DICKIE DEAN BOY INVENTOR - Episode 3 - Cole's First Speedboat Story

Story presented in this post:
Dickie Dean (story, pencils, inks, and lettering by Jack Cole)
Silver Streak Comics #5 (June 1940, Lev Gleason)

We've looked at some memorable early stories Jack Cole created in which the action centered around speedboats. There's Cole's single Quicksilver story, his landmark fourth Midnight story, and in our previous post, we saw a mind-blowing Midnight story involving a speedboat that traveled on land. Having established Cole's fondness for speedboat stories, here now is, as far as I can tell , his very first speedboat story: the third episode of his highly entertaining DICKIE DEAN series.

I'm not sure why Cole was so fond of drawing speedboats and water. Perhaps there was a flood in his hometown of New Castle, Pennsylvania when he was a child, or perhaps his Dad had a speedboat. In any case, there is a strong sense of place in this story, which makes it even more vivid than ever. This story reminds me of the more recent, but equally entertaining story, Won't Be Licked; The Great '37 Flood of Louisville, by one of my favorite modern cartoonists, Dan Zettwoch (the story appeared in The Best American Comics 2007, Chris Ware, editor).

Perhaps Jack Cole's interest in speeboat stories was purely graphical. If you study these stories, you can see that he used the boats as pointers on the page layout, directing the eye effortlessly to the next panel. The result is a sense of movement that is often exhilarating.

This story stands alone in the DICKIE DEAN series. It's the only one of the eight that Cole did in which Dickie's friend/sidekick doesn't appear. Instead, there is a genial, faintly Dad-like newspaper reporter named HAP who joins Dickie on his adventures. I like the chemistry (if you'll pardon the pun) between these two characters and I wish Jack Cole had explored this duo more. Alas, this is the only story in which HAP appears.

Like many of Jack Cole's comic book stories of 1940-42, there is a way cool information drawing, explaining the main invention, a boat that can make water disappear by running through it:


There are also several other fun inventions in this story, including an automatic apple dispenser, an accordion hat retriever, and an acid-spewing fountain pen. Cole also speaks directly to his boy readership at the start and end of this story, proving no small amount of enthusiastic encouragement to invent. Cole's words are so compelling, that I felt myself growing keenly interested in inventing something as I read the story!

Another hallmark of Cole's work is an interest in using decorative patterns to provide visual richness (such as Woozy Winks' polka-dotted blouse). In this story, he uses the diffusion of the water molecules as an excuse to populate several panels with wonderful arrays of floating spheres of water. The effect is magical, like something out of LITTLE NEMO:

In addition to the Dickie Dean story in this issue, Jack Cole also delivered the lead feature, a ripping Silver Streak adventure (which I'll share at a future posting). Cole was the editor of this title, and in addition to his two stories in this book, he also turned in a wonderful cover:

Note Dickie Dean in the lower right-hand corner, the only time Cole drew his full figure on a cover.

By the way, have you checked out my pal, Frank Young's superlative articles and reprints of some great Jimmy Thompson ROBOTMAN stories at Cartoon Snap? If not, be sure to hop over there once you've finished reading this amazing DICKIE DEAN story... you'll be glad you did. Thompson is the most under-appreciated artist of the Golden Age, and Sherm's Cartoon Snap blog is one of the best out there!

Just an aside: if you happen to be enjoying a scan blog and see some links to ads posted, clicking on a few is an easy way to help support that blog, since the blogger will get a little dinero for each click. Just a suggestion. We're not supposed to solicit clicks for ourselves. I just wanted to raise general awareness of this issue. For example, out of 15,000 page impressions on this blog there have been only 8 clicks on the advertising links! I always make it point to click a few times to help the blogs I like... it's the polite and helpful thing to do!

Here then, is the third Dickie Dean episode, another lost gem, excavated for your reading pleasure from the Cole-mine!

WINDY BREEZE - The First 10 Episodes (1941-42)

During the 1940's, Jack Cole created 400 to 500 one-page funny episodes that appeared in the pages of various Quality Comics titles. This is a major part of Cole's work in comics and deserves attention as such.

These one-pagers (on rare occasion, two-pagers) featured a handful of characters, some of which Cole invented and some of which others created and Cole later took over. In his great 1986 book, Focus on Jack Cole, comics historian and science fiction author Ron Goulart calls this material "out-and-out funny stuff," and I agree.

