"Little Archie" and "Little Lulu" Mix It Up

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You have to take Art Spiegelman and Françoise Mouly seriously when they write in their introductory essay to The Toon Treasury of Classic Children’s Comics that “some of the best twentieth-century literature for kids appeared in lowly comic books that deserve an honored place next to the more traditional classics on every well-read child’s book shelf.” This is the duo who, in the 1980s, insisted that powerful works of art and world-class literature could be composed of panels and word balloons—and backed up their hyperbole by producing RAW, the groundbreaking avant-garde comic art anthology that continued and expanded upon the 1960s underground comics revolution. RAW also serialized Spiegelman’s Maus, the graphic novel that established the medium’s credibility in a way no other work had before. When Spiegelman and Mouly speak, critics listen.

The new Toon Treasury tome, comprised of selected kids’ comics from the 1930s to '60s, sprawls over 350 pages containing 67 stories by 30 creators. Some of the characters will be familiar to all readers (Donald Duck, Lil’ Archie, Dennis the Menace), some to most readers (Little Lulu, Captain Marvel, Pogo), and others to just a few aficionados (Berp the Twerp, J. Rufus Lion). Last week I had the frustrating experience of trying to read a comic on a Kindle (not recommended!), so it was a joy to thumb through these exceptionally well-reproduced pages and revel in the irreplaceable pleasure of print. Though the comics have clearly been digitally cleaned up, they still retain a slightly weathered look—I could almost smell the newsprint.

For me, this book is an easy sell. I was a RAW intern back in 1990 and have a passion for the history of cartoons (and would have bought this book alone for Milt Gross’ eight-page “Patsy Pancake” story). But the book wasn’t put together for “historians, cartoonists, adult-comic fans, or scholars of the form,” Spiegelman and Mouly write. They “made this book for kids, selecting books that could be read to very young ages, then savored by kids mastering the secrets of reading—and then revisited often by them as they make the long march to adulthood.”

Does the book pass the kid test? My two daughters agreed to jump in and exercise their own critical judgment. The day I brought the book home, Eva, who is 9, was home sick from school. She read the whole thing in one sitting and over the next few days drifted in and out as I read it out loud to Charlotte, who is 7. Then Eva went back with Post-it notes and assigned each story between one and five stars.

Her five-star pieces included not just old favorites like “Little Lulu,” “Little Archie,” and “Uncle Scrooge,” but also new ones like Walt Kelly’s “Prince Robin and the Dwarves,” and André LeBlanc’s “Intellectual Amos” (featuring a bald-headed boy playing straight man to a silly ostrich). Both girls adored Sheldon Mayer’s “Sugar and Spike,” featuring two toddlers who speak fluently to each other in a language unintelligible to adults.

Spiegelman and Mouly say that comics featuring teenagers appeal most “to kids whose hormonal changes [are] just about to kick in.” But Charlotte studies old Archie digests like they are sacred texts, and her Barbies are in a perpetual state of pre-prom jitters. So while the girls enjoyed the novelty of seeing Archie, Veronica, and Betty as young children in Bob Bolling’s wonderful “Little Archie” story, the often-unaccredited Harry Lucey, my favorite teenage Archie artist, would have been a welcome addition to the collection. But that’s a minor quibble. The girls and I spent hours with this book and agreed together that it gets four-and-a-half stars overall.