Jack Cole's 1938 Screwball Comics

One spring morning in 1938, Jack Cole walked the 10 or 15 blocks from his Greenwich Village apartment to a broken down old five-story warehouse on West 23rd. On the street, trucks rattled by, and dozens of other people were entering similar buildings to run tiny little factories that made everything from clothes to hardware. The factory Cole reported to, the Harry "A" Chesler Shop, made comic books.

He took the rickety elevator up to the fourth floor, said good morning to his boss, Harry Chesler, who at at a desk just outside the elevator. Chesler, a stout, round-faced man, was wearing a vest with a watch chain, a derby, and smoking a cigar.  Cole walked past him into the large rented room in which several artists were already hard at work, hunched over their drawing boards. "Good morning Fred. Bob. Charlie." Cole greeted a few of his colleagues and sat down to work.

This is how I imagine the scenario of Cole's first months drawing comics. He had moved to New York City in late 1937 or early 1938 with his wife, Dorothy. Cole had come to New York to establish himself as a magazine gag cartoonist. He had managed to break in to several top markets, most notably Collier's and Judge. And he was selling regularly to Boy's Life. But his progress was too slow and he was running out of money and time. He very likely answered an ad in the New York Times, and found himself working for Harry "A" Chesler, an entrepreneur who hired artists to create comic book stories that he then sold to publishers.

Over his first few months at the Chesler Studio in early 1938, Cole began to develop into a comic book artist, moving from gaga panels and spot illustrations to one- and two-page sequential narratives. In spring or early summer of 1938, Chesler was hired by Quality COmics (Cole's future employer) to produce an advertising giveaway book for them. the book, The Cocomalt Big Book of Comics, was printed around August 1938, and featured several of Cole's early pages. It's possible that Cole was even hired by Chesler to be the art director of the book, which could account for the use of so much of his material as compared to other artists.

Cocomalt was a powdery vitamin additive to milk. Mothers in the 1930's and 40's were urged to save their children from malnutrition with a steady diet of the "sunlight vitamin." The product vanished from the shelves of American grocery markets sometime in the 1950's, well before I landed on this crazy lump of coal we call Earth. Reportedly, Cocomalt was as hard to mix with milk as oil with water.

Nevertheless, it must have been a popular product, due, if nothing else, to a hefty advertising budget. Cocomalt sponsored radio shows, buried cool Buck Rogers paper ray guns in the canisters of powder, and gave away numerous free premiums.

The Cocomalt Big Book of Comics was one such premium, published in 1938, and by Quality Publications (although no publisher, or month is listed anywhere on the book). The cover of the book is by Charles Biro, and features radio star Joe Penner. I'm just guessing here, but probably Cocomalt sponsored Penner's radio show.

When I wrote about this book a few years ago, I missed some of Cole's art in the book, and attributed work done by others to him. After years of study, I've developed a better "eye" for Cole's art, and can now correct the record.

Cole's first page in the book is a one-pager called "Insurance Ike." It appears that Cole did not create this character, since there are earlier episodes published before Cole joined the Chesler shop. This page is filled with Cole's life. The dialogue Ike has with his reflection in the mirror may have been a reflection of how Cole was feeling about his life at the time, as he struggled to make it as a cartoonist.

I've written more on this page and Cole's 1938 work  in my latest column, Framed! for The Comics Journal. You can find it here.

In his next page, Cole draws radio comedian Joe Penner. The first panel is a pun in Penner's name. In true screwball comics fashion, Cole uses a lot of funny background signs in this page. The cigar smoking duck sidekick in panel two is a winner -- one wishes Cole had used this character more.

Cole's next contribution in the Cocomalt book is a two-page King Kole's Kourt. Despite the play on Cole's name, this was a series that Chesler had run since 1935, long before Jack Cole came along. Again, the subject matter Cole chooses is concerned with meeting expenses.

I missed this years ago, but Cole provides some great illustrations for three pages of sheet music. The song is co-written by Joe Penner. This may be the only instance of Cole providing spot art for sheet music.There are lots of great screwball gags worked into the art, including inverted coo coo calls from cuckoo birds.

