Editing Jack Cole (artist) (section)

==Career==
===Early work===
In 1936, having married childhood sweetheart Dorothy Mahoney soon after graduating [[High school (North America)|high school]], Cole moved with his wife to [[New York City]]'s [[Greenwich Village]]. After spending a year attempting to break in as a [[magazine]]/[[newspaper]] illustrator, Cole began drawing for the studio of [[Harry "A" Chesler]], one of the first comic-book "packagers" who supplied outsourced stories to publishers entering the new medium. There, Cole drew such features as "TNT Todd of the FBI" and "Little Dynamite" for [[Centaur Publications]] comics such as ''Funny Pages'' and ''Keen Detective Funnies''. He produced such additional features as "King Kole's Kourt" (under the [[pseudonym]] Geo. Nagle), "Officer Clancy", "Ima Slooth", "Peewee Throttle", and "Burp the Twerp: The Super So-An'-So" (the latter two under the pseudonym Ralph Johns).

===Golden Age of Comic Books===
{{more citations needed|section, except for one footnote,|date= April 2014}}
[[Lev Gleason Publications]] hired Cole in 1939 to edit ''Silver Streak Comics'', where one of his first tasks was to revamp the newly created [[superhero]] [[Daredevil (Golden Age)|Daredevil]]. Other characters created or worked on by the prolific tyro include [[Archie Comics|MLJ]]'s The Comet in ''[[Pep Comics]]''—who in short order became the first superhero to be killed—and his replacement, the Hangman.

After becoming an editor at Lev Gleason and revamping [[Jack Binder (comics)|Jack Binder]]'s original [[Golden Age of comic books|Golden Age]] [[Daredevil (Golden Age)|Daredevil]] in 1940, Cole was hired at [[Quality Comics]]. He worked with [[Will Eisner]], assisting on the writer-artist's signature hero [[Spirit (comics character)|The Spirit]]—a masked crime-fighter created for a weekly syndicated newspaper Sunday supplement and reprinted in Quality Comics. At the behest of Quality publisher [[Everett "Busy" Arnold]], Cole later created his own satiric, Spirit-style hero, [[Midnight (DC Comics)|Midnight]], for ''Smash Comics'' No. 18 (Jan. 1941). Midnight, the alter ego of [[radio]] announcer Dave Clark, wore a similar [[Fedora (hat)|fedora]] hat and domino mask, and partnered with a talking [[monkey]]—questionably in place of the Spirit's young [[African-American]] sidekick, [[Ebony White]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.toonopedia.com/midnight.htm|title=Don Markstein's Toonopedia: Midnight|first=Donald D.|last=Markstein|website=www.toonopedia.com}}</ref> During Eisner's [[World War II]] [[military service]], Cole and [[Lou Fine]] were the primary ''Spirit'' ghost artists; their stories were reprinted in [[DC Comics]]' hardcover collections ''The Spirit Archives'' Vols. 5 to 9 (2001–2003), spanning July 1942&nbsp;– Dec. 1944. In addition, Cole continued to draw one and two-page filler pieces, sometimes under the pseudonym Ralph Johns, and a memorable autobiographical appearance in "Inki," which appeared in ''[[Crack Comics]]'' #34.<ref>''Crack Comics'' No. 34 (Quality Comics, Autumn 1944).</ref>

===Plastic Man===
{{main article|Plastic Man}}
[[File:JackColeMagArt01.jpg|thumb|left|190px|Sample of Cole's original art for ''[[Humorama]]'']]
Cole created Plastic Man for a backup feature in Quality's ''[[Police Comics]]'' #1 (Aug. 1941). While [[Timely Comics]]' quickly forgotten Flexo the Rubber Man had preceded "Plas" as comics' first stretching hero, Cole's character became an immediate hit, and ''Police Comics''{{'}} lead feature with issue #5. As well, Cole's offbeat humor, combined with Plastic Man's ability to take any shape, gave the cartoonist opportunities to experiment with text and graphics in groundbreaking manner—helping to define the medium's visual vocabulary{{citation needed|date=August 2015}}, and making the idiosyncratic character one of the few to endure from the Golden Age to modern times. Plastic Man gained his own title in 1943.

