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ericfheiman's review against another edition
3.0
Designed exactly as one would expect, for a book about Plastic Man. And that’s part of the problem, if you really intended to read (and not just look at) it. But a compelling story of an under-appreciated artist if you can make the extra effort.
hannahvardit's review
dark
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Suicide
Minor: Racism
onceandfuturelaura's review
3.0
A rich text. Cringeworthy at times; has not always aged well. Other bits are still hilarious. A fascinating slice of intellectual history. A woman who looks like Jessica Rabbit holding up a sign that says "A portfolio of Polymorphously Perverse Plasticity." Art by Cole "was enshrined as Exhibit A in Dr. Fredric Wertham's Seduction of the Innocent, the book that triggered the Senate hearings and thereby toppled the industry."
Cole committed suicide when he was my age. The man who created Plastic Man shot himself in the head after very considerately writing his boss and his wife. An unsatisfying ending.
Cole committed suicide when he was my age. The man who created Plastic Man shot himself in the head after very considerately writing his boss and his wife. An unsatisfying ending.
thecommonswings's review
5.0
A pithy combination of biography, essay and celebration of the tragic life of Jack Cole. It’s beautifully judged, deftly moving between thoughtful consideration of Cole as an artist and writer and quite carefully dealing with the issues of his suicide without dipping into prurience. It’s also a genuine collaboration between Spiegelman and Kidd, a chaotic visual feast that celebrates the extraordinary kineticism of Cole’s greatest art whilst also nicely hinting at something of the turmoils simmering deeper under the surface. Cole is an extraordinary talent, the bridge - as the book rightly says - between Harvey Kurtzman and Will Eisner, but also kind of exhausting during the Plastic Man: that his Playboy cartoons were so melancholy and his daily comic strip so much of a wish fulfilment, Spiegelman and Kidd suggest very subtly that this inability to juggle all three may have been the cause of his tragic death. It’s telling they choose the word “snapped” to describe it, that constant sense of mutable joy finally. broken by causes we can never really know
rickklaw's review
4.0
During the Golden Age of Comics, Jack Cole exploded onto the scene with the creation of one of the seminal super-hero creations Plastic Man. Not just the first pliable hero, Cole’s creation was an artist tour-de-force and ranks up there with Eisner’s Spirit and Kane’s Batman as the most influential comic book creations of the 1940's. Jack Cole and Plastic Man by Art Spiegelman (a modern comic book legend himself) and [b:Chip Kidd|28756|The Cheese Monkeys A Novel in Two Semesters|Chip Kidd|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1167956353s/28756.jpg|1363319] celebrates and honors the kooky character and his creation. From the plastic covers to the wonderfully accurate classic reprints (the stories are on paper that looks and feels like old comic book pages!), this book is a must for every comic book AND pop culture fan. No art book collection would be complete without it.
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