“Greetings, creep culturists! For my debut issue, I, the CRYPTOLOGIST (with the help of FROM THE TOMB editor PETER NORMANTON), have exhumed the worst Horror Comics excesses of the 1950s, Killer “B” movies to die for, and the creepiest, kookiest toys that crossed your boney little fingers as a child! But wait... do you dare enter the House of Usher, or choose sides in the skirmish between the Addams Family and The Munsters?! Can you stand to gaze at Warren magazine frontispieces by this issue’s cover artist BERNIE WRIGHTSON, or spend some Hammer Time with that studio’s most frightening films? And if Atlas pre-Code covers or terrifying science-fiction are more than you can take, stay away! All this, and more, is lurching toward you in TwoMorrows Publishing’s latest, and most decrepit, magazine—just for retro horror fans, and featuring my henchmen WILL MURRAY, MARK VOGER, BARRY FORSHAW, TIM LEESE, PETE VON SHOLLY, and STEVE and MICHAEL KRONENBERG!”
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 Now Shipping!
CRYPTOLOGY #2
The Cryptologist and his ghastly little band have cooked up more grisly morsels, including: ROGER HILL’s conversation with our diabolical cover artist DON HECK, severed hand films, pre-Code comic book terrors, the otherworldly horrors of Hammer’s Quatermass, another Killer “B” movie classic, plus spooky old radio shows, and the horror-inspired covers of the Shadow’s own comic book. Start the ghoul-year with retro-horror done right by FORSHAW, the KRONENBERGS, LEESE, RICHARD HAND, VON SHOLLY, and editor PETER NORMANTON
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CRYPTOLOGY #3
This third wretched issue inflicts the dread of MARS ATTACKS upon you—the banned cards, the model kits, the despicable comics, and a few words from the film’s deranged storyboard artist PETE VON SHOLLY! The chilling poster art of REYNOLD BROWN gets brought up from the Cryptologist’s vault, along with a host of terrifying puppets from film, and more comic books they’d prefer you forget! Plus, more Hammer Time, JUSTIN MARRIOT on obscure ’70s fear-filled paperbacks, another Killer “B” film, and more to satiate your sinister side!
Our fourth putrid tome treats you to ALEX ROSS’ gory lowdown on his Universal Monsters paintings! Hammer Time brings you face-to-face with the “Brides of Dracula”, and the Cryptologist resurrects 3-D horror movies and comics of the 1950s! Learn the origins of slasher films, and chill to the pre-Code artwork of Atlas’ BILL EVERETT and ACG’s 3-D maestro HARRY LAZARUS. Plus, another Killer “B” movie and more awaits retro horror fans, by NORMANTON, the KRONENBERGS, LEESE, VOGER, and VON SHOLLY!
Above: Fiction House has pride of place on our contents page, too, since no jungle series starring the female of the species came anywhere close to matching the appeal of “Sheena, Queen of the Jungle,” cover star for years of Jumbo Comics as well as her own title. Above is the lead splash panel from Jumbo #51 (May 1943), drawn by Robert Webb and Ann Brewster. Writer unknown. Pay no heed to the “W. Morgan Thomas” byline atop the page; virtually all Fiction House series sported such house pseudonyms. [Sheena is a trademark of Galaxy Publishing, Inc. & Val D’Oro Entertainment, or successors in interest.]
Alter Ego TM issue 190, November 2024 (ISSN 1932-6890) is published bi-monthly by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614, USA. Phone: (919) 449-0344. Periodicals postage paid at Raleigh, NC. POSTMASTER:
“It’s
A JUNGLE COMIC Out There!”
Tarzanic Tales In The Golden Age (& Beyond)
by Mitch Maglio with Caption Annotation by Roy Thomas
There is a little-known, seldom-told tale of the legendary jungle king, Tarzan of the Apes.
One day, the Lord of the Jungle swung into his treetop home, where he found his companion Jane wondering for the 100th time what two adults were doing living in a tree.
A clearly nervous Tarzan in his deep baritone voice intoned… “Jane, make Tarzan martini.” (The Jungle Lord was not much of a bartender and deferred to the more talented lady of the house.)
