Eight New Insignificant Eructations: Burp the Twerp

 

A huge shout out to the amazing scanners and folks at the Digital Comics Museum for making material like this available to the world. Bless you, men!

According to Kurt Vonnegut, a twerp is someone who shoves false teeth up his rear end and bites the buttons off of the back seats of taxi cabs. That’s not too far from the bizarre, funny Jack Cole version. Perhaps Vonnegut had Cole’s comic in mind.

As Cole was developing his brilliant Plastic Man stories in Police Comics, which were a parody of the superhero concept, he also delivered a wonderful wacky Burp the Twerp one-pager every month which represented an all-out surreal take on the then brand-new world of the costumed crusaders.

Cole’s Burp is a fat, round, polka-dotted butterballish senior citizen. While Cole was obviously heavily influenced by screwball cartoonist Bill Holman (Smokey Stover), in this this page, Cole pays homage to E.C. Segar’s POPEYE, another of his inspirations. Segar was fond of staging knock-down, drag-out epic prize fights between Popeye and oversized contenders. Popeye, sometimes regarded as the first superhero, displayed amazing strength and always won. If you haven’t read Segar’s Popeye,be sure to check it out. Fantagraphics is reprinting this all-time great in super cool, affordable volumes.

Police Comics #5 (December, 1941)

Note the name of the contender in the above page. It’s startling how often the word and act of suicide appears in Cole’s work.

Next, here’s another “fight” that Cole’s fiendishly clever sub-conscious derails into la-la land.

 

Police Comics #7 (Feb. 1942)

Some of Cole’s war-time work was pretty racist, such as this one-pager. I don’t know for sure, but my in-depth study of Cole’s work leads me to think that he was no more racist than the average American of the time. After the war, his work isn’t mean to any particular group of people, and in fact, his stories often satirized the very “mob mentality” that gives rise to racism.

Police Comics 13 (Nov. 1942)

 

Plastic Man himself makes a cameo appearance in our next Burp the Twerp one-pager. After a cavalcade of surreal gags to show how Burp is truly the most super of super men, Cole throws in his own superhero who causes Burp to faint! Years earlier, as editor at Lev Gleason’s Silver Streak Comics, Cole had pioneered the idea of having different characters cross-over… a device that became a money-making commonality in American comics from the 1960’s on. Notice that Burp’s form has changed in this next page, the 17th episode, which, along with the first 20 Burps, you can read here.

Police Comics 23 (October 1943)

 

During the war years, Americans had to make a lot of sacrifices. Coffee was hard to get… and so the following strip makes a joke out of that. A rare topical joke from Jack Cole, who mostly avoided humor that was tied to events of the day.

Police Comics #24 (Nov 1943)

To get the following joke, it is necessary to know that “jack” was slang at the time for money. There are nested jokes here, as Burp totally misses the fact that he has “won” a five dollar bet by giving away six thousand dollars. Cole was becoming an expert at packing in the jokes, something that would be done to great effect in Mad.

Police Comics #27 (Feb. 1944)

And speaking of nested jokes, this next page literally shows us a visualization of Cole’s approach, in the wonderful eighth panel. The whole strip reads like Alfred Jarry’s version of a Vaudeville comedy skit.

Police Comics 29 (April 1944)

Again, notice the eighth panel in the following page. Cole sets up a rhythm of action panels and then creates a perfect set-up for the punch line with a quiet note. So, we’ll end this posting, dear readers, on a quiet note.

Police Comics 32 (July 1944)

BURP THE TWERP – Jack Cole’s Other Comic Book Superhero Satire – The first 20 episodes

Sometime in 1941, Jack Cole had the brilliant and visionary idea to make fun of comic book superheroes, a genre not even 5 years old at the time.

All at once, three mind-blowing series exploring this idea of this idea sprang from Cole’s mind into existence, beginning an arc of invention that would peak about 10 years later with Harvey Kurtzman’s MAD parodies. The three series were PLASTIC MAN, DEATH PATROL, and the almost unknown BURP THE TWERP.