Cole also leans on his experience creating magazine gag panels. In the "Myrth-Parade" one-pager, he contributes three gags:  panels two, three, and six. Panel six features an early sexy girl. Panel one appears to  be by Bob Wood, and panel five is by Fred Schwab. Panel four may be a collaboration between Jack Cole and Fred Schwab.

Cole's last contribution to The Cocomal Big Book of Comics is another gag panel. The fourth panel in this page is by Cole, with the other panels being by other Chesler artists (that's Fred Schwab in panel two).

It's intriguing to think that the Cocomalt Big Book of Comics was Cole's first editing job, but we probably will never really know for sure. What we can be sure of is that, within a few months of joining the Harry "A" Chesler shop, Cole was already standing out with comics that were highly original and invested with manic comic energy.

For more about Jack Cole's 1938 work with Chesler, see my new Comics Journal article, The Lost Comics of Jack Cole - Part Two (1938).

Thanks for reading,

Paul Tumey

Announcements: New Cole Article at The Comics Journal, Upcoming Books

As of today, July 1, 2013, I have a new column at the online magazine, The Comics Journal. Co-editors Dan Nadel and Tim Hodler very kindly responded to my query ("Hey guys, want some writing?") and then patiently waited four months for me to produce something.

I'm kicking off the new column with a four-part series called "The Lost Comics of Jack Cole." The first part (1931-8) can be read here.

This long piece includes 36 cartoons, comics, photos, and rare images -- 16 of which never made it onto this blog.

But, more than that, I've discovered that putting all these little bits and pieces of the "lost" Jack Cole together into a chronological framework sheds light on the life and career of this secretive, influential 20th century master of pop culture. I hope you'll check it out and leave a comment there to encourage the editors to run more stuff like this.

One the reasons Dan and Tim had to wait four months for this piece was that, around the time they hired me, I landed a wonderful opportunity to write an essay for the upcoming 500 foot long by 300 foot wide Sunday Press book, Society Is Nix: Gleeful Anarchy At The Dawn of the Newspaper Comic Strip (1896-1915). My essay in the book is called "Mule Kicks: The Roots of Screwball Comics." I also was a contributing editor, helping out publisher and editor Peter Maresca on researching and writing about 50 mini-biographies of cartoonists represented in this amazing book. It's due out around August 1 and might even make an early appearance at the San Diego Con -- look for it -- it's gonna be a REVELATION. Here's the cover:

Coming around August 1, 2013 from Sunday Press

Just when I finished up the Sunday Press project, Abrams ComicArts editor Charlie Kochman kicked his work on The Art of Rube Goldberg into overdrive. I actually worked day and night for a short while on this with him (I am co-editor of the volume). This book, a huge coffee table art book on the Great Cartoonist will have a slew of original essays from greats like Al Jaffe, Brian Walker, Peter Maresca (my publisher/editor at Sunday Press), Carl Linich, and best of all - from Rube's talented, funny grand-daughter, Jennifer George (who put the whole book together). I've got an essay in the book, as well. You can check it out on Amazon here, and here's the cover art:

And now, since you've been kind enuff to read through all this shameless self-promotion, here's an actual piece of rare Cole art. Even though this ran in a 1944 Chesler publication called Punch Comics, it was clearly done much earlier -- probably in 1938 or 1939 when he was working as a staff artist at the Chesler Shop. It may have been published in some as yet unidentified comic (if so, probably a Centaur publication), or it may have been something Cole did which was kept in inventory. In any case, it's pretty swell -- a whole, artfully designed page of gag cartoons around the theme of travel trailers!

Punch Comics #9 (Harry "A" Chesler, July 1944)

More soon!

Thanks for Reading,
Paul "O'Brian" Tumey

Insane Comics: 3 Rare Jack Cole Stories From 1938

Presenting 7 pages of rare Jack Cole comics from late 1938!

Funny Pages Volume 2, issue 11 (November, 1938) featured a panoply of Jack Cole's screwball stories. At the time, Cole was working for the Harry "A" Chelser studio in New York. Sometime in 1936, Jack borrowed some money from various merchants in his home town of New Castle, PA and moved to New York to start a career as a cartoonist. After a year of near starvation, Cole connected with the Chesler studio, which was packaging original comic book content to meet the growing demand for comics.