I once dismissed Cole's one-pagers as filler fluff, but a more systematic study of these has led to a sincere appreciation for this material. Jack Cole's one-pagers are usually very inventive graphically, extremely well-written, and downright funny.

I think Cole found probably an outlet in these that satisfied his earliest yearnings to become a syndicated cartoonist. In a way, these monthly one-pagers functioned as a sort of regular comic strip. In fact, one could regard this work as a precursor to Jack Cole's 1950's syndicated comic strip, BETSY AND ME.

Aside from brief runs of Cuthbert, Fuzzy, and Poison Ivy, there were five main characters in Cole's stable of Quality Comics one-pagers:

• Burp the Twerp (Police Comics)


• Dan Tootin (Hit Comics)


• Slap Happy Pappy (Crack Comics)


• Windy Breeze (National Comics)


• Wun Cloo (Smash Comics)
  

When you consider that Jack Cole wrote, drew, and lettered 5 one-pagers a month for most of a 6-year stretch from 1941 to 1947, it's almost as if Cole single-handedly created his own Sunday comics section every month!

And this was on top of monthly creating PLASTIC MAN and MIDNIGHT stories, the various back-up stories scattered all over the pages of Quality comics, and several covers!

WINDY BREEZE was created by Bill Newcombe. The first episode appeared in the Eisner Studio title, National Comics #1 (July, 1940). Here's the first episode of WINDY BREEZE:






Starting with National Comics #10 (April, 1941) Jack Cole wrote and drew a one-page Windy Breeze episode in virtually the next 50 issues, through June, 1947. They are all signed with his pen name, Ralph Johns (Ralph was Cole's middle name, and John is the formal version of "Jack.").

Jack Cole kept the basic appearance of the character he inherited, but changed his personality.

Cole re-framed the character from a clumsy, accident prone goof into a brilliant, flamboyant liar. This concept fit the stip's title beautifully and propelled a boring, run-of-the-mill comic into something special. Cole also created a little boy nephew/sidekick that listened to the tall tales with an attitude that became increasingly increasingly jaded as the strip developed.

Incidentally, the visual appearance and interplay of the two characters is a little similar to the two characters in Harvey Kurtzman's brilliant HEY LOOK! one-pagers that began appearing in Timely titles in June, 1946. It's possible Kurtzman was influenced by this earlier series.

I'll eventually post the entire WINDY BREEZE series, as well as runs from the other series, on Cole's Comics. Here are the first 10 episodes of Windy Breeze, teller of tall tales, extraordinaire!

Inkie Meets Don Quixote: Jack Cole's 1944 Self-Portrait (Part 2)

Story presented in this post:
Inkie Meets Don Quixote (story and art by Jack Cole)
Crack Comics #33 (Spring 1944 - Quality Comics)

Some time ago, I posted for you one of the two delightful INKIE stories that Jack Cole wrote and drew in 1944, courtesy of Darryl Aylward, who shared his scans. That story was from Crack Comics #34, and can be read here.

Thanks to the Great Tallahassee Golden Age Score of 1982 (you can read my account of this incredible and bizarre comics find here), and my pal Frank Young, who scanned the pages without a trace of miffling, I am pleased to present to you the other INKIE story, from Crack Comics #33.

What a fun, light-hearted story Cole turns in, here.

A highlight is page two, in which Cole depicts himself as so preoccupied with creating comics that he barely notices the tempations and chaos of the outside world (which could provide material for him, if he'd notice it). This is a wonderful bit of self-parody.

Perhaps this is what life was like for Cole, who spent most of his waking hours safely ensconced in his home, sweating deadlines and working hard... but also clearly immersed in his work.

Later, INKIE slips into a copy of The Loves of Cassanova and emerges, blushing, to say " You wouldn't understand this one." Again, there's an authentic biographical note, as Cole was gearing up to begin submitting sexy gag cartoons to men's magazines, such as Humorama. In fact, I've read somewhere that his original art pages were observed to have sexy women and gag ideas sketched out on the backs.

I hope you enjoyed this story. As far as I know this is the first time it has been made available digitally, or reprinted in any form since its publication 65 years ago!