Mel Cool: Mall Cop™ • Sentinel of Stress-Free Shopping
Mel Cool is a comic book & cartoon character created by Walt Jaschek and Don Secrease in 1995. He starred in indy comics and was pitched for a potential animated series. Here are many Mel moments.
Mel Cool: Mall Cop as he appeared in Slightly Bent Comics in 1997. Mel is a hyper-vigilant and hyper-caffeinated security guard who brings a “Judge Dredd”-like seriousness to even the slightest mall infraction.
Mel Cool: Mall Cop: An Introduction to the Concept
Don Secrease (left) and Walt Jaschek, co-creators of Mel Cool: Mall Cop, in 2023, showing some of their original comic content, including Slightly Bent Comics, which featured a two-part Mel Cool adventure, “Mystery of the Missing Morons.”
Folks, all of us already living in the biggest mall in the galaxy: the planet Earth.
Humans are born into a civilization that’s mostly about selling stuff to each other. Every second, another buyer of stuff is born. We are all directly or indirectly involved in the business of selling stuff, from the simplest and most import (like toothpaste) to the most esoteric (like “security.”)
With that in mind, something like Massive Mall — the world’s tallest mall — seems inevitable. A city unto itself, it is a self-enclosed, self-contained shopping eco-system that keeps raw consumerism protected for the forces of nature.
Except, that is, for human nature. There will still be greed, lust, violence and the blatant theft of shopping bags.
Somebody’s gotta keep the piece. Somebody does. A somebody named… Mel.
Mel Cool: Mall Cop.™
Part 1: Mel Cool: Mall Cop™ Comics
Here for scrolling is Mel Cool’s first comic adventure, "Ugly Incident on Level 38," as originally published in the Mel Cool: Mall Cop™ Mini-Comics Special (1995) and reprinted in Mel Cool: Mall Cop Collected Comics (2003.) This first adventure introduced “the sentinel of stress-free shopping” and his nemesis, Klepto the cleptomaniac, as they battle it out in Massive Mall, the “world’s tallest mall.”
Mel Cool: Mall Cop Mini-Comics Special, 1995
Cover logo by Walt Jaschek; art by Don Secrease
Page 1 • Mel Cool: Mall Cop makes a splash
Page 2 • Mel Cool: Mall Cop encounters Klepto
Page 3 • Mel Cool: Mall Cop introduces himself
Page 4 • Mel Cool: Mall Cop accompanies Klepto the the Securi-Car
Page 4 • Mel Cool: Mall Cop sees Klepto stealing the Securi-Car
Page 5 • Mel Cool: Mall Cop encounters the “yodel of pursuit”
Page 6 • Mel Cool: Mall Cop avoids a nasty crash
Page 7 • Mel Cool: Mall Cop is… falling
Page 7 • Mel Cool: Mall Cop turns the tables
Page 4 • Mel Cool: Mall Cop takes Klepto in custody
Created by Walt Jaschek (Script, Layouts) and Don Secrease (Pencils, Inks & Tones.)
Forward in the Mel Cool: Mall Cop mini-comic special by Walt Jaschek
Mel Cool has been glaring at me for a long time.
It’s a suspicious glare (of course,) on that seems to say, “Hey! No loitering… lowlife!” The comic you hold in your hands is an attempt to get the guy off my case.
It’s like this.
I doodled an early incarnation of MC:MC in the summer of ’86. I pitched the concept to friend and ace illustrator Tony Patti, who drew the splash page from the first script, then moved to Italy. Just for a few years.
Enter Don Secrease, another old friend and inventive comics artist, whose work has appeared in DC Comics, pal. Don got into the concept, and drew up the crewcut-clad Mel we see and defer to today.
In 1987, Don and I produced t-shirts bearing the character and distributed them to friends and clients, as a holiday present and promotion for our respective freelance businesses. The achieved fun-osity.