Cole's work of this time is very much influenced by the "screwball" school of newspaper comics, most famously represented by Bill Holman (Smokey Stover), Dr. Seuss, and Gene Ahern (Nut Brothers, Squirrel Cage). Here's a typical example of Ahern's Nut Brothers (written and drawn by someone other than Ahern who had left the NEA syndicate about three years earlier). This strip shows the screwball school in fine form around the time Jack Cole entered comics (note the Napoleon hat in panel 3) :

Jack Cole's determined screwball approach is certainly evident in his Nutty Fagin one-pager in Funny Pages Vol. 2, issue 11 (November, 1938):

Note that Jack Cole signs this page "Sassafrass." As far as I know, this is the single occurrence of this particular pen name. Other pen names Jack Cole used were: Richard Bruce, Ralph Johns, and Jake. 

One thing that strikes me about this page is the bold pattern of the crepe paper bunting that adorns the speaker's podium, and the pattern of polka dots on Fagin's boxer shorts. Over the course of his 16-year career creating hundreds of  comic book stories, Jack Cole would expertly use patterns to add visual appeal to his work over and over.

Another screwball artist that I suspect was a huge influence on Cole was Milt Gross. The energy and zaniness, as well as the sheer love of distorting the human figure that is so evident in Gross' comics must have inspired Jack Cole. Here's a couple of Milt Gross Sunday comics from 1931, when Jack Cole was 16 years old and starting to learn to cartoon.

Next we find a rare example  of Jack Cole drawing the extremely non-PC "Cheerio Minstrels" two-pager series that seems to have been quite popular at the time, judging by how many Centaur comics have it. I think the "cheerio" concept was probably a core idea for Chesler. Here's the cover to one of his earliest publications, a newspaper Sunday magazine insert called Cheerio from January, 1936:

Note that, among the listed comics inside, we have "Cheerio Hotel" (and also "King Kole's Kourt," appearing before Jack Cole joined the studio -- which confirms that Cole's later episodes of the strip were a happy coincidence, and that he was not the originator of the comic). The Cheerio Minstrels  format was always a trio of African Americans singing a song in a sort of comic book version of a vaudeville minstrel routine. Cole's treatment is a shifting filmstrip of insanity:

Observe, if you will, how, in the bottom of page one, Cole pneumatically propels the characters around the panel. This exaggerated movement is another element Cole would develop, particularly in his Plastic Man stories. In fact, Cole recycled the fourth panel on page 2, with the arm amputation with a saw, in his first Woozy Winks story (Police Comics 13):

Last, but far from least, is a zany 4-page story by Jack Cole, Smart Alec, in which the main character is resplendently adorned with reverse polka dot trousers. I particularly love the wonderful 2-panel spread at the bottom of page 3. I don't have a lot to say about this material, but just wanted to share it! Enjoy!

A big thank you to Digital Comics Museum and scanner "dsdaboss" for these marvelous scans!

All text copyright 2012 Paul C. Tumey

Jack Cole's King Kola Ads 1941-42

For all his talent and ambition, it's strange that Jack Cole didn't create more advertising art.  Here's two rare 1941 ads with Jack Cole art -- perhaps the only examples of advertising art in his entire career.The ads are from late 1941 and early 1942 books published by Harry "A" Chesler, Cole's first employer in comic books. The ads are for a product called "King Kola."


King Kola was supposedly made by the King Cole Beverage Company. A  little research on the Web turns up this tidbit, from a collection of 1941 copyright notices:

Thus, King Cola equals Harry Chesler, the comic book publisher!

A similar cola caper is much more well-known. In 1941, the grandiose comic book publisher Victor Fox began to promote a cola of his own, called "Kooba Cola." Here's the back cover of an unidentified Fox comic, circa 1941:

Fox pitched the cola hard, with interior ads and schemes:

What is brilliant and delightfully screwed up about all this is that the product was never manufactured! Fox, who owned the brand, was using his publications to create demand for a product that didn't exist. He planned to license the brand to a manufacturer, thinking the pre-loaded demand would make the licensing deal attractive. As far as we know, no manufacturer took him up on the deal.