After taking a long gulp from his drink, Tarzan became very quiet, a faraway look came into his eyes, followed by a Sherlockian observation…
“Jane, it’s a jungle out there!”
Where comicbooks in the 1940s and 1950s were concerned, Tarzan’s observation was the literal truth.
It was a jungle out there!
[A/E EDITOR’S NOTE: I apologize most abjectly to author Mitch Maglio for stealing his thunder a bit by having adapted the above punchline into the title of his article—but I figured I might as well, since I had already independently used the phrase “It’s a JUNGLE COMIC out there!” in the long-advertised cover copy for this issue. There are, after all, only so many good jungle jokes to go around.]
When Action Comics #1, featuring a colorful new character called Superman, hit the stands in April of 1938 (cover-dated that June), a seismic shift ran through the still evolving comicbook industry. Within a very few years of the debut of the Man of Tomorrow, there were literally hundreds of super-powered characters appearing in an equal number of publications. Some, like Batman, became icons in their own right. Others, such as the “immortal” Minimidget, an Atom-like crime-fighting hero (first appearance: Amazing-Man Comics #5, Sept. 1938), were gone almost before anyone noticed they were ever there.
By 1939, Superman had his own eponymous comicbook title, a radio series, and an official “Superman Day” at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York. The Age of the Super-hero had begun and would continue unabated until the end of World War II. Given the dominance of the costumed hero, it is easy for comics fans to believe that the Golden Age was only about the super-hero.
While super-heroes dominated the comicbook landscape in the early years, there were as many genres in comics as there were in pulp magazines, radio, and film. Westerns, war stories, horror, science-fiction, comedy, and romance all had their place in the new medium.
Welcome to the jungle!
Today the “jungle adventure” genre is largely a thing of the past, relegated to the occasional Tarzan, King Kong, or Jungle Book reboot… and of course Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, persists on and off in comicbooks right up to the present. Aside from those few exceptions, the jungle-adventure genre rests firmly in the realm of nostalgia.
However, during the first six decades of the 20th century, the jungle-adventure genre was as popular as science-fiction is today. That particular genre is largely the creation of three writers: H. Rider Haggard, Rudyard Kipling, and Edgar Rice Burroughs.
The work of Rider Haggard (1856-1925), though less well-remembered today than that of the other two authors listed above, is no less important to the jungle genre… and precedes that of even Kipling by nearly a decade, and ERB by rather more. In 1886 he penned the novel She – A History of Adventure, which was published in episodic form in The Graphic magazine in Great Britain
through 1887. The story revolves around Queen Ayesha of a lost realm in the African interior, most often referred to as “She Who Must Be Obeyed.”
In addition to She, Rider Haggard had earlier created Allan Quartermain in the 1885 novel King Solomon’s Mines, which also takes place in the jungles of Africa. If Quartermain wasn’t Indiana Jones’ father, he was surely somewhere on the family tree. It was Quartermain who provided the template for characters like Alex Raymond’s Jungle Jim, “King of the Kongo,” and DC Comics’ “Congo Bill.”
Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) was influential in several areas of writing, but is especially remembered for his works set in India, with his two Jungle Books among his greatest claims to immortality. His creation Mowgli, the boy raised by wolves who eventually slays the vicious tiger Shere Khan, may or may not have influenced the even more popular Tarzan (Burroughs certainly never admitted to it), but definitely got there ahead of any other humans-reared-by-jungleanimals.
Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875-1950), of course was the creator of Tarzan of the Apes, who first appeared in a pulp magazine titled The All-Story in October of 1912. His subsequent series of adventures were later consolidated into book form, and today it is the common belief that Tarzan began life as a novel when, in fact, his birthplace was in the world of the pulps.
The exploration of “the Dark Continent” and the mystery of exotic, far-off lands was fertile ground for the likes of Jack London, W.H. Hudson, Rider Haggard, Kipling, and Burroughs. These writers, among many others, transported readers to places they could never go, to encounter adventures they could never have dreamed of. “The jungle” was a favorite locale.