Be there Mel stood, frozen, as we got deeply distracted by, you know, our jobs Meanwhile, the guy on the those shirts seems to gripe: “When do I get my own comic… lowlife?”
Hence: when we decided to create mini-comics showcasing the characters in our arsenal, Mel was already showered and dressed.
We looked out upon the sea of grim, humourless, self-important, vigilante “heroes” flooding modern comics, and we said to ourselves, “room for one more!”
This sample is a mere taste of the Mel Cool milieu. Waiting within Massive Mall are despicable villains, loyal comrades, secret lovers, and people looking endlessly for the food court.
Observing from a hidden berth, the Secret Masters of the Mall, mysterious rules who, if provoked, could present civilisation from ever shopping again.
Maybe this mini-comic will stop Mel from glaring at me, at least for a while. But, then, look at the guy:
Maybe it won’t.
— Walt Jaschek, 1995
The Making of Mel Cool: Mall Cop™
Here is a feature by Walt and Don on their step-by-step process of creating Mel Cool: Mall Cop comic book pages like the ones above.
First steps: scripts, layouts, and pencil art, all on 10 x 15” boards.
Final steps: inks, grey tones and lettering. Then: publishing!
Mel Cool: Mall Cop™ comic features also appeared…
…in the two-issue humor anthology Slightly Bent Comics #1 and #2 from the 1990s. The story: “Mystery of Missing Morons” with guest-villain Trashmaster, You can spot Mel on the covers of both issues.
Part 2: Mel Cool: Mall Cop animated cartoon development
The heroes of Mel Cool: Mall Cop™
The heroes, left to right: Ms. Efficient; Doughy O’Drip; Mall TV Gal; Mel Cool: Mall Cop; Jennifer Jupiter; Dweez Dweeman; Joque Strappington
The villains of Mel Cool: Mall Cop™
The villains, left to right: Brad the Barbarian; Trashmaster; Sgt. Tina; Mel Cool: Mall Cop; Klepto Cogg; Commander Cogg; The Secret Master
The script to Mel Cool: Mall Cop™ animated TV cartoon pilot
Free subscribers to this WaltComics site can download free Walt’s teleplay for a half-hour animated Mel Cool: Mall Cop cartoon. The script is a PDF right here:
Here is the first page of Walt’s script, as seen in the PDF. It is Act One as we FADE IN to the top of Massive Mall’s Central Tower, described as “Tomorrow’s mall… yesterday.” Mel Cool himself does the voice over.
Part 4: Interview with Walt about Mel Cool: Mall Cop™
Is Paul Blart based on Mel Cool: Mall Cop? Here’s a longer Q&A with co-creator Walt Jaschek about that, originally published in 2009, when the movie was coming out, but more than a decade after Mel Cool: Mall Cop was published.
Q: Tell us, Walt: are you and your collaborators getting a piece of the action from the new movie “Paul Blart: Mall Cop?"
Walt: No.
Q: Why is that?
Walt: Paul Blart: Mall Cop is not (as far as we know or can legally prove) based on Mel Cool: Mall Cop®, the long-running comic book and web series created by Don Secrease and me in 1995, even though there was both a Mel Cool feature film screenplay and a cartoon series pilot script floating around Hollywood for years.
Q: What is your reaction to that? Walt: Existential sadness mixed with raging anger.
Q: Really?
Walt: No, I’m just playin’ with you.
Q: What?
Walt: I’m cool with it. Mel Cool with it. I’m philosophical about the whole thing.
Q: “Philosophical?”
Walt: Yes. In fact, let me put on this toga. [Rummages through a box of costumes, looking for the toga.]
Q: [While he does so.] But you just said there was a completed screenplay…
A. [Still rummaging.] There was. Cary Anderson and I wrote the story, based on the comic; Cary wrote the screenplay. Paul Fey produced. It’s a funny script. But in Hollywood, you gotta be your own agent and work the thing on a daily basis. I was in St. Louis, Cary is in Baltimore, and Paul has World Wide Wadio to run.