By the decade's end, however, Cole's feature was being created entirely by anonymous ghost writers and artists—including [[Alex Kotzky]]{{citation needed|date=August 2015}} and [[John Spranger]]{{citation needed|date=August 2015}}—despite Cole's name being bannered. One last stint by Cole himself in 1949 and 1950 could not save the title. ''Plastic Man'' was cancelled in 1956 after several years of reprinting the Cole material, and new stories by others.

Additionally, Cole and writer Joe Millard created the lighthearted feature "The Barker", starring [[carnival barker]] Carnie Callhan. Introduced in ''National Comics'' #42 (May, 1944), the feature spun off into a 15-issue comic of its own (Autumn 1946 - Dec. 1949)<ref>[http://toonopedia.com/barker.htm "The Barker"] at [[Don Markstein's Toonopedia]].  {{webarchive|url=https://www.webcitation.org/6b6cHdl9u?url=http://toonopedia.com/barker.htm |date=August 27, 2015 }} from the original on August 27, 2015.</ref>

===''Playboy''===
{{more citations needed|section, except for one quote with two footnotes for it, |date= April 2014}}
Cole's career by that time had taken on another dimension. In 1954, after having drawn slightly risqué, single-panel "[[good girl art]]" cartoons for magazines, using the pen name "Jake", Cole became a cartoon illustrator for ''Playboy''. Under his own name, he produced full-page, watercolored gag cartoons of beautiful but dim girls and rich but equally dim old men. Cole's art first appeared in the fifth issue; he would have at least one piece published in ''Playboy'' each month for the rest of his life.<ref>''Playboy'', (November 1958), p.24</ref>  So popular was his work that the second item of merchandise ever licensed by Playboy (after cufflinks with the famous rabbit-head logo) was a cocktail-napkin set, "Females by Cole", featuring his cartoons.{{Citation needed|date=November 2010}} Cole biographer [[Art Spiegelman]] said, "Cole's goddesses were estrogen soufflés who mesmerized the ineffectual saps who lusted after them."<ref>Chun (2004), p. 8</ref><ref>Spiegelman and Kidd (2001), p. 112</ref>

===''Millie & Terry''===

Around the same time he started at Playboy, or possibly just before that, Jack Cole created a new comic strip for the faux army Sunday section The American Armed Forced Features, which was produced between 1955 and 1965 by the W.B. Bradbury Co. (which, according to comic and magazine historian Steven Rowe was "an ad agency, selling ads for college magazines in the 40s-50s, before branching out to ad inserts for the military") {{cite web|title= Jack Cole's 1956 Mystery Comic Strip, comments section|date=February 21, 2010 |url=http://colescomics.blogspot.com/2010/02/millie-and-terry-jack-coles-1956.html}} as a ready made Sunday comic section that army newspapers could add to their own Saturday or Sunday paper (with room left for their own masthead). Called Millie & Terry, it told the humorous adventures of two friends who move to an army town, where they are constantly pursued by the wolfish soldiers. Stylistically, it fits right in between the style he used for his "Jake" cartoons and the later "Betsy and Me". Starting with three one page gags, Cole continued the series with half page gags until September 1957. Not much has been written about this unknown series, except for a short piece on Alan Holtz' The Stripper's Guide {{cite web|title=American Armed Forces Features - Wha?|url=http://strippersguide.blogspot.com/2006/04/american-armed-forces-features-wha.html}}, a discussion by Jack Cole expert Paul Tumey {{cite web|title=Jack Cole's Mystery 1956 Comic Strip|date=February 21, 2010 |url=http://colescomics.blogspot.com/2010/02/millie-and-terry-jack-coles-1956.html}} and a discussion with lot of samples by The Fabulous Fifties {{cite web|title=Back To The Cole Mine|date=May 28, 2022 |url=https://allthingsger.blogspot.com/2022/05/back-to-cole-mine.html}}