Here’s the amazing first appearance of BURP THE TWERP:

Episode 1 - Police Comics #2 (Sept. 1941)

 

There’s more entertainment in this single page than in most of the 5-7 page Quality filler stories. I count no less than 13 jokes in this one page alone. As if the creation of a new anti-hero and a bushel of jokes wasn’t enough, Cole also throws in one of his many self-portraits – this time as “Ralph Johns,” a pen name he frequently used for his one-page stories. (Cole’s middle name was Ralph, and Jack is a version of the name “John”)

As a kind of carry-over from the earliest comic books, which were collections of 1- and 2-page shorts, Quality’s comics usually included a couple of one pagers. During the 1940’s Cole wrote and drew hundreds of these (see my earlier postings on WINDY BREEZE).

Except for a handful of episodes, Burp’s one-page stories all appeared in the back pages of Police Comics. He functioned as a kind of counter-weight to the PLASTIC MAN stories that appeared in the front of the book.

While Plastic Man could shape his body into any object or person, Burp had an infinite number of wacky super-powers. Sporting the same red/black/yellow costume colors as Plastic Man, Burp’s physique was anything but heroic: bulging stomach, spindly legs, gray mustache, and bald head.

At a time when the comic book superhero was almost a religious icon, Cole’s parody was outrageous.

Cole filled the early E.C.Segar inspired BURP pages with loose, crazy drawings, wild puns, surreal/stream-of-consciousness gags (another connection to MAD and Will Elder), and satirical wackiness surpassed only by his PLASTIC MAN stories.

From September, 1941 to April, 1949 Cole published a total of 59 one-page BURP THE TWERP episodes. Each one was touched with brilliance. Here’s a run-down of the BURP pages:

September, 1941 – July, 1946: 
Police Comics #2-55 (Episodes 1-54)

Winter, 1946:
The Barker #2 (Episode 55)

Winter, 1946:
Blackhawk #13 (Episode 56)

Autumn 1947:
Blackhawk #16 (Episode 57)

April, 1948:
National Comics #65 (Episode 58)

April, 1949:
Blackhawk #24 (Episode 59)

June, 1949:
Blackhawk #25 (reprint of episode 55 from The Barker #2)

The last 3 BURP episodes were re-published earlier in this blog here, to celebrate the publication of THE TOON TREASURY a massive, hallucinogenic tome of comic book work, compiled and beautifully shaped by Art Spiegelman and Francois Mouly, which reprints 3 BURP pages.

Here are the rest of the first 20 episodes of BURP THE TWERP, with occasional notes.

Episode 2 - Police Comics #3 (Oct. 1941)

It was (and is) common practice to draw the title art of a series once and then paste in photostats of it in each new story. Cole drew the titles of this and all his other stories fresh and different every time!

Episode 3 - Police Comics #4 (Nov. 1941)

First known “photograph” of an instinct! To my eye, it resembles E.C. Segar’s Jeep, from POPEYE. How interesting that Cole said “photograph,” and not “drawing.” In his mind, these were little films more than static drawings…

 

Episode 4 - Police Comics #5 (Dec. 1941)

Comedic prizefighting, another Segar/POPEYE staple.

 

Episode 5 - Police Comics #6 (Jan. 1942)

Cole echoes American tall tales such as Paul Bunyan here.

 

Episode 6 - Police Comics #7 (Feb. 1942)

The ridiculous fight between two super strong men… yet another common set up from Segar’s POPEYE.

 

Episode 7 - Police Comics #8 (March, 1942)

Jack Cole presents a lexicon of men/women relationships here. The short man’s name, “Digest,” cracked me up.

 

Episode 8 - Police Comics #9 (April, 1942)

When he flies, Superman kind of dive swims through the air in graceful arcs. Burp flies by way of an ungainly propeller that comes out of his head.

 

Episode 9 - Police Comics #10 (May, 1942)

 

Episode 10 - Police Comics #11 (June, 1942)

Gruesome comedy. Think I’ll eat vegan today.

 

Episode 11 - Police Comics #12 (July, 1942)

None of Cole’s characters fought in WWII, which Cole also sat out. In the early 1950’s, in one of his last stories, Cole brought Plastic Man and Woozy to the Korean War.

 

Episode 12 - Police Comics #13 (August, 1942)

Cole’s depiction of people from Japan in his comics was virulently racist and, sadly, typical. This time, Burp’s propeller comes out of his butt,which also has a target painted on it.

 

Episode 13 - Police Comics #14 (Sept, 1942)

The character in panel 7 looks a lot like one of the characters in Harvey Kurtzman’s HEY LOOK 1-pagers. Was Kurtzman influenced by Cole’s BURP pages?

 

Episode 14 - Police Comics #15 (Oct, 1942)

Five-letter word for Jack Cole: genius.

 

Episode 15 - Police Comics #16 (Nov, 1942)

In BURP’s world, realty twists itself to conform to puns. Burp is also, in a way, Cole’s ultimate creator of crazy inventions, although they seem to be less inventions and more organic extensions of himself (such as super ear wax!).

 

Episode 16 - Police Comics #17 (Dec, 1942)

Bizarre and unsuccessful. Also, have you noticed how loose the drawing has become? COLE’s PLASTIC MAN had become a huge success by time, and must have been making larger and larger demands on his time.

 

Episode 17 - Police Comics #18 (Jan, 1943)

Cole re-shapes his character… literally! A terrifically inventive way to draw a gag out of a change in direction.

 

Episode 18 - Police Comics #19 (Feb, 1943)

Cole loved volcanoes. See Coleism #3 in my article on some of Cole’s recurring story devices here.

 

Episode 19 - Police Comics #20 (March, 1943)

Superman is vulnerable to Kryptonite; Burp the Twerp is vulnerable to… tickling! A throwback to the earlier character design… probably published out of sequence.

Episode 20 - Police Comics #21 (April, 1943)

Cole draws FDR and Churchill. For some reason, they are at the North Pole. Cole appears to have been anti-war, and this strip certainly shows the absurdity of war in no uncertain terms. See also his anti-war story, “A Machine to End War,” (Dickie Dean in Silver Streak #4, May 1940)

Want more? Leave a comment or drop me a line if you’d like me to share the remaining 39 Burp the Twerp episodes!

Text copyright 2010 Paul Tumey

Burp The Twerp and Toon Treasury - Recent Books With Jack Cole Work

Editor's Note: For more kid's comics as can be found in THE TOON TREASURY, be sure to check out Cole's Comics follower Mykal Banta's The Big Blog of Kid's Comics!

We are living in the golden age of comic book reprints, my friends. Aside from digital versions of comics opening up entirely new areas of appreciation and study of old comics (such as this blog), many fine reprint books have been published in the last couple of years.

If you are in your mid-40's and grew up in the United States, then you'll probably get a little involuntary surge of excitement when I say: 100 Page Super Spectacular. These amazing wedges of mostly golden age reprints that DC Comics published in the 1970's were where I first got my interest in golden age comics. A stray Lou Fine BLACK CONDOR, an Eisner BLACKHAWK, and yes... even a Jack Cole PLASTIC MAN. Ah, those first heady exposures to the weird, wacky, great comics of the past!

For years, for decades since, we haven't had nearly enough reprints to satisfy those yearnings to read more and more of the great old comics. And then, all of sudden, we've got an absolute FLOOD of the stuff! Truth be told, the vast array of old comics follow the late author Theodore Sturgeon's law: all art is 90% crap and 10% great.

So the next step is not to just mechanically reprint, reprint, reprint... but to add something of value. To sift out extraordinary comic book stories and put them into a structure that says something about their inherent value and connection to similar story forms. To present the material on the printed page in a way that is both true to the original presentation, but also somehow enhances it. These, I would submit, are the goals of any good to great comic book reprint collection.

And that's precisely what Toon Treasury: Classic Children's Comics, the new book created by Art Spiegelman and Francois Mouly does. I cannot recommend this magnificent volume enough. It collects stand-out comic book stories into a framework that is both organic and illuminating.

Great stories by Carl Barks, John Stanley, the criminally underappreciated Sheldon Mayer, Walt Kelly, Basil Wolverton, Harvey Kurtzman, and George Carlson are woven into a continuum that leads you to more obscure, but just as enjoyable works such as INTELLECTUAL AMOS, FOX AND CROW, and GERALD McBOING BOING.

This thick tome weighs over 3 pounds and has 350 pages of comics. The retouching is excellent, preserving a sense of the original printed works, and yet enhancing the vitality of the images. The printing is some of the best I've seen in comic book reprint book and it's printed on non-glossy paper, to my everlasting appreciation. Reprinting artwork that was originally presented on porus, pulpy paper onto shiny, glossy pages is a tragic mis-representation and an extremely stupid artistic choice. Thankfully, some of the modern comic book reprints, including this one, use a soft, non-coated paper stock.

