Cole, Jack

Jack Ralph Cole (December 14, 1914 – August 13, 1958) was an American cartoonist best known for birthing the comedic superhero Plastic Man, and his cartoons for Playboy magazine beginning in 1954. After drawing 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, watercolor 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. So popular was his work that the second item of merchandise ever licensed by Playboy (after cuff links with the famous rabbit-head logo) was a cocktail-napkin set, "Females by Cole", featuring his cartoons. He was posthumously inducted into the comic book industry's Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1991 and the Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame in 1999.