Four Color #74
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeFour Color #74 (June 1945, Dell) marks the comic-book debut of Little Lulu Moppet, a character who had spent a decade as a wordless single-panel gag in The Saturday Evening Post before writer-artist John Stanley transplanted her into sequential storytelling. Stanley did not merely adapt the strip — he gave Lulu a speaking voice, an expanded neighborhood cast, and a running boy-versus-girl comedic engine that became a template for child-centered humor comics. The issue also introduced Tubby Tompkins and Alvin Jones in their first comic-book appearances, two characters substantial enough to eventually anchor their own spin-off titles. Dell used the Four Color anthology specifically as a tryout venue for potential ongoing series, and this issue's success seeded nine further Four Color one-shots before Marge's Little Lulu launched as a monthly in January 1948 — one of the most enduring children's comics of the twentieth century.
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Marjorie Henderson Buell ('Marge') created Little Lulu in February 1935 as a replacement for Carl Anderson's Henry in The Saturday Evening Post, retaining full creator rights — unusual practice for the era. After the Post panel ended with the December 30, 1944 issue, Western Publishing (producing comics for Dell) moved quickly to capitalize on Lulu's existing popularity, assigning the adaptation to staff freelancer John Stanley, who had already built a reputation at Western on Andy Panda, Tom and Jerry, and Woody Woodpecker features. Stanley had a single documented meeting with Buell before producing the first issue, and Buell supervised the earliest installments before stepping back; she was apparently satisfied enough with Stanley's interpretation that she ultimately sold the character rights to Western Publishing upon her retirement in 1971. Stanley wrote, drew, and lettered the first three Four Color Lulu issues entirely solo — #74, #97, and #110 — before gradually handing interior art duties to assistants Charles Hedinger and Irving Tripp as the workload expanded.
Trivia · 8 facts
- First comic-book appearance of Little Lulu (Lulu Moppet), published June 1945 by Dell as part of the Four Color anthology series (Series II), carrying the indicia title 'Marge's Little Lulu, No. 74.'
- First comic-book appearances of Tubby Tompkins (renamed from Buell's original 'Joe'), Alvin Jones, Martha Moppet (Lulu's mother), and Mr. Gripe — all introduced in this single issue.
- John Stanley wrote, drew, and lettered the entire issue himself, making it one of the earliest complete solo efforts by a creator who would go on to be compared to Carl Barks as a defining voice in mid-century comics humor.
- Lulu had appeared exclusively as a wordless, single-panel Saturday Evening Post gag cartoon from February 23, 1935 until December 30, 1944; Four Color #74 was the first time she appeared in multi-panel sequential comics narrative with dialogue.
- Marjorie Henderson Buell retained copyright over the character (the copyright page credits '1945 by Marjorie H. Buell') and supervised Stanley's early issues — an unusually hands-on arrangement for a Dell licensed property.
- The issue served as a Dell Four Color 'try-out' one-shot; its commercial success led to nine further Four Color appearances (#97, 110, 115, 120, 131, 139, 146, 158, 165) before the dedicated monthly series Marge's Little Lulu launched in January 1948.
- Stories in this issue include pantomime sequences (wordless gag strips echoing Buell's Post style) alongside fully dialogued adventure-comedy stories, including an early untitled Tubby story and 'At the Beach' — demonstrating Stanley's immediate expansion of the character's comedic range.
- The stories from this issue have been reprinted multiple times: in Another Rainbow's Little Lulu Library hardcovers (1985–1992), in Dark Horse Comics softcovers beginning with Little Lulu Vol. 1: My Dinner with Lulu (2004), and most recently in Drawn & Quarterly's Marge's Little Lulu: Working Girl (October 2019), which reprinted the first five Four Color appearances (#74, 97, 110, 115, 120) scanned directly from original comics rather than from the controversial light-box tracings used in earlier reprint editions.
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Reprints
Reprinted in Marge's Little Lulu Tubby Annual #1 (1953), Marge's Little Lulu Tubby Annual #2 (1954), A Smithsonian Book of Comic-Book Comics #[nn] (1981), Little Lulu #[1] (2005), Little Lulu #8 (2006), Giant Size Little Lulu #1 (2010), Action! Mystery! Thrills! Comic Book Covers of the Golden Age: 1933-45 #[nn] (2011), Little Lulu [Free Comic Book Day] #[nn] (2019), Marge's Little Lulu #[1] (2019)
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