Customer Reviews

Jack Cole And Plastic Man: Forms Stretched to Their Limits

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I've never seen a book quite like this one. The text by Art Spiegelman is one of the best examples of comic book history I've read (it's entertaining and informative) and at the same time it's a fascinating biography of one of the comic book industry's least recognized (and most troubled) geniuses: Jack Cole. There are dozens of examples of Cole's greatest work, including the incomporably weird and funny Plastic Man, along with several examples of his Playboy work, which I instantly recognized but never knew were by Cole. Finally, there's this book's incredible design work by Chip Kidd, who did that great book on Batman toys. This book even comes with a very cool plastic cover. I wasn't all that familiar with Jack Cole's career before I read this book, but now I want to read everything he ever did. This might be my favorite book of the year.

I was surprisingly disappointed by this book, not, mind you, by the art and writing of Jack Cole, but by the book itself.

I found this book to be one of those productions that is to clever by half. Neither fish nor fowl, Mr. Spiegelman's writing is to skimpy to be considered a complete biography and the art design by Mr. Kidd is so "artistically" (re)produced that it distracts from the person who should be the real star of this book, Jack Cole.

This is the type of book that book reviewers who have no knowledge of sequential art call "daring" and "cutting edge".

While Mr. Spiegelman's writing is basic and informative, it almost causes one pain to look at the bountiful list of comic book legends that he had access to and yet still failed to produce a more gripping and insightful look into Cole's life.

And while Mr. Kidd's flair for artistic direction and experimentation is unassailable, a much lighter touch was called for as to not distract from the original artist and his work.

If you are looking for a quick read with an interesting layout, you might enjoy this book.

If you are looking for an in-depth biography of Jack Cole, I would suggest looking elsewhere. And, if you are looking for real Jack Cole storytelling, I would recommend that you check out Plastic Man Archives, Vol. 1 (also sold by Amazon).

Art Spiegelman and Chip Kidd have produced a unique tome to the one-of-a-kind comics and illustrations of near-forgotten artist Jack Cole. In the schizo spirit of Cole's greatest creation, PLASTIC MAN, the book is a blend of complete strips, historical text, and magnified collage, an unorthodox method that is at once eye-catching and odd. As one might expect, the reprinted comics portions are diligently reproduced, down to the paper quality, which is juxtaposed against the glossy text pages.
For the longest time, I only knew PLASTIC MAN from that wretched late-1970's Saturday morning cartoon (the one which made Plas a harried, domesticated father figure to a cutesy child, Baby Plas[!]), so my discovery of Cole's comics was a revelation that puts other, far more conservative (and often derivative) comics of the same era to shame.
Of course this book is way too brief, yet it's a fitting tribute, one that, in an ideal world, would open the eyes of a lot of comics fans unfamiliar with this neglected master.

I have no doubt that Art Spiegelman loves Jack Cole and his classic creation, Plastic Man; however, I don't think that this book does a good job of explaining to readers why THEY should love them, too. Granted, Cole was one of the pioneers of comics, and his place in their history is cemented, but Spiegelman's praise of Cole and his visual style/storytelling could easily be used for any number of other comic creators (Will Eisner, Harvey Kurtzman, Bob Kane, etc.). The text is very generic in trying to explain Cole's genius, and I, a comics history buff, was quickly bored by it. As for Chip Kidd's book design... thumbs up for the plastic cover, but the intentionally poor reproduction quality (for nostaligic purposes, I assume) only hinders the appeal of the art and makes for a very ugly book. Kidd's design style caught my attention when it first hit the scene, but after numerous retrospective hardcovers for DC Comics and a Peanuts collection, it just gives me a headache. If you want a real lesson on the talent of Jack Cole and wish to revel in the adventures of Plastic Man, pick up any volume of the Plastic Man Archives, available from Amazon at a very reasonable price.

