Jack’s Back! – A sign of life in a May 1949 Woozy Winks back-up story

 

Story presented in this posting:
Woozy Winks: “Salteen’s Art Gallery”
Story and art by Jack Cole
Plastic Man #17 (May, 1949 – Quality)

 

Continuing our look at Jack Cole’s development in 1949 of his dense, cartoony, pre-Mad storytelling style (see earlier post here), here is the back up story from Plastic Man 17.

Also in Plastic Man 17 was the brilliant story “Plastic Man Products,” which would surely be on most people’s lists of top Plastic Man stories. Since this story has been reprinted, I will refrain from sharing it here. However, if there are folks who haven’t seen this issue, let me know and we’ll publish here!

Starting with Plastic Man #4, Cole had given Plas’ sidekick his own story slot. Each issue that followed had a Woozy story, but sadly, many of these were not by Cole. Bart Tumey seems to have done the majority of these (no relation to me, Paul Tumey). That is, until issue 17.

This is a clever, engaging story. About half-way through, you begin to hope that Woozy and the girl will hook up. The girl is homely in her features, and treacherous in her character, but there is still an air of innocence about her that compliments Woozy.

There are some wonderful gags sprinkled throughout, such as when the girl (who incidentally is unnamed in this story) calls Woozy a “big, strong man” squeezes his upper arms, and they deflate like balloons with a “pooooooo” sound effect. Or the two museum guards speaking and moving in tandem for no good reason.

It’s the great drawings that let you know Jack’s back, though. Such as the windmill punch at the bottom of page 3, first seen in Midnight’s 12 adventure in 1941. Or the return of the pointed-bottom exclamation mark at the end of the “KA-BLOOM!” sound effect (also at the bottom of page 3). Cole was beginning to revitalize his work by returning to some of the techniques and styles of his youth. In short order, he would round up his old bag of tricks, throw in a few new ones for good measure, and invent a new, dense style.

A Moment Frozen in Time - Jack Cole Begins A New Career with Stunning Playboy Magazine Art (1954)

From the renowned Heritage Auction Galleries website comes the original art for this stunning monochromatic ink and watercolor cartoon that originally appeared in Playboy Magazine, August, 1954, page 29. The art measures 15.5 inches by 13 inches.

 

The auction for this gorgeous piece of art commences February 6, 2010 and ends February 27, 2010. If you'd like to bid on this artwork, you can visit the Heritage page here (as of Feb. 7, the bidding is up to $550.00).

Cole had become a virtuoso of technique by 1954, and this art demonstrates that without question. Look at how the people are clearly Jack Cole characters. In the early 1950's, Cole had begun to inject more realism into his comic book stories. In series like Angles O'Day and the Web of Evil stories, while still flights (or perhaps "plumments" is a more suitable word) of fancy, Cole's figures become less plastic, more solid and subject to the physical laws of a three dimensional world.

Here’s the published cartoon. The caption reads: “There’s a nice, shady spot.”

Cole left comics in 1954, never to return. The artwork we see here, with an unknown caption, is one of his earliest Playboy cartoons. His later Playboy cartoons (some of which are here) would be less tight than this, looser and impressionistic, and perhaps less personally invested.

Incidentally, Cole was also given a big plug in the opening pages of the August, 1954 issue, in which the cartoon above appeared:

Here, Jack Cole is at the start of an exciting new business relationship with the charismatic cartoon aficionado and soon-to-be magazine millionaire, Hugh Hefner. You can feel his enthusiasm and hope in how much careful detail he's invested into what is, after, supposed to be a simple gag cartoon. Click on the art and look at the folds on the woman's dress. The detailing on the man’s belt. The lace frills of the woman’s slip as it's blown up by a slight breeze. The criss-cross pattern (Cole loved patterns) on the man's tie, also caught in the breeze.

This is a moment frozen in time. The couple is happy, going on a picnic in the woods on a spring day. Jack Cole has left the grind of the declining comics industry and has a promising new life as the premier cartoonist of a very promising new magazine. This cartoon captures both the couple and Cole at a peak moment.

Did you notice, though, he has put a gnarled, ancient root across the happy couple's path? The phallic symbolism aside, it’s an obstacle. Tragically, in a few short years, Cole would trip up on the gnarled roots of his own life.

Jack Cole Rediscovers His Muse – The Beginning of the Last “Cartoony” Period of His Comic Book Work

 

Story this post:
”A Hard Guy Called Concrete”
Story and pencils by Jack Cole
Inks/Finishes by Alex Kotzky
Plastic Man #14 (Nov. 1948 – Quality)

 

May 1948 saw a big shift in Jack Cole’s involvement with his premier character, Plastic Man. About a year later, something happened, and Jack Cole rediscovered his muse.

After creating the breakthrough PLASTIC MAN comic book story “The Dictator of Dreams” (see here to read) for Police Comics #78 (May 1948), Jack Cole left the title to focus on creating four PLASTIC MAN stories every other month for the Plastic Man comic book. It was a period of lackluster, watered-down work.

Cole returned to Police Comics about a year and a half later, with a darker sensibility. We’ve presented two of these stories in this blog here (“Plastic Man Goes to the Gas Chamber”), and here (“Plastic Man Wanted: Dead or Alive”).

When Cole made the move over to Plastic Man (which had mostly been the work of others from issue 3 on), the title shifted from a quarterly (four issues per year) to a bi-monthly schedule (6 issues per year).

For about a year, Cole wrote and penciled most of the stories published in Plastic Man #12 -17 while others inked them. Starting with issue 17, Cole began to ink some of his own stories and there followed a golden period in which he reached new heights, working in an over-the-top dense cartoony style that pre-figured the classic MAD stories that would be created in a few years by Harvey Kurtzman, Will Elder and Wally Wood.

After studying the “cartoony” Plastic Man comic book stories of 1949-51, I have come to feel more strongly than ever that the influence of Jack Cole on the look of the MAD comic book stories was much greater than has previously been understood or acknowledged. If nothing else, he was the first to pave the way for hip satire in comic books. As further posts will show, there is a direct genetic link between the styles of the works.

In 1951, Jack Cole’s comic book stories shifted from the wild cartoony style to a darker, more realistic phase, and then finally a strange, shadowy last period. For now, here’s an early sign of Cole’s re-emergence, from Plastic Man #14.

With finishing inks by the great Alex Kotzky, this story shows signs of Jack Cole re-discovering some of the inspirations of the early, enthusiastic, no-holds-barred work of his early years as a comic book storyteller.  Just the splash page alone shows that Cole has decided to try harder.

Although he never really left his theme of crazy inventions, Cole breathes new life into it in this story. He’s combined the crazy invention theme with his other recurring theme, shapeshifting, or face and identity change. With a simple hypodermic injection a man becomes as hard as concrete, a perfect foil for the rubbery PLASTIC MAN. But, as Cole so often shows us, it is far better to be able to change and adapt than to be strong but inflexible.

Featuring wonderful art and some stand-out sequences, such as when Plas uncoils in a dark room to locate a hiding killer, here is “A Hard Guy Called Concrete,” from Plastic Man #14 (Nov. 1948):

 

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