The term “jungle” is somewhat nebulous, in that it doesn’t have to be a traditional African locale. The “jungle” could be in Africa or in India, or in China. It could be a land that time forgot or a lost city in the desert or a mystical island. In comics the “jungle” could be under the seas or even on the moons of Jupiter! In short, the “jungle” is any exotic location that serves the needs of the story.
heroine’s stories for Fiction House’s Jungle Comics
The rise and fall of Sheena’s comicbook popularity is directly linked to the rise and fall of Fiction House and of the Golden Age of Comics in general. At the height of her popularity, Sheena was as influential as Superman, spawning a plethora of imitators. Jungle girls like Camilla, Tiger Girl, Rulah, Cave Girl, Judy of the Jungle, Princess Pantha, and dozens of others were simply variations on the Sheena theme and a convenient canvas for the proliferation of Good Girl Art on the covers of millions of comicbooks all over the world.
The Good Girl Art of the jungle queens had a benefit beyond selling comicbooks. It was the perfect showcase for some of the very best artists in comics history. Creators like Matt Baker, Jack Kamen, and Alex Schomburg had the opportunity to create beautiful and iconic images that would not have existed without the concept of the jungle girl.
The impact of Sheena is felt in comicbooks, film, and television even today. The character has been revived periodically in comicbooks, both in reprint form and in new adventures. She has also been the subject of the 1984 film Sheena starring Tanya Roberts, and, most notably, the 1955 syndicated television series Sheena, Queen of the Jungle starring former Vargas girl Irish McCalla.
Sheena is the archetype, the model, for (not only) jungle heroines but for all comicbook heroines. As one of the first extraordinary, if not specifically super-powered, female heroes in comics, she spawned countless imitators. In this sense she is very much like her male counterpart Tarzan and the first
and
“A Lion In Your Lap!”
(Left:) That’s how the first American 3-D movie, Bwana Devil (a jungle epic, no less!), was advertised in 1953. Later that year, the cover of Fiction House’s 3-D Sheena Jungle Queen #1 (left) may not have jumped out at you when viewed through special “glasses” like the interiors did; but it was still a thing of beauty, and in color to boot. Alas, the artist is unidentified—but looks like Maurice Whitman to us! Courtesy of the GCD. [Sheena is a registered TM of Galaxy Publishing, Inc. & Val D’Oro Entertainment, or successors in interest.]
Nellie Of The Jungle?
Nellie Elizabeth “Irish” McCalla, TV’s Sheena, Queen of the Jungle
Sheena Sees Double!
The cover sketch
finished art for the cover of Jumbo Comics #90 (Dec. 1944), both from the hand of an unidentified artist. [Sheena is a registered TM of Galaxy Publishing, Inc. & Val D’Oro Entertainment, or successors in interest.]
In The Swim Of Things
Nudity, as opposed to merely scanty clothing, was rare in Fiction House’s comics, but these opening panels from the “Sheena” yarn in Jumbo Comics #81 (Jan. 1945) were an exhilarating exception. Script attributed to Will Eisner. The pencils may be by major “Sheena” artist Robert Webb, with other art (including inking) by Alex Blum, Matt Baker, and David Heames. [Sheena is a registered TM of Galaxy Publishing, Inc. & Val D’Oro Entertainment, or successors in interest.]
comicbook super-hero, Superman. Like the latter two males, Sheena served as a proof of concept.
And, boy, did she prove it!
Almost immediately after Sheena made her debut in American comics on June 12, 1938, jungle queens, jungle princesses, jungle empresses, jungle sorceresses, and just plain jungle girls began popping up everywhere. More than a dozen publishers between 1938 and 1954 jumped on the jungle girl bandwagon. Companies that featured jungle girls either in solo titles or as features in anthology titles included Ajax-Farrell, Atlas, Avon, Better, Dell, Fawcett, Fiction House, Fox, Hillman, Ingam, Leader Enterprises, Marvel, MLJ, Nedor, P.L. Publishing, Quality, Rural Star, and Story.
Leading the pack were Fiction House and Fox Feature Syndicate. First up… Fiction House.
Girls’ Night Out— At Fiction House
Fiction House, the home of Sheena, featured the jungle genre in each of their “Big Six” offerings (Planet Comics, Jumbo Comics, Rangers Comics, Wings Comics, Fight Comics, and of course Jungle Comics), and jungle girls were featured in all but Planet and Wings
Thus, since we’ve got to start somewhere: While jungle kings certainly played their Tarzanic part in the jungle-oriented comics of the Golden Age, let’s first take a look at the female side of the four-color forest….
