Nellie the Nurse - Four Color Comics #1305
As I stated above, this book is made up of the lead character's one pane gags, which appeared in "The Saturday Evening Post" for more than 25 years, all drawn by character creating artist, Lawrence Katzman, as did Marge Henderson's "Little Lulu". Those gags were collected in several pocket-style books, and also several of Katzman's Nellie gags appear in this experimental comic book, which includes, for the most part, 6 new, comic book-style short stories, which were neither written, nor drawn by Katzman, but rather by members of Western Publishing's production staff. They were written and storyboarded by Western Publishing's prolific storywriter/Storyboarder, John Stanley, who had previously adapted Marge Henderson's "Little Lulu" from single panel gags and 4-panel horizontal newspaper-style strips to comic book stories. The Western publishing finishing (final pencils and inks, were clearly not done by Stanley, who finished a fair amount of Dell Comics stories he wrote), as the inking looks like an artist of less skill inking over his pencil lines, or copying his poses.
(1) Nellie's Treatment
Nellie being conscientious to get her work done, attempts to make a patient's bed, with him still lying atop it. Pulling the bedclothes out from under him causes him to roll on the floor across the hospital room, and miraculously, he walks for the first time in 4 years. So, he asks her ton "roll" him again. He rolls right out the window, and falls down to the ground from the 16th floor. On her way down to help her "victim", Nellie sees a doctor she wants to date, and she forgets her patient. When the doctor finally finishes the coffees she bought for him, Nellie sees her patient swimming in the nurse's swimming pool, feeling more "cured" than before. She starts thinking about copyrighting her new treatment for wheelchair patients to be able to walk again.
So, it seems that Nellie's style of humour, which was making snide, or clever, or ironic comments about medical situations in her one-panel gags, to farcical chain-of-pratfalls, extended gags, that"pretend" to be short comic book style "stories". I love Stanley's farcical action and its staging.
(2) Cover Up
More proof that Nellie comes off as an "Airhead", forgetting what clothes she was wearing, pulling someone across the city, never looking at her/him once. Not knowing the difference between an old man's hand and weight, vs. that of a young woman, etc.
(3) Big Shot
Now, she wants the autograph of a known gangster felon, a patient in her hospital, for gun wounds! She jumps on him to protect him from being shot by the thuggy-looking friends that came to visit him, thinking they came to "finish him off"! It turns out he was the victim of an accident in his shooting gallery. Not a bad little scenario, worthy of a chuckle.
(4) Kidding Around
Nellie, working for a pediatrician, burrows under the office's wall-to-wall carpeting, to find lost children who are trying to avoid the pain of their doctor's hypodermic syringe. She finds the boy, and follows him burrowing under the wallpaper up to the ceiling. Clever Nellie tells her doctor that the last customer of the day is in the waiting room. The doctor tells her to let the lady in to see him on her way out the door to go home for the day. The gag is that she has brought 7 children (all of whom are patients today). Another irresponsible act. Not giving Nurses a good name.
(5)Taken As Directed (Pantomime Gag Story)
I'm not sure that I understand this story's plot and scenario. It appears that Nellie was in charge of delivering a patient to his surgical operation, and from it. But she seemed confused about where she would take him, and when. She takes him to his operating room, and he is operated on. Then, she takes him to the hospital's ground floor. Another nurse gestures with her hand pointing straight upward. So Nellie takes him up to the hospital's roof, where birds swarm them. She takes him back inside with birds flying in through the door's opening. When they arrive again at the ground floor, bring flying birds with, the doctors point for her ton take him up again. She takes the patient to the most upper floor, but stays inside. It contains the building's furnace.then, she takes him down to the street and buys a hot dog for herself. Back inside on the ground floor, she is told by everyone, even the angry and worried patient, to take him back upward. She takes him back to his surgical room, where the surgeon is on his knees, thanking God that Nellie brought him back, still alive (to be treated in the recovery room? - or to have his operation completed?).
(6) Shell Game
Nellie has a patient whose body is completely covered in bandages from being burnt all over from falling asleep under a sun lamp. This "story" is mostly a long string of Vaudeville jokes, wisecracks, and puns. The other nurses tell a lot of jokes at Nellie's expense. When no one is watching, the burn victim climbs out of his bandage "suit", deciding to play jokes on the hospital staff. It turns out that that patient is a professional escape artist and ventriloquist. So Nellie and her colleague spy on him, find out his plan, and they make SURE he can't leave his bed again, by fastening all his bandaging ton the adjacent bandage rolls using diaper safety pins. The patient wouldn't dare try to escape from the bandage "suit", because any more than gentle movements would spring the pins open, and he wouldn't want to be "stabbed" by hundreds of sharp stick pins.
(7) Hopping Mad
Nellie and her friend are watching a ballet, when the theatre maintenance man ask for a nurse to treat the terribly afraid ballet star, who is afraid to leap high. She gets him to leap out onto the stage, by leaping ahead of him. He starts chasing her around the stage by leaping. She avoids him by a fake move, causing him to crash into a wall. Apparently, she pinched him, to get him to leap (chase her in anger???) I don't understand the supposed humour in this one.
Overall thoughts
I think I now understand why this comic book experiment didn't even try a second issue. I imagine that not only were Western's editors unhappy with the weak sales of this issue, but Katzman, her creator, may not have been happy with how the farcical stories made Nellie a different character from the one he created in the one panel gags. HIS character had a clever and sly wit, but wasn't an "airhead", who could potentially let her patients die through her negligence. I'm sure THAT is not an image that he wanted for his character, who was clever, and led readers to the "lighter side" of a very serious part of life (health care/dealing with, or fending off health problems). In fact, I'm wondering why Katzman didn't sue Western for misrepresenting his character, and putting her (and all nurses) in a bad light. Apparently, he was too busy to give the prospective first issue's stories a look during the editing process. IF that had happened, I doubt that even the one "test" issue would have gotten to the supermarket's, drug/discount stores' and news agents' comic book shelves.
An interesting side note is that I was residing in suburban Chicago when this book was issued, and never saw it on the comic book shelves either in Chicago or Winnipeg in January 1962 (2 months before the printed shelf date). And I've NEVER seen it in second hand book stores or discount stores. And I looked very carefully at all the Dell Comics comedy issues, because I collected all the animation characters' series, as well as comedy newspaper strip characters, as well. So, after flipping through hundreds of thousands of new and used comic books from the late '50s and early '60s, my never seeing it must mean that VERY FEW retail individual stores and chains ordered it from their distributors.
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Topic: Reading Group #337 - 1960s Slapstick - Mr Magoo and Nellie the Nurse (Read 925 times)
