Now collected in an omnibus paperback, John Stanley’s Melvin Monster is about a good-natured monster boy whose sweet personality belies his monstrous appearance. Melvin just wants to be good, go to school, and do as he is told. Melvin’s sunny optimism makes him an oddball outcast in his Monsterville community, where he disappoints his parents, “Mummy” and “Baddy,” with his irrepressible sunny disposition, and also continually escapes the wrath of their pet alligator Cleopatra who only wants to eat Melvin whole. Gag after gag, the acclaimed mid-century cartoonist Stanley sets Melvin up in fairly quotidian situations that spiral into hilarious ridiculousness, with a ferociously frenetic comedic timing.

Charmingly naïve, Melvin Monster draws its direct inspiration from the 1960s monster craze and the work of cartoonist Charles Addams and its television adaptation The Addams Family as well as The Munsters, however, Melvin Monster is all its own with Stanley’s superior cartooning skills, melding pop colors, expressive lines, and funny jokes on full display.