Q: Quit rummaging.
Walt: [Finds toga, puts it on.] Ah, here it is! My philosophy is, “live and learn.”
Q: All that for that?
Walt: “Live and learn.” To the victor, the spoils. That is, to the first one to actually get a star and a deal and Happy Meal tie-ins, the spoils. Have we gleaned nothing from “Entourage”? Next time we bring a comedy concept to Hollywood, we dig in like a pit bulls on amphetamines.
Q: You have more movie-worthy comedy concepts?
Walt: What, are you kidding me? I’d tell you, but…
Q: …you’d have to kill me?
Walt: [stares at him from an angle] No, but what an odd thing to say.
Q: [quickly changes subject] So: you’re not bitter about Paul Blart and you’re not suing?
Walt: No. I really think it’s just great comic minds thinking alike. The movie looks really funny, actually. Kevin James. He knows from funny.
Q: Any sales of your work in the wake of publicity from the movie?
Walt: We’ve sold one comicbook, one t-shirt, and made about 46 cents in AdSense revenue.
Q: So it looks as if you’re raking in some dough from the whole Mall Cop thing, after all.
Walt: Praise the mall gods. There are mall gods, you know.
Q: We believe you. Um, are you going to leave that toga on?
Walt: Yes. I think it’s flattering to my shape.
Q: Thank you, Walt.
Walt: You’re welcome, “Q.”
[[ End interview ]]
Part 4: Other Artists Interpret Mel Cool: Mall Cop
Craig Skaggs painting
This painting of Mel Cool: Mall Cop, Dweez Dweezman and Ms. Efficient, by famous Disney artist Craig Skaggs, is intended for use in a future edition! We see the characters in a puddle of Mel’s spilled coffee.
Tony Patti splash
An early splash page of the Mall Cop who would become Mel Cool by the illustrator Tony Patti., from the late The copy by Walt reads: “Friday. Night. The crowd thickens. Central Computer, reading the body count, cranks up the Muzak, which at the moment is playing a soothing, easy listening version of Inna-Gadda-Da-Vida. It’s the usual Friday night demographic: teenagers. I watch them, fascinated by the delicate choreography of their carbohydrate-driven mating rituals. The air is charged with emerging adolescent libidos. That can only mean high potential for brazen loitering. Unruly incidents. And ill-timed bodily functions. I should know. I am a MALL COP. And in this self-contained eco-system, I’m the LAW!
Part 5: Examples of Mel Cool: Mall Cop™ merchandise
:15 video close-up of the original Mel Cool: Mall Cop coffee mug, a sturdy, 16-ounce ceramic cup used to promote the original comic series. Do you still have yours?
Part 6: How to Buy Mel Cool: Mall Cop™ Collected Comics #1
You can buy Mel Cool: Mall Cop™ Collected Comics #1 in a black-and-white Kindle edition on Amazon.
You can buy a physical copy of Mel Cool: Mall Cop™ Collected Comics #1 signed by creators Walt Jaschek and Don Secrease on eBay.
Here are two samples spreads from the Mel Cool: Mall Cop™ Collected Comics #1 physical edition. It is 40 pages, black and white, and collects three stories: “Strange Incident on Level 44,” “Mystery of the Missing Morons,” and “Silence of the Lame.” Here are a couple of spreads from that issue.
Mel Cool: Mall Cop™ is trademarked and © Walt Jaschek and Don Secrease
Part 7: How to Buy Mel Cool: Mall Cop™ Original Comic Book Art
This 11 x 17” inch original piece of comic art, with pencils, inks and tones by artist Don Secrease and layouts by writer Walt Jaschek, is a splash page from the Mel Cool adventure “Mystery of the Missing Morons. It is now available for purchase on eBay!
P.S. This art was used to create the illustration at the very top of this post.