Jack Cole's Higrass Twins 1940: Money Madness!

It's been far too long since I've posted anything new here at Cole's Comics. Most of my comics scholarship and writing energy has been directed towards books and magazines. As some of you may know, I am now a regular columnist and reviewer for The Comics Journal. I also recently co-edited and wrote essays for The Art of Rube Goldberg (Abrams ComicArts, 2013). Just recently, I completed an introduction to the upcoming book, The Bungle Family 1930 (IDW Library of American Comics Essentials). Doing this work gets me a broad readership -- but mostly it pays money, hoo hah!

Speaking of money, here's a great example of Jack Cole's screwball comics that revolves around the theme of money. As a near-starving artist in New York City at the time he created this story, Cole no doubt had his money on his mind, and his mind on his money, as the song goes.

These scans are generously provided to us by the gifted artist and Jack Cole fan Ryan Heshka, who scanned them from his own very rare copy of Target Comics #3. Be sure to check out Ryan's super cool art at his website (and I'm not just saying that because Ryan was nice enuff to supply scans -- I really DO love his art).

Cole did four of the curiously named Higrass Twins stories. He drew these while he was working at the Harry "A" Chesler shop, and they were sold to Novelty Press, who published them in issues one through four of their new title, Target Comics. For the other three Higrass Twins stories, see this earlier post.

Here, now, are three pages of insane comics from the early years of comics master  Jack Cole, originally published in Target Comics #3 (Novelty Press - April, 1940).

That is All,

Screwball Paul