The Toon Treasury is a bargain at $40.00, but right now (late August, 2009), it is an incredible deal as it can be ordered on Amazon for only $26.40, and you get FREE shipping!

On a personal note, the book has my name (Paul Tumey) in the acknowledgements. My pal, Frank Young (Stanley Stories), served as one of the advisors to the book that Spiegelman wisely recruited. Here's how my name got in this project:

It all began when my parents in Louisiana passed on, about 3 years ago. My mom died from a lingering illness just after Thanksgiving and my father went from an unexpected heart attack the day after Christmas. So here I was, in early January 2006, sifting through my parents' possessions. They rented, and so I only had a couple of weeks to deal with their stuff.

Before it all got packed up, sold, thrown out, and mailed to my home in Seattle, I decided to spend one night there by myself, with everything as it was when my parents last were alive. It was a little creepy, as they had both passed on in the very room I was sleeping in. In my father's bedroom, I found a stack of old comic books by his bedside, mostly old issues of Little Lulu and Tubby.

I settled down on an air mattress on the floor, totally alone in the dead of a Lousiana night to read some of these comics that my mother had bought when she was a kid, in Ponchatula, Lousiana.

I came across an eerie, oddly poetic TUBBY story called "The Guest in The Ghost Hotel." In the story, Tubby is trapped in a pool of quicksand. When night falls, an old hotel rises up underneath Tubby, as it does every night. He finds himself on the roof of it, and he climbs down into the hotel through an open window. Inside, he encounters ghosts living in the rooms. He is relentlessly pursued by the proprietor, an angel of Death, to register and become a permenant resident. The whole story is a minor masterpiece, and totally unlike anything you'd expect to find in a funny kid's comic.

I shared this story, which was written and drawn by John Stanley, with my friend, Frank Young, and he was instrumental in it's inclusion in the Toon Treasury. In fact, the story was scanned from my own copy of Tubby #7, the very copy I found in my parent's apartment. My friend Frank Young also put this amazing story on his Stanley Stories blog, with some excellent critical comment here.

Aside from my own minor involvement, there is another reason I am mentioning the book in this blog, and that is it reprints Jack Cole! For the first time I know of, Cole's weird and wonderful BURP THE TWERP one-pagers see the light of day in a quality reprint book. There are only 3, but they are great ones, from Police Comics # 35, 38, and 46.

The beautiful thing about this book is that it will almost certainly turn a whole new generation on to the greatness of the form. I am so looking forward to receiving my contributor's copy (hint, hint Abrams!) and sharing it with my 9-year old son.

Another top-notch and highly recommended reprint book that has considerably more Jack Cole work in it is Supermen!: The First Wave of Comic Book Heroes 1936-1941 by Greg Sadowski.

Like Toon Treasury, this book is a well-chosen, and superbly presented collection. In addition to great early work by Will Eisner, Basil Wolverton, Fred Guardineer (a personal favorite of mine), and Bill Everett, we get a great big helping of nicely reprinted early superhero stories by Jack Cole. With 36 of the book's 175 pages of reprints, Cole's work gets more attention than any other artist in the book. There is a great COMET story, an amazing SILVER STREAK story, and perhaps THE stand out story of Cole's early pre-Quality work: "The Claw Battles Daredevil."

Currently, this treasure sells for only $16.49 on Amazon.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++

Jack Cole's BURP THE TWERP was a fascinating character. A superhero himself, he was a parody of the formula, being a pudgy bald man, with a shaving brush mustache. Like PLASTIC MAN, Burp was able to alter his form, seemingly at will. He had an endless supply of startling super powers.

During his 12 or so years at Quality Comics, Jack Cole contributed an estimated 400-500 one-page comic stories. I've read that he often liked to warm up to creating a PLASTIC MAN story by first creating one of these one-pagers. They are often filled with graphic invention and fresh energy, and deserve to be considered on their own as a major part of the body of the work of this comics master.

For the most part, a character stayed in a single comic. SLAP HAPPY PAPPY in Crack Comics, DAN TOOTIN' in Hit Comics, WINDY BREEZE in National Comics, WUN CLOO in Smash Comics, and BURP THE TWERP in Police Comics.

We'll look at all these comics in later postings. For now, here's three of BURP THE TWERP's appearances in comics other than Police.

National Comics #65 (April 1948)

Blackhawk Comics #24 (April, 1949)


Blackhawk Comics #25 (June, 1949)