Thirteen Going on Eighteen
The John Stanley Library
Drawn & Quarterly
Available: 01/19/10
8.05 x 11.11 · 336 pages
Ages -
9781897299883
CDN $42.95
· cl
With dust jacket
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THE LATEST TITLE IN THE JOHN STANLEY LIBRARY DESIGNED BY THE CARTOONIST SETH
In the early to mid-1960s, John Stanley turned his attention to drawing and writing his own series rather than working with the already established licensed characters he is most well-known for, such as Little Lulu. D+Q has embarked on an archival series of Stanley's comics, including Melvin Monster, Around the Block with Duncand Loo, Kookie, and Thirteen Going on Eighteen.
Thirteen Going on Eighteen focuses on the friendship and rivalry of two teenage girls, Val and Judy. Each comic is a darkly hilarious look at the social maneuverings and betrayals of the teen set. Stanley's stripped down approach perfectly captures the fever pitch of the teenage years. He creates a teenage sitcom and turns it into an anguished character study.
John Stanley (1914-1993) was a journeyman comics scripter in the 1950s and 1960s. He is most famous for his scripts for the majority of the Little Lulu comics produced by Dell, and is considered by many comics historians to be the most consistently funny and idiosyncratic writer ever to work in the field. He left comics bitterly sometime in the late 1960s, never to return.