The first issue of Jungle Comics (dated Jan. 1940 and naturally appearing in late 1939) introduced not one but two jungle girls.
The first is Ann Mason. She is a straight clone of Tarzan’s Jane
Sheena Who Must Be Obeyed
Joe Doolin’s cover for Sheena, Queen of the Jungle #4 (Fall ’48). Thanks to the Grand Comics Database. [Sheena is a registered TM of Galaxy Publishing, Inc. & Val D’Oro Entertainment, or successors in interest.]
Joe Doolin in a vintage portrait drawn by either himself or someone else.
Robert Webb is the guy standing up in the boat, with boss-man Jerry Iger seated. Mrs. Webb and their young son are seen at right. From Jay Disbrow’s 1985 tome The Iger Comic Kingdom, which was reprinted with copious photos and art in Alter Ego #21.
Jr.”), soon leaping off into a successful run of 77 issues in her own title: Nyoka the Jungle Girl, a comic that often sported photo-covers, perhaps to keep up the feeling of the theatrical serial When some of Fawcett’s properties were sold off for parts after the company left the comics field in 1953, Nyoka became the property of the Charlton comic group, where she starred in more jungle adventures (including in a comic titled Zoo Funnies!) until November of 1957.
During the 1940s there were also a number of short-run distaff jungle rulers in comicbooks.
Jun-Gal (from Rural Home/Enwill Associates) was the artistic creation of Harold DeLay, an alum of comicbook packager Funnies, Inc. She is a sarong-clad Sheena type, but she does go up against Hitler himself at one point, in Blazing Comics #2 (July 1944). The “Jun-Gal” feature hung around for five issues of Blazing before fading away in 1945. There was also Ajax-Farrell’s Vooda, who ran for three issues in 1955—picking up the numbering of a Code-torpedoed horror title called Voodoo!
Others who pulchritudinously intruded into the jungle briefly included Marga the Panther Woman in Fox’s Science Comics Astron the Crocodile Queen in Street & Smith’s Doc Savage Comics… Blanda, Jungle Queen, an aptly named entry in Hillman’s Miracle Comics… Kara the Jungle Princess in Standard/ Pines’ Exciting Comics and Tygra in that firm’s Startling Comics… Zara of the Jungle (no relation to Kara, above) in Timely’s Mystic Comics #2 & 3… the generic Jungle Queen in Centaur’s Star Comics… and no doubt several more rainforest femme fatales whom we’ve overlooked in the thick verdant underbrush.
Make Hers Marvel—or ME!
Towards the end of the Golden Age, a few comely newcomers managed to carve out a few jungle trails for themselves, at least for a little while.
Carol Mantomer, the star of Cave Girl (from Vin Sullivan’s Magazine Enterprises) was, at least artwise, the creation of Bob Powell, who had been one of the first regular “Sheena” artists at Fiction House. She made her debut in Cave Girl #1 (1953) and was a fairly straight-on Tarzan clone. Carol is orphaned in the Lost Valley
For Me And My Jun-Gal
Although the theme of “Jun-Gal” fighting Nazis in the pages of Rural Home’s Blazing Comics #2 (July 1944) is inherently fascinating, the racial stereotyping of the “Mammy” character makes one wince even at a distance of eight decades. Art by Howard DeLay; writer unknown.
of Time and raised by wolves. Carol becomes skilled with a bow and knife, learns to talk to the animals, grows up, and embarks on a series of standard jungle-girl adventures while fashionably attired in an off-the-shoulder zebra-skin affair. (Although in some issues the striped fur-piece was colored yellow, turning it visually into tiger-skin, we guess.) She bumps off the King of the Hairy Men when he won’t take “no” for an answer, but she is much more amenable to Luke Hardin, an explorer and far less hairy suitor.
Marvel (then under the Atlas global distribution symbol) dipped its collective toes into the jungle-girl genre with Lorna the Jungle Queen and Jungle Tales (the latter renamed Jann of the Jungle with issue #8). Lorna did her swinging for five issues between 1953 and 1954, while Jann made it into 1957. Don Rico handled most of the scripting, and both series were edited by the late and legendary Stan Lee.
