Jack Cole throws a "LITTLE DYNAMITE" in your face!

I am

THE

APOCOLYTE!

Welcome to 

APOCOLYTE'S WORLD OF COMICS!

Today I bring you one of comics most legendary artists/creators, Jack Cole!

Before he created his most famous character PLASTIC MAN, Cole did a lot of humor and crime stories, and in 1939 he blended the two genres together (like he would with Plastic Man) and brought forth LITTLE DYNAMITE. Published in Centaur's KEEN DETECTIVE FUNNIES vol.2 #2, the story revolves around a diminutive police officer who stands about 3 feet tall. I know there are height regulations for police officers today, and I imagine that there were height requirements in 1939 as well. In order to stop a car theft ring, the Chief of Police sends in "Little Dynamite", 

otherwise known as Ben Trumpson.

There are gags as you might expect from Cole, such as when tiny Trumpson asks the Chief where he fits in, and the Chief directs him into the trunk of a car. At least it wasn't the glove box.

The story features some nice stylized artwork from young Jack Cole, who would soon go on to bigger (no pun intended) and better things.

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-click to enlarge-

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I really like Cole's artwork on this, and was disappointed that even when the whites were cleaned up, poor color registration marred the art. So I touched up the art and re-colored these two panels per the original color guide just to see how nice Cole's art looks treated right.

original art panels - unretouched

original art with balloons/borders cleaned up

digitally restored and recolored art

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What did you think of that?

Come on back for more great comics!

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WEIRD WEDNESDAY - "Netje, The Little Dutch Girl"

Welcome to

APOCOLYTE's

World Of Comics!

This is

Today's weird comic story comes from the midst of World War 2!

Originally published in Holyoke's BLUE BEETLE # 25 in 1943, 

"NETJE, THE LITTLE DUTCH GIRL" is a strange tale about the Dutch resistance movement against the Nazi occupation. While there were many true stories of brave souls who fought the evil of the Nazis, our story is what might be described as inspirational fiction, where the apparent leader of this particular pocket of resistance happens to be a little Dutch girl, Netje. It isn't really clear how little this Dutch girl is, seeing that she does have breasts, is practically mauled in lust by a soldier on page one, and she towers above all the other children in the village.

Nonetheless, the chronicle of Netje is told with such amateurish storytelling that we the readers are left...well, this panel seems to sum it up best:

CONFUSION!

That's the appropriate word, all right!

Just what the hell is going on in that panel, anyway?

Netje manages to almost single-handedly kill, confound, confuse, irritate, and generally disrupt these nasty Nazis with tactics including shooting slingshots and gleefully dropping tacks onto the streets...

Read for yourself and see just how WEIRD this little Dutch Netje is!

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From what I can gather by searching out historical data on the internet, 

Netje was in fact picked up by a British submarine, where she instantly began annoying the Brits by putting broken glass in the food supply, putting burning hair into the ventilation system, and defecating in the hallways. The Royal British navy responded by shooting Netje out of a torpedo tube off the coast of Madagascar, where she hit her head on a passing sea turtle and apparently drown.

That's just weird.

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MAJOR INAPAK, THE SPACE ACE by Bob Powell

Here's a little gem that many of you have seen before, 
but some of you have not, so...

THE APOCOLYTE
Presents...

In 1951, there was a 'chocolate flavored drink' called "INAPAK", and since comic books were all the rage with the kids back then, they decided to create a promotional 'giveaway' comic to sell their product. I'm not sure how but they managed to get comic book great Bob Powell to do it for them, and I can't say for sure whether or not Powell enjoyed drawing it or not, but it sure looks like he did! It's pretty damn cool for a free comic! - oh, yes, a word for the comic collector's out there...if you are looking to purchase a copy of this comic for your collection, don't be fooled into paying high prices! I actually saw this on Ebay going for $50 or more! Don't you do it! A few years back they found a whole warehouse FULL of these comics, so you can pick one up real cheap! But now you don't have to, just read it here and save the images! By the way, these scans are from my own personal comic, as usual. Nowadays it can also be found many places online as well.

As a special treat for you, I found some early panels that were not approved by INAPAK, and so they had to be changed (not the art, but the story). Here, take a look at some of these early panels before they were fixed.

Okay, just kidding! Those aren't real panels, just ones that I messed with...heh heh...

Here is the real comic, from cover to cover. Powell was skilled at drawing action, and, boy-o-boy, is there ever some action! So pour yourself a biiiiig ol' glass o' yummy INAPAK drink flavored goop, and enjoy the work of Mister Stanislav Robert Pawlowski, better known as Bob Powell. Oh, yeah, don't miss the inside cover where they compare INAPAK flavored drink to the atomic bomb...

(You may notice the front and back covers suffer from mild offsetting from sitting in stacks for so long, or perhaps just bad printing)

By the way, if anyone out there has ever drank this stuff, please let us know how you survived the experience...was it as dee-lish as Bob Powell says it is? Mmmm, I'm thirsty now!

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This is a re-posting.

It was originally posted in another blog of mine

THE BLOG AT THE END OF TIME

on 11/28/2009.

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