Jack Cole is better served by this fairly strange book than many other great cartoonists of the golden age of the medium have been in print. Spiegelman's somewhat sparse text is full of useful information and valid critique, but he wisely lets the material speak for itself, and that's the main attraction here, though those words and the book's design seem to have distracted some readers. This is not an anthology of "Plastic Man"- that can be found elsewhere, fortunately- nor is it an in-depth biography of Jack Cole. It's more like a large catalogue for an exhibition, covering all aspects of his varied career. Material seems to be reproduced from original art in a few cases- mainly his Playboy stuff- but the comic book stories are shot from original issues, with four-color separation and page-yellowing quite evident- and speaking as a sometimes-comic artist, that's close to the way I think they should be seen (I HATE modern re-coloring, and especially airbrushes!). And as for the book's unconventional design.....I like it. (Would've preferred a hardcover, though!)

This biography/retrospective of cartoonist Jack Cole is certainly eye-catching with its chaotic design, popping full-bleed artwork, rounded corners, and varying paper stock, but as a portrait of the artist it never really amounts to more than a draft sketch. Spiegelman's text is slightly expanded from an article he wrote in 1999 for The New Yorker, and while it's a fairly decent biographical sketch of Cole's life and career as creator of Plastic Man, Playboy illustrator, and syndicated cartoonist, it never does more than skim the surface. Most indicative of this is the skimpy treatment Cole's unexpected and unexplained suicide is accorded. It's clear that Spiegelman (creator of the acclaimed Maus) loves Cole's work, but other than some generic plaudits that could apply to a number of cartoonists, it's never really clear why he considers Cole a genius (or for that matter, why the reader should).

A graphic tribute it's more successful, combining reproductions of complete strips and stories (including the True Crime Comics classic "Murder, Morphine, and Me"), pieces from Playboy, family photos, unpublished sketches, covers, and collages. Some people are bound to hate renowned book designer Kidd's treatment of the material (and indeed, some of the text is a strain to read), but it seems wholly suitable to Cole's own frantic graphic style from the Plastic Man series. In the end, the book is unlikely to appeal to those outside the world of comics.

In his short life, Jack Cole, a hick from New Castle, Pa., managed to find himself at the center of three of the premiere cultural events of the 20th century.
As a youngster just before World War II, he developed the goofy, idiosyncratic Plastic Man comic character, which remains among the most admired strips of the Golden Age of pulp, though Cole drew his last Plas in 1950.
About then, too, a single panel of Cole's in another comic, True Crime, became the prime exhibit in one of the McCarthyite Congress's more ridiculous crusades, the one that said comix were sending our youth to hell. This brought the Golden Age of comix and the Linoleum Age of Congress to an end.
After that, Cole -- now using a completely different medium (water color) and style -- became the signature artist of the new Playboy magazine.
And not long after that, he shot himself, for reasons none of his friends could quite guess.
Art Spiegelman, who brought comix to their highest peak of respectability (at least in the eyes of people who never read comix) with his "Maus" comix about the Holocaust, wrote a sensitive and complex appreciation of Cole and Plas in The New Yorker in 1999, and that text is reprinted here, along with a generous selection of Cole's output.
This includes several adventures of Plas and his sidekick Woozy Winks, which rival Fontaine Fox's Toonerville Trolley strips, if not quite George Herriman's Krazy Kat, in wackiness; as well as Congress' favorite panel (a hypodermic needle aimed at a woman's eye) and the rest of that whole episode, "Murder, Morphine and Me."
"Murder, Morphine and Me" is no raunchier than the TV ads placed by the National Institutes of Mental Health ("This is your brain on drugs") nowadays, but Cole was always before his time.
Cole represented that nose-thumbing, razzberry-blowing strain of sez-who? Americanism that has just about been stamped out today, when we need it badly. If not the greatest, he was perhaps the most characteristic American limner of his generation.
This collection was designed by Chip Kidd, in a sort of paper version of MTV film editing. Plas, always frenetic, holds up very well to this kind of contemporary treatment.
A hero for the ages.

Biographies of comic creators are few and far apart. This by a short reach is the best of the lot. It contains all the stories we have heard about Cole (his bike trip across America, his Playboy years, his mysterous suicide).

