PLASTIC MAN 1949 - Is it better to be real and impotent, or fake and powerful?

Story presented in this post:
Neanderthal Man (Story, pencils and inks by Jack Cole)
Plastic Man #19 (September, 1949 - Quality Comics Publications)

After sporadic absences from the Plastic Man stories in 1946 to mid-1949, when he focused on getting his career as a magazine gag cartoonist off the ground, Jack Cole returned to his fertile laboratory of invention and delivered one more year of psychotic comedy.

By this time Jack Cole's art had reached the highest levels of sophistication within the form of graphic storytelling. Every panel was brilliant in the way it served up sight gags and yet propelled the story forward.

Neanderthal Man is one of the stand-out stories from that glorious last run, appearing in Plastic Man #19 (Sept. 1949 - Quality Comics). Cole liked this story so much that he even drew a special cover for it, a rare occurence as he more often would create generic covers unconnected with the interior stories.

Plastic Man #19 cover by Jack Cole

Walt Whitman once wrote: "You are so much sunshine to the square inch." In this 1949 Jack Cole classic, you would be hard put to find more FUN to the square inch.

In this story, Cole explores the themes of virility and impotence, wholeness and fragmentation that would be the subject of so many of his 1950's Playboy cartoons.

He plays with this theme by contrasting the hulking, simple-minded, virile prehistoric "mountain of muscle" caveman with the astoundingly puny but brainy MR. FRAIL. Read on; more comments to follow.













Plastic Man has no wife or children. We never see his mother or father, and don't know if he has sisters or brothers. He is completely and totally alone in the world, similar to the alien from Krypton, SUPERMAN. After the first year or so of his crime-fighting life, Plastic Man abandons his alter-ego, Eel O'Brian.

And yet, he is the most whole character in the stories. The only sane person in world of good and evil lunatics.

So many of Cole's stories are about characters trying to improve their lives by changing forms. As we are exploring in this blog, shapeshifting was perhaps the central theme of Jack Cole's graphic stories.

The character of the artic explorer/hustler CARL AKENS has, of course, changed his form into the neanderthal man. But he can't maintain it. Eventually, he finds it necessary to don a delightfully ridiculous suit (which reminds me of John Stanley's BADDY from his MELVIN MONSTER stories) and allow the fake caveman to suspiciously become a little smarter. As he does this, the flacid MR.FRAIL fights for his life and discovers the caveman is not as strong as he should be, and Carl Aken's desperate scheme unwinds.

This breathlessly told story of the appearance of power (Akens) vs. actual power (Plastic Man) is told in an astounding series of funny and inventive images. Plastic Man is stretched and shaped into so many things in this story that it's dizzying.

In the world of Jack Cole's comics, it is only Plastic Man that is allowed to shape-change without negative consequence. In this story, Cole distorts Plas more than ever, perhaps to counterpoint all the phony shape-changers.

Even good old WOOZY WINKS attempts to change his form through body-building. As he often did, Cole could have brought one of his sexy women on stage to swoon over the muscular caveman, but he doesn't because his focus is on sorting out what true strength is in the world at large, not just as it plays out in sexual politics.

In the end, it is fat, lazy Woozy who defeats the bad guy. After discovering the caveman sham, Woozy is back to his rotund, indulgent self and the message seems to be a less potent but authentic self is powerful enough when faced against fake virility... or something like that. My head hurts! Till next time, fellow Cole -miners!

MIDNIGHT 4 (1941) - A Jack Cole Classic

Story presented in this post:
"Midnight - Gabby, The Talking Monkey" (Story and art by Jack Cole)
Smash Comics #21 (April 1944 - Quality Comics Publications)

In his fourth Midnight story, Jack Cole found a new mastery of the recently born graphic storytelling form, and created one of the best stories of his career.

The month that Smash Comics #21 came out, Silver Streak Comics #9 (Lev Gleason) also sold off the stands, with 18 pages by Cole. The 10th issue of Silver Streak would contain his last work on that title and for Lev Gleason. These were stories Cole had created months earlier. By April, 1941, he had moved on to greener pastures, having been recruited to Quality Comics a few months earlier.

Smash Comics #21 (April 1941) Not by Cole.

Cole must have been excited and uplifted by this step up. His first stories for Quality were a series of beautiful, tightly plotted and superbly realized 5-page MIDNIGHT adventures. Not only had Cole discovered a newfound confidence in his writing and art, but he also had begin to combine screwball comedy, crime stories, and superhero comics into a new, highly entertaining mixture.

In an earlier post, we looked at the first three MIDNIGHT episodes. With an analysis to follow, here is the landmark fourth adventure of Midnight, an early masterpiece by Jack Cole:





The closing sentence, with it's weird mix of sincerity and satire, in some ways, sums up what the magic of Jack Cole's pre-war stories were all about: "And with a talking monkey, Midnight brings a new weapon into action against the forces of evil."

There are several ways this story represents a stand-out in Cole's work. First, the artwork is particularly graceful and well-realized. Panels such as this Will Eisner-esque sewer scene are rich with detail, vibrating with dynamic poses, and move the story forward beautifully.


In fact, the entire page is a tour de force of design, elegantly moving the reader through the story in a dense, rich series of up and down curves that work left to right, in three tiers (click to study a larger version):

The red lines and arrows show how Cole used his character's poses, and props such as the waterfront dock pilings, to create design elements that resulted in an extremely clear communication of movement on the page. The speedboat, with it's triangular shape, serves as almost an arrow in itself, directing us first down into the bottom tier, and then onto the next page.