===''Betsy and Me''===
{{main article|Betsy and Me}}
In 1958, Cole created his own daily newspaper [[comic strip]], ''Betsy and Me'', which he sold to the [[Chicago Sun-Times Syndicate]].<ref name=toonopedia>[http://toonopedia.com/betsynme.htm ''Betsy and Me''] at [[Don Markstein's Toonopedia]].  {{webarchive|url=https://archive.today/20240527115035/https://www.webcitation.org/6b6ZBrhVh?url=http://toonopedia.com/betsynme.htm |date=May 27, 2024 }} from the original on August 27, 2015.</ref> The strip began on May 26 and chronicled the domestic adventures of nebbishy Chester Tibbet as narrator, his wife Betsy, and their 5-year-old genius son, Farley.<ref name=toonopedia /> For it, Cole utilized "a simplified style," historian [[Ron Goulart]] wrote, "reminiscent of the drawing in the [[United Productions of America|UPA]] animated cartoons."<ref name=hogans-goulart>{{cite news | url = http://cartoonician.com/jack-and-betsy-and-me/ | title = Jack and Betsy and Me | author-link = Ron Goulart | first = Ron | last = Goulart | work = Hogan's Alley | publisher = Bull Moose Publishing | date = May 18, 2012 | access-date = 2013-12-29 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20131013145642/http://cartoonician.com/jack-and-betsy-and-me/ | archive-date = October 13, 2013 | url-status = dead }}</ref> ''Betsy and Me'' ran for {{frac|2|1|2}} months before Cole's self-inflicted death; his last daily was published on September 6 and his last Sunday on September 14. In the final Cole daily, Betsy and Chester are seen signing up for a brand-new tract house in Sunken Hills.<ref name=hogans-goulart /> To continue the strip, the syndicate hired advertising artist Dwight Parks, who had been trying to sell his own strip about a philosophical hobo.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Apeldoorn|first=Ger|journal=Hogan's Alley| title=Jack and Betsy and Me|date=January 2010|issue=17}}</ref> <!--The last Sunday by Parks was dated December 21, 1958.<ref>''Betsy and Me", December 21, 1958, reprinted at {{cite web|last=Apeldoorn|first=Ger|title=Last Betsy|url=http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lBp6zXnn7nQ/UrtM46JJznI/AAAAAAABJOE/IJgi10xSK2c/s1600/Betsy-and-Me-1958-12-21.jpg}}</ref>-->

===Death===
On August 13, 1958, Cole got in his Chevy station wagon, purchased a rifle, and fatally shot himself in the head. On the day he died, Cole mailed a suicide note explaining the reasons for his suicide to his wife Dorothy. The coroner deemed that letter too personal and did not enter it as evidence at the ensuing inquest. The only explanation Dorothy Cole publicly gave was "We had had an argument before." She subsequently remarried, and disappeared from public view. Cole also wrote a suicide note to his editor and father figure, [[Hugh Hefner]], which was printed in [[Art Spiegelman]]'s biography of Cole, ''Jack Cole & Plastic Man: Forms Stretched To Their Limits''. The note reads:
:"Dear Hef, When you read this I shall be dead. I cannot go on living with myself and hurting those dear to me. What I do has nothing to do with you." 
Gravett notes that while Cole owed Hefner money, his estate would cover this debt. Cole did not participate in the ''Playboy'' lifestyle, though the evening before his suicide, he did drink a substantial amount at a ''Playboy'' office party.<ref name=PaulGravett/>

The reason why the 43-year-old Cole killed himself remains one of the greatest mysteries in 20th century American cartooning, according to journalist [[Paul Gravett]].<ref name=PaulGravett>[[Gravett, Paul]] (August 31, 2008). [http://www.paulgravett.com/articles/article/jack_cole "Jack Cole: Stretched To His Limits"]. Paul Gravett. Reprinted from ''Comic Book Marketplace'' (2001). Retrieved September 24, 2018.</ref><ref>R. C. Harvey (2007), p. xx–xxi</ref> Cole was in the prime of a celebrated cartooning career, complete with praise for his sophisticated gag cartoons in ''Playboy'', and gaining increasing visibility for his newspaper strip ''Betsy and Me.'' [[R. C. Harvey]] described the suicide as "one of the most baffling events in the history of cartooning".<ref>Ho, Oliver (February 11, 2010). [https://www.popmatters.com/120702-borderland-speakeasy-3-needle-in-the-eye-2496164660.html "Borderland Speakeasy #3: Needle in the Eye"]. ''[[PopMatters]]''. Retrieved September 24, 2018.</ref>