stanley gets to the point. Kit is a representation of the childhood, and this is what TLK is longing for. The Kingdom, on the contrary, is a place he wants to leave behind -that is, a fully-grown adult universe and their duties.

The changeable nature of TLK runs wild from that moment on, and we are a witness of a series of funny events that lead him to abdicate the throne in favour of Kit.

An invaluable moment in which The Little King is being influenced by his passions

It's quite surprising how Stanley (or whoever) carries out the story from now on. A king turned into a stray dog is the kind of thing a child would like to read. Here, the fiction opens with a lot of possibilities. "Yes, it's great to be free, as free as the birds-- With no schedules, no appointments, no royal responsibilities".

But, alas, the adventure doesn't go beyond the two first panels. It won't be so easy to free oneself from the old world. Metaphor makes true and TLK ends up in real jail. After that, if I was a kid reader I'd have the feeling adults and their rules are a real nuisance.

What fate has in store for TLK is the real world from now on. A land inhabited by burglars and rogues, where everything has a price and there's no place to take shelter. "If I were king, there would be a few changes made around here... That's for sure!," says TLK when he's just gone out from the prison. And here starts the second part of the story, indeed.

The Littke King untied

Stanley (or whoever) introduces a gang of criminals that follows all the topics of the narrative for kids. They want to conquer The Kingdom, and this threat forces TLK to a third mutation: this time he has to be a hero. Later on, he will be rewarded on the occasion of his heroic service and it all will end happily.

But there's two peculiarities I'd like to highlight before shutting up forever more. The first one is the Chief's megalomaniac character and his tendency to give a speech. Stanley (or whoever) isn't satisfied creating a common criminal and provides him with a clearly-defined personality as well as the right lackeys, Rollo and Roland, giving him a groveling reply. It seems as if he had tried to create a guideline for the future and these characters were destined to appear in the next The Little King stories.

The other one is when Kit, the new little king, proclaims a new law by which the official currency of the Kingdom will be strawberry jelly beans "as of now". In fact, it's a device by means of what Imagination get to rise up against the reality dictatorship. And "as of now", this childlike vision emerges as a "real" solution for the adult troubles. It's a lovely touch and very significant.

A cool law

The art deserves a separate mention. I love the choice of the shot of every panel and the comical gestures as well as the facial expressions of the characters. Quite a feat taking into account the little bit rough Otto Soglow's style. Who is the artist? I haven't a clue, unfortunately. Perhaps Stanley himself? Who knows--

That's all! I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. In my opinion this is the kind of works which makes comics and cartooning a fine art! A little masterpice for kids (like you and me).

**
As a final thing:
This story reminded me a little of Seth's graphic novel "Wimbledon Green". I know, in a way, it's tribute to John Stanley, but I wonder if Seth read this The Little King story and, like Thomas Andrae and Frank Young, he also thought it was a Stanley's work--