This page also contains a DICK TRACY moment, in which Cole stops the manic chase for a beat to give us an information diagram that introduces Midnight's new weapon. The suction cup gun is a crazy invention that would never work in real life, but as we have seen Cole -- an inventor himself -- was quite fond of putting fantastic devices into his stories.



Here's another beautiful panel, demonstrating how Cole's art often used patterns as a design device. I love how there are two sets of shadows in this composition, visually suggesting a connection between the two characters that would come to pass (Midnight will adopt the woman's pet/child when she dies). This is literal foreshadowing, and innovative graphic storytelling!



Another hallmark of Cole's graphic storytelling is the masterful use of sound effects as graphic devices. Look at how the sound effects in this panel point to the action like arrows. Also notice Cole has thrown a pair of white eyes in the blackness, Gabby's eyes. The panel is a great illustration of Cole's newfound combination of action-adventure and comedy, which he would employ to great effect in his PLASTIC MAN stories.



Towards the end of the story, Cole creates a lovely silhouette with a full moon backfrop, something he was quite fond of during this period. Also, very appropriate, as Midnight's early adventures take place in the, um, dead of night. Midnight's pose is also characteristic of Cole's early hero work. The sideview-running pose was something Cole created and used often, until he began to think in more three-dimensional terms in his PLASTIC MAN stories. For example, here is a comparison with Cole's splash page from Silver Streak #4 (May 1940 - Lev Gleason):




Jack Cole's stories also often included a woman. The women in his early hero stories were usually typical damsels in distress. The women in his later stories were sexy villains. The woman in this story, who shares the last name of another Cole creation, Angles O'Day, is rather unique, being a talented scientist who invents a way to give Gabby the monkey the power of human speech. Cole even draws her differently, with her hair chastely pulled back in a bun, and often with her face and body partially obscured. At the risk of being too psychoanalytical, one could say the inventor-female in this story is a shadow of Jack Cole himself.




This story would not rank as a Jack Cole classic unless somebody dies in a bizarre way that vengefully corrects an injustice. In this case, the man who kills the woman scientist is impaled on a church steeple. One can safely assume that Cole didn't stop to think too hard about the socio-religious implications he had made with this climactic ending. Part of the appeal of Cole's comics (and much of golden age comics) is the streaming flow of imagery and symbolism from the collective unconscious.

Incidentally, this church clocktower is the very one which Midnight swung into action across in the stunning opening page if this story. Cole has brought the reader full-circle, and provided a deeply satisfying poetic ending as the clock tolls midnight.

I hope you enjoyed this analysis of a true Jack Cole classic in which justice is served at (and by) midnight!

PRIVATE DOGTAG (1944) - More shapechanging and wacky inventions

Story in this post:
"Private Dogtag's Invading Japan" (story and art by Jack Cole)
Military Comics #32 (September, 1944 - Quality)

In 1944, the United States was all about fighting the war against Germany and Japan. Please keep this in mind when you read the extremely insane story in this post.

American comic book sales boomed during world war two as cratefuls were shipped to American G.I.'s overseas. Comic book publishers like Quality altered their content to appeal less to the kiddies and more to the soldiers. PVT. DOGTAG was one of a fleet of comics about inept soldiers. From SAD SACK to BEETLE BAILEY, the concept was enormously popular.

From Military Comics #18 (Bart Tumey)

PVT. DOGTAG was primarily drawn by Quality staffer BART TUMEY, who had a pleasant cartoony style. Tumey also penciled and inked several Plastic Man stories.

Jack Cole was one of the few top comic book artists in America who wasn't called up to serve in the military effort. As such, Cole had all the work he could take on. And take it he did, perhaps building up a cash reserve in case he was drafted. This was the year PLASTIC MAN got his own book, with Cole penning virtually every page of the first three issues. I don't have a year-by-year page count (yet),but it's quite possible that Jack Cole produced far more pages of comic book stories in 1944 than he did in any other year of his career.

As part of his extra work, Cole created three PVT. DOGTAG stories in the pages of Military Comics 29, 30, and 32, also returning to his 1941 series DEATH PATROL in the same run (see postings on Death Patrol here).

Military Comics #32 cover (not by Cole)

Thus far, I've only been able to locate one of Cole's PVT DOGTAG stories, in a muddy microfiche scan. I've cleaned the pages up as much as possible. If anyone out there can provide scans of Cole's work in Military Comics 29, 30, or 32, please send and we'll post them here.

Jack Cole's PVT. DOGTAG story from Military Comics #32 includes some of his favorite themes.

An inventor himself, Cole loved to build his stories around fantastic machines. Early in his career, he created a character called DICKIE DEAN, BOY INVENTOR and made several stories about him (Silver Streak Comics). In this story, Cole creates a "knowledge exchange machine," and mayhem ensues, of course.

Another theme that occurs throughout Cole's work is that of shapechanging, or altering one's face and identity (see posts on this theme here). In this story, a Japanese general effortlessly (and somewhat needlessly) transforms himself into a "high born Chinese lady."

It may be the poor quality of the scans, but not much in this story makes sense. It doesn't seem to matter. A dark undercurrent of outrage and retribution against the Japanese runs like a river through the twisting and winding plot.

The writing and artwork is loose and, not surpisingly -- given how many pages Cole was churning out at this time -- feels rushed. This work feels more like a 1939 Jack Cole story than the polished gems he was creating by 1944. The whole story feels like a crazy dream, filled with resentment and a wish that the world was different.