Interlaced through are reprints of some of his best works. What I liked was that the comics within seem to be reproduced from the originals, yellowing and all. If anything it added to my pleasure instead of took away from it.

For fans of comic history or tragic artists this is the one book that must be on your shelf. See Jack Cole stretch his mind as far as Plastic Man stretched his body.

I was surprisingly disappointed by this book, not, mind you, by the art and writing of Jack Cole, but by the book itself.

I found this book to be one of those productions that is to clever by half. Neither fish nor fowl, Mr. Spiegelman's writing is to skimpy to be considered a complete biography and the art design by Mr. Kidd is so "artistically" (re)produced that it distracts from the person who should be the real star of this book, Jack Cole.

This is the type of book that book reviewers who have no knowledge of sequential art call "daring" and "cutting edge".

While Mr. Spiegelman's writing is basic and informative, it almost causes one pain to look at the bountiful list of comic book legends that he had access to and yet still failed to produce a more gripping and insightful look into Cole's life.

And while Mr. Kidd's flair for artistic direction and experimentation is unassailable, a much lighter touch was called for as to not distract from the original artist and his work.

If you are looking for a quick read with an interesting layout, you might enjoy this book.

If you are looking for an in-depth biography of Jack Cole, I would suggest looking elsewhere. And, if you are looking for real Jack Cole storytelling, I would recommend that you check out Plastic Man Archives, Vol. 1 (also sold by Amazon).

The layouts of this chronicle on the life and work of Jack Cole do more than mimic the subject's zeal in artistic design, they also serve as a Greek Chorus companion to Spiegelman's text. It becomes apparent early on that the chosen pieces of Cole's art reflect a deeper sensibility, the opportunity to get a glimpse of their creator's person, perhaps even his state of mind. The final pages crescendo into a dizzying and powerful final commentary on Cole's giddiness, anguish and suicide.

This is less a biography, and more of a tribute to Cole by Spiegelman, who writes with a boy's admiration, a colleague's understanding and a fellow artist's awe. Spiegleman, the Pulitizer Prize winning author and artist of the groundbreaking Holocaust graphic novel Maus, wisely allows Cole's work to stand-alone. The book contains two full Plastic Man stories and a riveting True Crime tale from the "Golden Age of Comics." The latter part of the book also includes Cole's work for Playboy, which helped shaped the young magazine's artistic style, and his own daily comic strip, "Betsy and Me."

From all reasonable accounts, Cole was good-humored, and possessed the wherewithal to endure the long hours and short respect of the early comic book industry, perhaps evident by his ingenious creation Plastic Man, a criminal who reforms when a chemical spill makes his body rubber. However, Spiegelman also demonstrates Cole was a man at odds with himself, brewing an internal conflict that would eventually prove too much a burden to live with. Though he could earn greater respect, and wealth, from his own syndicated comic strip, and lush watercolors for Playboy, respectively, the freeform page layouts and fun evident in Plastic Man give way to art which, when seen in a full collection such as this, evoke a great sadness.

Spiegelman explores rather than critiques the art, demonstrating Cole's mastery of catching the reader's eye and leading them through a page. Quotes from Cole's associates Hugh Hefner and legendary comic creator Will Eisner seem more like friendly conversation, rather than a determined attempt to dissect the man's psyche. Two of most welcome pieces in the book are written by Cole: the first, an essay published in Boy's Life detailing his coast to coast bike ride as a teenager, and the second, a brief letter to Hefner, where Cole tells the publisher he's going to commit suicide. By the time the letter was received, Cole had already performed the act. Those two pieces, bookends to a life and both displaying equal resolve, give the reader a sense of the man and his journey better than any commentary could.

Art can be enjoyed separate from its creator. However, the artist is indivisible from his work. The vitality and wit of Cole's stories, as well as the energy and mastery of the composition, continue to find new audiences. Here, the enigma of Cole is unraveled, and what is left is a portrait of an artist ahead of his time coupled with a man trying to make sense of his circumstance.