Plastic Man

Before reading this essay I had never heard of Jack Cole before. I found that through reading he is probably one of the comic books world's least recognized and by far most troubled geniuses. This essay provides a great biography of his life from his childhood to his entrance into the world of comic books. Jack Cole was responsible for Plastic Man one of the most prized strips from the golden age.

I found that Spiegleman's essay was less a biography, and more of a tribute to Cole by S who writes with admiration, and artist's awe. Spiegleman, wisely allows Cole's work to stand-alone. The book contains two full Plastic Man stories and a riveting True Crime tale. 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 of the early comic book industry, perhaps evident by his 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 comic strip, and 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.