In late 1941, Harry "A" Chesler made the move from packaging comics to publishing his own. He launched four titles: Yankee, Dynamic, Punch, and Scoop. He must have seen what Fox was doing, and thought it a great idea. Chesler seems filled with ambition in 1941. he named his cola after the hoary nursery rhyme figure, Old King Cole. For years, a 2-4 page comic series had come out of his shop called "King Kole's Kourt." This series was sometimes drawn by Jack Cole, bit he didn't create it -- despite the obvious connection with his name, and other artists worked on it seemingly randomly. Here's a couple of examples of Cole's work on the series. You can see the similarity between the cartooning style in these pages and the King Kola ads.

By Jack Cole. Blue Ribbon Comics #1 (MLJ/Archie, Nov 1939) 

By Jack Cole. CoCoMalt Big Book of Comics (1938)

As far as I can tell, there were only two house ads created for "King Kola." Here's the first, appearing on the inside front cover of Yankee Comics #2:

The art, though unsigned, is unmistakably by Jack Cole. It has Cole's exaggerated perspectives and frantic energy. The comic over-reaction of the doctor and the skinny patient wearing saggy socks held up by garters is pure Jack Cole. It's the humor of impotence he would soon wield in Plastic Man. The name on bag, 'Doc Smith," may be a tribute to science fiction writer E.E. "Doc" Smith, who had published his highly popular "Lensman" series in 1941-42 pulps (and we know Cole read and enjoyed the pulps). 

I don't think the lettering in the speech balloon is by Jack Cole. We do often see a jagged edged balloon in his work, but the lettering isn't his style. It's my guess he left it blank so Chesler could fill in whatever slogan he decided upon.

This advertising art is more polished than Cole's usual comic book art, and he may have lavished time on it. Perhaps he was paid well for the art, and that was a motivation. Here  it is looking even better in color, from the back cover of Dynamic Comics #2 (circa 1942):

One wonders if Jack Cole himself colored this ad. It's got a certain something to it. Here's the second King Kola ad, this one from the back cover of Yankee Comics #3 (1942), also with nice coloring:

Again, the ad is unsigned, but there's no doubt in my mind this is art by Jack Cole. The gasoline splash drops, the cartoony figures, the lettering, and the overall tight composition. The concept of a gag cartoon approach is also very much Jack Cole, who jam-packed his work with creative ideas. In this case, the very idea of drawing a service station team swarming over a customer and car is so very much like Cole. 

The ads appeared long after Jack Cole had left Harry Chesler's studio and was working at Quality Comics. In fact, it's entirely possible that Jack Cole drew the art for these ads close to the same time he created the first Plastic Man story (which was published in August 1941). However, maybe Chesler lined up the ads earlier than this, perhaps even when Cole worked for him. We know from the copyright notice that he filed the paperwork on October 1, 1940, about a year before he rolled the ads out.

As far as I can tell, King Kola was never manufactured. After these two ads, it seems that Chesler dropped the scheme. Still, we can't be certain. Here's a collector's photo in which the middle bottle of King Kola is dated from 1939. 

The bottles look very different from the one in the ad, and I doubt that this is Chesler's product.

In fact, one wonders if Chelser really intended to sell the licensing at all, since his ad so clearly defined the look of the bottle. It seems odd that he would pick such a distinctive-looking bottle instead of letting a manufacturer/distributor design the packaging.Could it be that Harry Chesler planned to make the cola himself? Or, perhaps he was merely running fictituous ads in his magazine to perhaps attract other advertisers. One wonders if he was onto Fox's scheme, or if he saw soft drink ads suddenly appearing on Fox's comics and thought, "Hey, if he can get an advertiser to go for a full page color ad, so can I!"

In any case, whatever the true story of King Cola may be...

These are rare examples of Jack Cole advertising art and delightful to peruse. Perhaps, if he had lived longer, Jack might have been lured into the lucrative world of advertising, as many of his peers were in the late 1950s, early 1960s. The mind reels...