Melvin Monster, Volume 2 [Hardcover]

John Stanley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 30, 2010 | Series: Melvin Monster (Book 2)

More Maniacal Monster Meltdowns

Continuing Drawn & Quarterly’s John Stanley archival series, Melvin Monster, Volume 2 is about the oddball monster boy who just wants to be good, go to school, and do as he is told. A satirical and funny sendup of the 1960s monster craze,Melvin Monster is a classic kid’s comic of the Silver Age. Stanley’s reputation as a great storyteller and visual comedian is richly deserved, and few Golden—or Silver—Age comics stand the test of time the way these comics do. As with all volumes in the John Stanley Library (Nancy, Thirteen Going on Eighteen), covers and interiors are designed by the award-winning cartoonist Seth,who is the designer of the bestselling Peanuts archival collection.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

John Stanley was a journeyman comics scripter in the 1950s and 1960s.He is most famous for his scripts for most of the Little Lulu comics produced by Dell and is considered by many comics historians to be the most consistently funny and idiosyncratic writer to ever work in comics.He left comics bitterly sometime in the late 1960s, never to return.He died in 1993.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 112 pages
• Publisher: Drawn and Quarterly (March 30, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1770460039
• ISBN-13: 978-1770460034
• Product Dimensions: 11.2 x 7.9 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #605,615 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #92 in Books > Comics & Graphic Novels > Publishers > Drawn and Quarterly

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Same virtues and vices as the material in Volume 1, for the most part, April 22, 2010

By 

Christopher Barat (Owings Mills, MD, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Melvin Monster, Volume 2 (Hardcover)

My review of D&Q's first MELVIN MONSTER collection could just as easily stand as my review of this SECOND collection (issues #4-#6, 1966-67). Stanley continues to mine the "good little monster" vein with fair success but never really comes to grips with how, exactly, the world of "Monsterville" interacts with the world of "human beans." He can't even get straight how one travels from one sphere to the other. Case in point: In "Broom Ride," Melvin falls off his "ghoul-friend" Little Horror's broom and plummets into what appears to be a "human bean" city park. He then gets back home by another application of broom power. This suggests that you need some sort of magic to "cross the border." Later, however, in "Pickapicnic," Melvin and Little Horror (wouldn't it have been great if Stanley had gone for a direct Harvey Comics parody and named her "Little Loatha"?) go on the monster version of a picnic (to wit: getting food by stealing it from others) and run smack into a family of noshing humans. No broom power or magical transport is on display anywhere in this story. This is a good illustration of my friend Brent Swanson's observation in his review of Volume 1 that Melvin's milieu never really "coalesces." A few more long stories might have fleshed things out a bit, but Stanley sticks like glue (perhaps, the very same glue that caused a number of pages in my copy of Volume 2 to be stuck together) to the six- to eight-page format that served him well during the LITTLE LULU days. D&Q includes no accompanying text, which is a pity.