"For years Jack Cole labored dutifully as a cartoonist, comic book illustrator, and Playboy's premier artist. He was, on the outside, a mild-mannered and easygoing guy. One look at his most famous creation--the manic, surreal Plastic Man--and there is no question that much more lurked in the mind of this tragic artist than anyone suspected. Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and cartoonist Art Spiegelman and renowned graphic designer Chip Kidd pay homage to Plastic Man and his creator, Jack Cole."--Jacket.
When gangster Eel O'Brien was double-crossed by his partners during a heist, he fell into a vat of chemicals that would forever change his body and life. These are the original stories of a common thief who turned into the world's wackiest super-hero. With the ability to stretch his body into any shape and length, Plastic Man has become one of the most colorful and comical icons of all time.
Having mastered comic books and gag cartoons, in 1958 Jack Cole set his sights on the cartoonist's pot of gold—a syndicated newspaper strip. He hit the bull's-eye with Betsy and Me, a breezy domestic farce focusing on a middle-class urban couple and their smart-aleck genius son. Betsy and Me was an instant success and newpapers were lining up to buy it. Then, with only two-and-a-half month's worth of strips completed, Cole purchased a .22 caliber pistol and ended his life. For Betsy and Me, featuring city dweller Chet Tibbit's day-to-day stuggles and achievements, Cole stripped his style down to its bare essentials, creating a strip that sparkles with economy, wit, and charm. What gave the strip its edge, however, was Cole's innovative storytelling. As R.C. Harvey writes in his introduction, "Cole's storytelling manner was unique: the comedy arose from the pictures' contradicting the narrative prose. Cole's fatuous protagonist and narrator would say one thing in the captions accompanying the drawings, but the pictures of his actions showed the opposite, revealing [him] to be a trifle pretentious and wholly delusional." Harvey's intro also serves as a biographical sketch and sheds light on the circumstances surrounding Cole's suicide. p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 13.9px Arial; color: #424242}
In the rarefied realm of classic cartoon pin-up art, nobody did it better than Jack Cole. With his quirky line-drawings and sensual watercolours, cole, under Hugh Hefner's guiding hand, catapulted to stardomin the 1950s as Playboy's marquee cartoonist, a position he held until his untimely death at the age of 43. Jack Cole has been justly celebrated as the creator of Plastic Man and an innovative comic book artist of the 1940s. Most of these drawings have not seen print in more than 50 years. Taken together, they provide a rare glimpse into the singular artistry of Jack Cole.
Master cartoonist Kyle Baker writes and illustrates this update of the classic, off-the-wall 1940s super hero known as Plastic Man! Plastic Man is back in action -- with cartoonist Kyle Baker writing and drawing his adventures. In this title that collects Plastic Man's 2004 series in its entirety for the first time, Plastic Man must come to terms with his criminal past when the FBI assigns him to catch his underworld alter ego, Eel O'Brian. Can Plas clear his name? Maybe, with the help of his beautiful, ruthless new partner, FBI Agent Morgan. Or, maybe not, thanks to the completely useless help of his old crimefighting sidekick, Woozy Winks. Collects Plastic Man #1-20
After a series of complex heists, the Molder attracts the attention of Batman, who begins a manhunt to find the sculpting villain. The Molder gains the upper hand when he traps Batman in front of an oncoming train, however the Caped Crusader is saved by Plastic Man. The two heroes team up, and in spite of the fact that the Molder's weapons work against Plastic Man's abilities, the two heroes manage to trip up the crook enough for Batman to defeat him and turn him over to the police.
For years Jack Cole labored dutifully as a cartoonist, comic book illustrator, & Playboy's” premier artist. He was, on the outside, a mild-mannered & easygoing guy. But one look at his most famous creation -- the manic, surreal Plastic Man -- & there is no question that much more lurked in the mind of this tragic artist than anyone suspected. Here, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer & cartoonist Art Spiegelman & renowned graphic designer Chip Kidd pay homage to Plastic Man & his creator, Jack Cole. With exuberant energy, extraordinary flexibility, & bizarre plot twists, he stretched Plastic Man beyond the traditional limits of the comic book form. Every colorful page is filled with Jack Cole's cartoons. Beautifully designed!
A vital contribution to environmental humanities that explores artistic responses to the plastic age Since at least the 1960s, plastics have been a defining feature of contemporary life. They are undeniably utopian—wondrously innovative, cheap, malleable, durable, and convenient. Yet our proliferating use of plastics has also triggered catastrophic environmental consequences. Plastics are piling up in landfills, floating in oceans, and contributing to climate change and cancer clusters. They are derived from petrochemicals and enmeshed with the global oil economy, and they permeate our consumer goods and their packaging, our clothing and buildings, our bodies and minds. Plastic reshapes our cultural and social imaginaries. With impressive breadth and compelling urgency, the essays in Life in Plastic examine the arts and literature of the plastic age. Focusing mainly on post-1960s North America, the collection spans a wide variety of genres, including graphic novels, superhero comics, utopic and dystopic science fiction, poetry, and satirical prose, as well as vinyl records and visual arts. Essays by a remarkable lineup of cultural theorists interrogate how plastic—as material and concept—has affected human sensibilities and expression. The collection reveals the place of plastic in reshaping how we perceive, relate to, represent, and re-imagine bodies, senses, environment, scale, mortality, and collective well-being. Ultimately, the contributors to Life in Plastic think through plastic with an eye to imagining our way out of plastic, moving toward a postplastic future. Contributors: Crystal Bartolovich, Syracuse U; Maurizia Boscagli, U of California, Santa Barbara; Christopher Breu, Illinois State U; Loren Glass, U of Iowa; Sean Grattan, U of Kent; Nayoung Kim, Brandeis U; Jane Kuenz, U of Southern Maine; Paul Morrison, Brandeis U; W. Dana Phillips, Towson U in Maryland and Rhodes U in Grahamstown, South Africa; Margaret Ronda, UC-Davis; Lisa Swanstrom, U of Utah; Jennifer Wagner-Lawlor, Pennsylvania State U; Phillip E. Wegner, U of Florida; Daniel Worden, Rochester Institute of Technology.
Master cartoonist Kyle Baker writes and illustrates this update of the classic, off-the-wall 1940s super hero known as Plastic Man! Plastic Man is back in action — with cartoonist Kyle Baker writing and drawing his adventures. In this title that collects Plastic Man’s 2004 series in its entirety for the first time, Plastic Man must come to terms with his criminal past when the FBI assigns him to catch his underworld alter ego, Eel O’Brian. Can Plas clear his name? Maybe, with the help of his beautiful, ruthless new partner, FBI Agent Morgan. Or, maybe not, thanks to the completely useless help of his old crimefighting sidekick, Woozy Winks. Collects Plastic Man #1-20
Attempts to define what comics are and explain how they work have not always been successful because they are premised upon the idea that comic strips, comic books and graphic novels are inherently and almost exclusively visual. This book challenges that premise, and asserts that comics is not just a visual medium. The book outlines the multisensory aspects of comics: the visual, audible, tactile, olfactory and gustatory elements of the medium. It rejects a synaesthetic approach (by which all the senses are engaged through visual stimuli) and instead argues for a truly multisensory model by which the direct stimulation of the reader’s physical senses can be understood. A wide range of examples demonstrates how multisensory communication systems work in both commercial and more experimental contexts. The book concludes with a case study that looks at the works of Alan Moore and indicates areas of interest that multisensory analysis can draw out, but which are overlooked by more conventional approaches.
