Little Lulu
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Little Lulu is a comic strip character created by Marjorie Henderson Buell. She first appeared in the Saturday Evening Post on February 23, 1935 in a single panel comic strip, appearing in her debut as a flower girl at a wedding, strewing the aisle with banana peels. The strip ran until 1948. Original Little Lulu cartoons were also used frequently in Pepsi magazine ads thoroughout the 1940s. Lulu was also the centerpiece of an extensive advertising campaign for Kleenex tissues during the 1940s and 1950s.
Supporting characters in the comics include her friends Tubby Tompkins (who later got his own short-lived comic-book series), Annie, Iggy, Gloria, Wilber Van Snobbe, Alvin, Ol' Witch Hazel, and Li'l Itch. Lulu's last name is Moppet.
In the mid-1940s, Lulu appeared in a series of theatrical animated shorts produced by Famous Studios for Paramount from 1943-48. In all, 26 Little Lulu cartoons were released in a period of less than five years. According to Don Markstein's Toonpedia, a similar character, Little Audrey, was then created after Paramount failed to renew the Lulu licence (and therefore avoided the payment of royalty fees). The voice of both Little Lulu and Little Audrey was supplied by actress Mae Questel who was best known as the cartoon voice of Betty Boop and Olive Oyl.
The Paramount Little Lulu cartoons were sold to U.M.&M. T.V. Corp. in 1956, along with many other Paramount shorts. National Telefilm Associates purchased U.M.&M. not long afterward, and syndicated them to television. These cartoons were released by NTA on home video in the 1980's.
A daily comic strip entitled Little Lulu was syndicated from June 5, 1950 through May 1969. Artists included Roger Armstrong, Randy Henderson and Woody Kimbrell.
Also during this time, Little Lulu appeared in 10 issues of Dell Comics' Four Color comic book series (#74, 97, 110, 115, 120, 131, 139, 146, 158, 165) before graduating to her own title: Marge's Little Lulu. With the Dell Comics/Western Publishing split that created Gold Key Comics, Little Lulu went to Gold Key with issue #165. Upon retirement Marge sold Little Lulu to Western Publishing (the comic was renamed Little Lulu with #207 [September 1972]). Publication of the comics ceased in 1984 (with issue #268, the last few under the "Whitman Comics" name) when Western discontinued publishing comics.
Writer/artist John Stanley's work on the Little Lulu comic book is highly regarded. He did the initial Lulu comics, later working with artist Irving Tripp, writing and laying out the stories. He continued working on the comic until c. 1961. Stanley is responsible for the many additional characters in the stories. His work has been collected in a series of hardcovers by Gladstone Publishing in the 1980s.
After Stanley among the writers who produced Lulu stories for Gold Key was Arnold Drake.
In 1995, Lulu again appeared in The Little Lulu Show, an animated television series on HBO, voiced by Tracey Ullman. The series was produced by Canada's Cinar Films. Earlier, in 1976, Japan's Nippon Animation studio had produced a 26-episode Little Lulu anime, titled Little Lulu to Chicchai Nakama ("Little Lulu and Her Little Friends"); an English dub of this series was made by ZIV International, and the series was also released in Spanish, Italian, and Arabic.
In 2004, Dark Horse Comics obtained the rights to reprint the Little Lulu comics. Ten volumes have been published through mid-2006.
- My Dinner with Lulu ISBN 1-59307-318-6 (reprints Four Color Comics #74, 97, 110, 115, 120)
- Sunday Afternoon ISBN 1-59307-345-3 (reprints Four Color Comics #131, 139, 146, 158)
- In The Doghouse ISBN 1-59307-345-3 (reprints Four Color Comics #165 and Little Lulu #1-5)
- Lulu Goes Shopping ISBN 1-59307-270-8 (reprints Little Lulu #6-12)
- Lulu Takes a Trip ISBN 1-59307-317-8 (reprints Little Lulu #13-17)
- Letters to Santa ISBN 1-59307-386-0 (reprints Little Lulu #18-22)
- Lulu's Umbrella Service ISBN 1-59307-399-2 (reprints Little Lulu #23-27)
- Late for School ISBN 1-59307-453-0 (reprints Little Lulu #28-32)
- Lucky Lulu ISBN 1-59307-471-9 (reprints Little Lulu #33-37)
- All Dressed Up ISBN 1-59307-534-0 (reprints Little Lulu #38-42)
- April Fools ISBN 1-59307-557-X (reprints Little Lulu #43-48)
- Leave it to Lulu ISBN 1-59307-620-7 (reprints Little Lulu #49-53)
- Too Much Fun ISBN 1-59307-621-5 (in December, reprints Little Lulu #54-58)
- Queen Lulu ISBN 1-59307-683-5 (in February, reprints Little Lulu #59-63?)
- Little Lulu Color Special ISBN 1-59307-613-4
[edit] References
- Strickler, Dave. Syndicated Comic Strips and Artists, 1924-1995: The Complete Index. Cambria, CA: Comics Access, 1995. ISBN 0-9700077-0-1.
