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The Plastic Man Archives
The Plastic Man Archives, Vol. 8
Follows the adventures of the superhero, a reformed criminal, and his bizare sidekick, Woozy Winks.
- GenresComicsSuperheroes
204 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2006
40 people want to read
About the author
Jack Cole
158 books12 followersJack Ralph Cole was an American cartoonist best known for creating the comedic superhero Plastic Man, and his cartoons for Playboy Magazine.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
May 24, 2020
The Plastic Man Archives Volume 8 collects Plastic Man #9 and 10 and Police Comics #72-77.
I've been grabbing these Plastic Man archives whenever I stop one that falls into my cheapness range. The cover price is $50 but $25 and below is more my speed. Anyway, this is good shit.
Before the arrival of Neal Adams in the 1960s, comics were traditionally drawn in a style more akin to cartooning than illustration. Jack Cole was one of the best of the cartoony style of comics in the 1940s and 1950s, up there with luminaries like Will Eisner.
That stretchy sleuth Plastic Man is up to his old tricks in this volume, going up against magicians, gangsters, a femme fatale robot, and a stamp counterfeiter. The writing isn't anything spectacular by today's standards and was probably average for the time period. Plas is a straight-laced FBI agent who happens to have ridiculous powers and his sidekick Woozy Winks providers the comic relief. I don't know when Plastic Man started acting like a buffoon all the time but he didn't do it under Jack Cole's watch.
Cole's cartoony style is minimalist but intricate. He uses angles and panel design to his advantage and makes imaginative use of Plastic Man's stretch powers to put together some amazing visuals. The stories are fun and don't take themselves too seriously, which is a nice change of pace. I'm not a tremendous fan of comics from before the silver age but I'd read Jack Cole's Plastic Man all day long.
Jack Cole's Plastic Man deserves all the praise it gets and more. 4 out of 5 stars.
I've been grabbing these Plastic Man archives whenever I stop one that falls into my cheapness range. The cover price is $50 but $25 and below is more my speed. Anyway, this is good shit.
Before the arrival of Neal Adams in the 1960s, comics were traditionally drawn in a style more akin to cartooning than illustration. Jack Cole was one of the best of the cartoony style of comics in the 1940s and 1950s, up there with luminaries like Will Eisner.
That stretchy sleuth Plastic Man is up to his old tricks in this volume, going up against magicians, gangsters, a femme fatale robot, and a stamp counterfeiter. The writing isn't anything spectacular by today's standards and was probably average for the time period. Plas is a straight-laced FBI agent who happens to have ridiculous powers and his sidekick Woozy Winks providers the comic relief. I don't know when Plastic Man started acting like a buffoon all the time but he didn't do it under Jack Cole's watch.
Cole's cartoony style is minimalist but intricate. He uses angles and panel design to his advantage and makes imaginative use of Plastic Man's stretch powers to put together some amazing visuals. The stories are fun and don't take themselves too seriously, which is a nice change of pace. I'm not a tremendous fan of comics from before the silver age but I'd read Jack Cole's Plastic Man all day long.
Jack Cole's Plastic Man deserves all the praise it gets and more. 4 out of 5 stars.
March 23, 2018
I've been wanting to buy a Jack Cole Plastic Man collection for the longest time. Excepting a few short stories reprinted in art spiegelman's Jack Cole and Plastic Man biographic, I've never had the chance to read Cole's most famous work. So, I finally got the chance, and honestly, I have to try very hard to put myself in a certain frame of mind to really enjoy these stories. These are 1947-era stories, and I have to try hard to compare them to stories of their era (which is an era of comics history that I'm not terribly familiar with).
The art has a certain charm, particularly some of the visual gags and Cole's sense of playfulness in illustrating Plas himself, and I appreciate the hokey charm of the pun-filled villains' names, but the stories aren't nearly as engaging or fun or funny as I expected. I appreciate the sense of whimsy, but my modern sense of humor doesn't really enjoy it enough to merit the price of a volume like this.
The art has a certain charm, particularly some of the visual gags and Cole's sense of playfulness in illustrating Plas himself, and I appreciate the hokey charm of the pun-filled villains' names, but the stories aren't nearly as engaging or fun or funny as I expected. I appreciate the sense of whimsy, but my modern sense of humor doesn't really enjoy it enough to merit the price of a volume like this.
November 2, 2021
I found this in a forgotten corner of a library breakroom. Pretty sure Slothrop is called Plastic Man a few times in Gravity's Rainbow. He's more like his sidekick, Woozy, a vice prone schlemiel. Really fun, if predictable. I don't ever read comic books.
December 26, 2013
Plastic Man remains one of the comics' greatest comical heroes, between Jack Cole's whimsical humor and visual style (though by this point he was getting assistance from various ghosts as well). This collection isn't Cole's best work, but it's still pretty darn funny, such as a forger who sells phony forgeries.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews