Drawing Inkie

I've mentioned in the past my fondness for seeing artists putting themselves into the comics. There's one old character who made that gimmick a staple of the series - Inkie.

Let's take a look at a couple of his stories - one from Milt Stein and one from Jack Cole. Both names should be familiar to many readers. Jack Cole, of course, created Plastic Man - among his many works over the years. Milt Stein is perhaps more familiar to visitors of The 1940s Funny Animalphabet for his work on titles like Supermouse, though general audiences may know him better from his animation work - most prominently his work with Terrytoons.

Here they're working with someone else's creation (we'll get to that) and, as you'll see, the artist is by design a part of the strip. Here's Jack Cole's tale from #34 of Crack Comics -

Well - that could have been gruesome. Good thing Judge Doom hadn't introduced Dip yet, eh? But getting into trouble was one of Inkie's talents as we can see in Milt Stein's story from the following issue -

Inkie was indeed an odd little character. Even more-so in the beginning. The original conceit was that he wrote and drew his own tales. We'll get to that, and to his creator, next time.

page art by Jack Cole and Milt Stein for Crack Comics #s 34 & 35 (1944)