Wednesday, July 23, 2014

THIRTEEN GOING ON EIGHTEEN No. 22, April 1967 by John Stanley


Here are a few stories from THIRTEEN "GOING ON EIGHTEEN," a Dell comic book by John Stanley. It's copyright 1966 by Dell Publishing.

These are all about teenagers trying to act a little older than they are.

These are just the first couple of stories from the comic book. It's mostly about best friends Val and Judy, who get into teen scrapes and do silly things. As Don Markstein observes:

Val had an older sister, Evie (useful for borrowing or stealing make-up from); a next-door neighbor, Billy (whom she was in love with, except when she hated him); and a best friend, Judy (Val's dark-haired co-star, who started out pudgy but lost weight early on). Val and Judy weren't in the full flower of teenhood, like Binky, Penny, The Jackson Twins or most other comics teens (including, of course, Archie himself), but were at that awkward stage where they were just starting to get the hang of it.

The art looks a little rushed and sketchy looking. I liked the sketchy look. The splash panels tend to have a large void in them. I mean, look at that big blank space in "Val."

This was the final year of the book, which ran from 1961 to 1967.












Related:
The D and Q John Stanley hardcover book series

1 comment:

Trade Loeffler said...

I LOVE this Thirteen Going on Eighteen series! I got hooked with the D&Q collection that came out a number of years ago collecting the first seven or eight comics. I wish they'd do another one.

Some of the stories were really funny and some not so much. Overall though, this was a series that really started to subtly grow on me the more I read it, which I guess means that the characters really start to work their magic on me, even the Judy Jr. character who was just downright cruel seemed to work in a certain way.

It was a great comic strip.