FEATURED ARTIST: |
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POLICE COMICS 5 
POLICE COMICS 50 
POLICE COMICS 95 
PLASTIC MAN 3 
PLASTIC MAN 17 |
POLICE COMICS 7 
POLICE COMICS 68 
POLICE COMICS 101 
PLASTIC MAN 7 
PLASTIC MAN 21 |
POLICE COMICS 5 
POLICE COMICS 50 
POLICE COMICS 95 
PLASTIC MAN 3 
PLASTIC MAN 17 |
POLICE COMICS 23 
POLICE COMICS 94 
PLASTIC MAN 2 
PLASTIC MAN 14 
PLASTIC MAN 26 |
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AND SOME OTHER PLASTIC MAN CONTRIBUTORS Jack Cole’s career divides into two phases. The first is a heady period of expansion and excitement covering 1938 to 1945, in which Cole did everything on most of his stories in this period, writing, drawing, inking, lettering, and even probably coloring. The second phase, from 1946- 1953, is characterized by stretches of diluted, compromised work shot through with flashes of startling brilliance and mature artistic vision. For the last half of his 16 year career in comics, Jack Cole was forced on a regular basis to dilute his work by allowing others in. This may also explain why he worked on several obscure short filler features in the pages of Quality comics, in which he was allowed to reign again as the sole creator for brief periods. On the rare occasions in this second phase when a story is 100% Cole, it is usually a highly dense, compressed bouillon cube of creativity. There is a vast difference between reading a high quality Plastic Man story written and at least pencilled by Jack Cole, and one that was watered down because it was made by other hands entirely. According to Jim Steranko, writers of Plastic Man include: Bill Woolfolk, Manly Wade Wellman, Gwenn Hansen, Harry Stein, and the famous crime novelist Mickey Spillane. Ron Goulart's list of the artists known to have worked on Plastic Man include: Bart Tumey, Andre LeBlanc, John Spranger, Bill Ward, and Alex Kotzky. Steranko provides his own list of names, all of which are different than Goulart's: Lou Fine, Gill Fox, Charles Nicholas, Ruben Moreira, and Al Bryant on pencils with John Belfi and Robin King on inks. Although 10 years younger than Cole, Kotzky (best known for his long running newspaper strip APARTMENT 3-G) was a dedicated fan and protégé of Plastic Man's creator, and probably the best imitator of the Cole magic. 
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