More New Jack Cole Gems From 1955

 THE 12 DAYS of COLE-MISS: 
 DAY 8 

 12 days of NEW Jack Cole finds! 
 Posted every day until Dec. 25th 

Presenting two more dusty gems from Jack Cole's 1955 appearances in H-K Publications. For the dope on H-K, and more of these great cartoons, check out my previous COLE-MISS postings from the last few days here and here.

One thing that I appreciate so much about these cartoons is the delicate line work. Comics master Alex Toth visted Jack Cole at Quality Comics. Just a youngster, Toth was allowed to sit with Cole as he inked a Plastic Man cover. Toth remembered that Cole used a very thin brush, and had a remarkable facility with it. You can see Cole's skill with a brush in these cartoons.

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Appeal: If there's anyone out there who would like to plug this 12 Days of Cole event, please feel free! Currently, there's been a low number of hits per post and only one comment (which I appreciate)  -- so I think these new finds are remaining largely undiscovered. 

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Aside from the high quality of the line work, Cole's cartoons are delightfully offbeat in their choice of subject matter. 

The first of today's offerings deals with the see-saw nature of life as it pertains to parenthood. One moment, a child is being annoying -- the next, you want him to tug on your shirt! One of 100 or so cartoons in the March, 1955 issue of Smiles, Cole's cartoon is the only one to present a child.

From Smiles - March, 1955 (Collection Paul Tumey)

Our second lump o' Cole for your Xmas stocking deals with the fantasy/reality dichotomy of the television experience -- something that was evident to Jack Cole, even in the early days of television.

From Smiles - March, 1955 (Collection Paul Tumey)

Tomorrow - a change of pace as I share a BRAND NEW paper scan of a classic Jack Cole story from a comic book that sells for over $3,000 in near mint condition.

The 12 Days of Cole-Miss Postings to Date:

Days 1 and 2: Jack Cole's Sexy Playboy Style Humorama Cartoon Covers (1950-60s)

Day3: A Rare Jack Cole Playboy Style Cutie Pie Cover (1956)

 

Day 4: Teasing Blonde Triplets and Mad Japanese Spies (Private Dogtag 1944)

Day 5: Stretching to Playboy: Two Rare Jack Cole Judge Cartoons (1936, 1946)

Day 6: Jack Cole Sells Silk to the Burlap Market (1955 gag cartoon)

Day 7: Two More "Lost" Jack Cole Cartoons (1955)

Season's Greetings,
Paul Tumey

Two More "Lost " 1955 Jack Cole Cartoons

 THE 12 DAYS of COLE-MISS: 
 DAY 7 

 12 days of NEW Jack Cole finds! 
 Posted every day until Dec. 25th 

Here's two more previously unknown Jack Cole gems! These both appeared in the pages of 1955 cartoon and joke digests published by H-K Publications. These digests are filled with sub-par cartoons. Cole's elegant, offbeat cartoons stand out from the pages of these bottom-tier pulps like M&Ms in trail mix. It seems that H-K bought a lot of material from Bill Wenzel in 1954-55, including painted cartoons for their covers. Wenzel's work is competent, and times has a certain something. Aside from Wenzel, the remainder of the H-K stable of girlie gag cartoonists have little to offer. Here's a cover by Wenzel:

A typical Bill Wenzel cartoon for the 1950s H-K humor digests

Behind this cover, from March, 1955, we find this Jack Cole beauty -- a paper scan from my own collection:

A Jack Cole cartoon from Smiles - March, 1955
(Collection Paul Tumey)

This is hardly the subject matter Wenzel cover leads you to expect to find inside. In fact, one of the delights of Cole's H-K cartoons is how a great number of them have diverse subjects and situations -- almost like they were done for other others and then  -- after rejection -- sold here, to an editor who knew quality when  she or he saw it.

It bears noting that the above cartoon is yet another example of Jack Cole depicting suicide in his work. It's also worth noting that the layout is similar to the cartoon I shared yesterday. Here it is again, for a quick comparison:

Both cartoons are caption-less and show tiny people facing something large and daunting, perhaps the way Cole felt at shifting gears in his career. In both cases, you first see the huge object -- a house, or a charging elephant -- and then you peer at the diminutive figures and see the jokes. This creates a clever, delayed-effect reaction that stretches the gag out, and encourages you to look closer and perhaps reflect for a moment.

The elephant cartoon from the March, 1955 issue of Smiles is one of an incredible nine cartoons in that issue by Cole. I'll be sharing the rest of this lot over the next few days. It is interesting to observe that the March, 1955 issue of Smiles sister publication, Mirth, featured 12 Jack Cole cartoons (see them here)  -- both issues presenting 21 Cole gems in one month! 

Here's a second H-K 1955 Jack Cole cartoon. This cartoon appeared two months earlier, in the January, 1955 issue of Smiles. It is the only Jack Cole cartoon in this issue.

A Jack Cole cartoon from Smiles, January 1955
(Collection Paul Tumey)

I must confess that the joke is lost on me. The only sense I can make of it is that the woman in the balcony seat is pleased that she has drawn attention from the performance to herself. The name, "Dagsted," is confusing, too... being a mysterious compression of Dagwood Bumstead's name. Perhaps there's a cultural reference to the name that would explain the gag. The cartoon looks a little naughty at first, before you read the caption, since it looks as if the people in the upper seats are peeing on the folks below!

The 12 Days of Cole-Miss Postings So Far:

Days 1 and 2: Jack Cole's Sexy Playboy Style Humorama Cartoon Covers (1950-60s)

Day3: A Rare Jack Cole Playboy Style Cutie Pie Cover (1956)

 

Day 4: Teasing Blonde Triplets and Mad Japanese Spies (Private Dogtag 1944)

Day 5: Stretching to Playboy: Two Rare Jack Cole Judge Cartoons (1936, 1946)

Day 6: Jack Cole Sells Silk to the Burlap Market (1955 gag cartoon)

Only 1,099 more shopping days until Xmas 2015,
Paul Tumey

Jack Cole Sells Silk to the Burlap Market: A Stunning 1955 Gag Cartoon

 THE 12 DAYS of COLE-MISS: 
 DAY 6 

 12 days of NEW Jack Cole finds! 
 Posted every day until Dec. 25th 

Mirth was a digest-sized monthly offering a musky sheaf of mostly sexy girl cartoons of widely varying quality. This cheapo magazine was part of a line of similar joke books and digests on cars and watersports (not what you may be thinking -- water skiing and boating), including titles like Smiles and A Pocketful of Pepper. We are slowly discovering that Jack Cole sold a pile of great gag cartoons to the publisher, H-K Publications, Inc. in late 1954 and possibly also at various times in 1955. This would be the period when Cole left comic books and applied himself fully to a career as a magazine cartoonist. 

In his 1956 Freelancer article about his cartooning career (reprinted in this blog here), Jack Cole wrote of having limited success in 1954-55 with the higher paying markets and having to lower his sites: 

"After a few pointed hints from editors, it finally dawned on me. You CAN'T sell burlap in a nylon market, so I retreated to the minor class magazines (bless them all) where I should have $TARTED in the first place..."

H-K publications appears to have been a publishing company of Joseph Hardie and Raymond Kelly, who also co-founded the Centaur line of comics in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Cole's first comic book work appeared in various Centaur comics (supplied by the Harry Chesler shop, where Cole started out when he moved to New York in 1937). It's possible that Cole had a connection with H-K Publications, although it would have been more than 15 years since his work graced the pages of Hardie and Kelly's books.

H-K also published Comet -- an amalgamation of comics and prose --  in the early 1940s. In the mid forties, they appear to have inaugurated Mirth. In the 1950s, H-K published such illustrious titles as Boat Sport, Auto Craftsman, and Outboard Dealer News. It's possible that a Cole cartoon or two might be found in the pages of the non-girlie H-K magazines. After all, Cole did cartoons for a Stamp collecting magazine during this time, so why not for Speed Mechanics or Water Ski?

Last Christmas, my stocking overflowed with Cole when I discovered a scan on the Web of an issue of Mirth (March, 1955)  that contained a whopping 12 Jack Cole cartoons (click here to see those great cartoons). This Christmas, I have discovered an additional 14 previously forgotten Jack Cole cartoons published in various H-K publications from 1955. I'll be sharing that lot over the next few days, as well as a few other gems from the Cole-mine.

Today's Cole in your stocking comes from the pages of the October, 1955 issue of Mirth, the only Cole cartoon found in that issue. This is a paper scan from my own collection. Although the cartoon is unsigned, there can be no doubt this is the work of Jack Cole. The beautifully stylized Laurel and Hardy Music Box staircase winding the up the side of the cliff, and the modernistic home embedded into the edifice are drawn with the typical mix of precision and abstraction that characterizes the work of Jack Cole in the mid 1950s. The entire cartoon is a tour de force layout of positive and negative space. Surely this ambitious cartoon was originally meant for a higher market, which is perhaps a clue as to why it is unsigned.

See also this post at M.O.D.M. blog on H-K magazines.

The 12 Days of Cole-Miss Postings:
Days 1 and 2: Jack Cole's Sexy Playboy Style Humorama Cartoon Covers (1950-60s)
Day 3: A Rare Jack Cole Playboy Style Cutie Pie Cover (1956)
Day 4: Teasing Blonde Triplets and Mad Japanese Spies (Private Dogtag 1944)
Day 5: Stretching to Playboy: Two Rare Jack Cole Judge Cartoons (1936 & 1946)

Wishing You the Best,
Paul Tumey