TUBBY: A hefty hero

Rolling into stores any day now, Tubby is the latest volume in Drawn & Quarterly's ongoing John Stanley Library series. A spin-off of Little Lulu, Stanley's best-known work, the Tubby comic book series lasted from 1952 to 1962, with John Stanley at the helm until 1959 when he left to work on the Nancy comic book series (coincidentally collected in our Nancy series.)
The Drawn & Quarterly Tubby tome, which collects issues 9–12 of the Dell series, highlights Stanley's extraordinary ability to create a well-rounded (hoh!) hero out of a supporting foil. Tubby is bossy, controlling, and conniving, a greedy gourmand embodiment of the unchecked id. However, as the following excerpt demonstrates, the titular tyke's truculent temperament is always held in balance by a built-in sense of duty and responsibility.
Featuring some of Stanley's funniest writing brought to life by Lloyd White's vibrant lines, Tubby offers incontrovertible evidence of Stanley's genius at capturing the conflicting desires that form the essence of the human spirit. Also: how totally adorable is little Chubby?!
(Click on the image below to read the whole story.)