328 JUNGLE COMICS
During its Atlas run Journey into Mystery displayed the art of Bill Everett, Russ
Heath, Tony DiPreta, Vic Carrabotta, Gene Colan, John Romita, Sr., Steve Ditko,
Doug Wildey, George Tuska, Jerry Robinson, Carl Burgos, Reed Crandall, Vince
Colletta, Bill Benulis, Jay Scott Pike, Don Heck, Joe Maneely, Dick Ayers, Sol Brodsky,
John Severin, Ed Winiarski, Carl Hubbell, Bernie Krigstein, Ann Brewster, and many
others.
Brian Camp
JUNGLE COMICS. Adventures in exotic jungle settings have provided the material for
an entire family of comic books, among other products of American popular culture.
In 1939, Edgar Rice Burroughs’s famous ape man, Ta r z a n, had been going strong since
the early 20th century, starring in a long series of books, fi lms, and his own newspaper
comics strip, which started in 1929, illustrated by Hal Foster. Th at year Will Eisner and
Jerry Iger created a female version of the jungle hero for their new comic book, Jumbo
Comics. Th e comic book was so named because of its large size: over 10 × 14 inches,
and a whopping 64 pages. Inspired by H. Rider Haggard’s classic tale of the beautiful
ruler of a lost continent, She, Eisner embroidered on the name for his newly-created
heroine. After the fi rst eight issues, Jumbo was reduced to traditional comic book size,
but Sheena ruled unchanged until 1953, starring in both Jumbo comics and her own
comic book, inspiring two television series, a movie, and numerous imitators.
At a time when most women wore aprons and primarily ruled only their kitchens,
Sheena wore leopard skin and ruled an entire jungle. Two years before the advent of
Wonder Woman, Sheena, queen of the jungle, brave, beautiful and tawny as the big
jungle cats she often fought, starred in the fi rst issue of Jumbo Comics. Unlike Tarzan,
Sheena was not raised by wild animals. She was brought to the jungle as a baby by
her explorer father, Cardwell Rivington, who, in a tropical case of medical malprac-
tice, was accidentally poisoned when a friendly witch-doctor named Koba fed him the
wrong potion. Th e understandably apologetic Koba atoned for his error by bringing up
Rivington’s baby daughter as his own.
Sheena grew up wild, brave, and speaking pretty good English, considering. She
dressed in leopard skin back in the days when leopards were not yet an endangered spe-
cies. She could swing from tree to tree on vines, and she could take on any male bully,
armed only with her dagger. She earned the title of jungle queen, and the respect of all
the tribes in her neck of the jungle. (“Wah!” exclaims a native, “Sheena much strong!”)
Th e jungle queen lived in a tree house with her pet chimpanzee, Chim, and with Bob,
a white big-game hunter who was referred to as her “mate.” Bumbling Bob was often
the cause of Sheena’s troubles. Th e jungle seemed to be full of evil white men scheming
to dupe the natives and steal their treasure, or evil natives scheming to kill their tribe’s
rightful chief and take over the throne. Bob tended to blunder onto their plans and
wind up bound to a tree, about to be sacrifi ced to yet another jungle god, and Sheena
would have to swing down on a vine, knife in hand, to rescue him. Th ere were also doz-
ens of beautiful tribal queens or priestesses of lost kingdoms, who always wanted Bob