Lorna and Jann were illustrated by a rotating combination of Joe Maneely, Jim Mooney, Syd Shores, Russ Heath, and Carl Burgos, the creator of the original Human Torch and a member of both the Kirby and Eisner Halls of Fame!
Perhaps unique in the annals of Tarzanic pop-lit was “Tangi,” a feature by an unidentified artist that, after a brief stint in Fox’s Jungle Jo, popped up in Star Comics’ Terrors of the Jungle #21 (Feb. 1953). The red-bikini-clad titular star was styled as the “protector
[Continued on p.
Howard DeLay
Sub-Saharan Sidebar by WILL MURRAY Secrets Of Ka-Zar The Great
The pulp origins of Za-Zar the Great are shrouded in mystery.
Ka-Zarwas one of Martin Goodman’s oddball short-lived pulp titles released in the summer of 1936, and the first to be printed under his new Manvis imprint. It was copyright July 20, which is probably its on-sale date.
Knowing that Goodman was a follower of trends, we can safely guess why he decided to publish a magazine built around a jungle hero in the mold of Tarzan of the Apes.
As a multi-media character, Tarzan was pretty hot during the 1930s, appearing in films and on radio and in newspaper comic strips. Goodman decided to cash in. Hence, the first issue of Ka-Zar. It was published with an October 1936 cover date, giving the magazine three months to find an audience.
A Tarzan movie entitled The New Adventures of Tarzan had been released in late 1935, starring Herman Brix. Johnny Weissmuller was taking a brief hiatus from playing the ape-man, but he would return in November in Tarzan Escapes… about the time the second issue of Ka-Zar went on sale. Perfect timing, in Goodman’s view, to catch casual readers excited by Weissmuller’s return.
Ka-Zar was pretty typical imitation Tarzan fare. All the tropes and clichés are present: orphaned boy, in this case raised in Africa by lions instead of anthropoids. As a knockoff, it was more slavish to its inspiration than, say Bomba the Jungle Boy, whose juvenile book series was winding down after twenty volumes.
The identity of the author of Ka-Zar is murky. A Robert L. Bird had sold a single story to The World Adventurer a few years before. After
the three Ka-Zar novels credited to Bob Byrd were published, that byline appeared only once more—in a Goodman pulp called American Sky Devils, in 1938.
When someone realized that Byrd’s swan song, “Scourge of the Sky Hellions,” was a rewrite of an old boy’s book by Henry Thomson Burtis, speculation erupted that Burtis was the author of Ka-Zar. This has never been proven, but it’s certainly possible. Burtis was a prolific pulp author during that era.
The debut Ka-Zar pulp novel, King of Fang and Claw, was reprinted in 1937 by a British publisher. That was the year the long-delayed third issue of the magazine finally appeared, retitled Ka-Zar the Great
The character might never have surfaced again, except that Goodman decided to jump onto the comicbook bandwagon in 1939 and so dragged Ka-Zar out of literary limbo for the
Carl Wilhelms, Marcia Snyder, Howard Larsen, Maurice Whitman, Max Elkan, Richard Case, Rafael Astarita, R.L. Golden, Ruben Moreira, Ruth Atkinson, and Saul Rosen. Whew!
Other features that appeared in Jungle Comics were “Roy Lance” (a Jungle Jim clone), “Captain Terry Thunder and the Congo Lancers” (initially drawn by Arthur Peddy), and “The Red Panther,” a costumed jungle lord who began life as the White Panther in issue #1 and was first limned by Taylor Martin.
Kings Of This Place And That
No jungle lord worth his spotted (or striped) underpants goes about his heroic adventures without the company of an impossibly long-legged jungle girl. Fox’s Jo-Jo (the hero so great they had to name him twice!) was no exception. Starring in his own title, Jo-Jo [Congo King] Comics, he was ably abetted and assisted in his adventures by Gwenna, who was equal parts Jane Porter and Sheena. Gwenna made her first
appearance in Jo-Jo #7 (July 1947). But Jo-Jo was apparently a pretty fickle guy, because he promptly traded Gwenna in for another (and more or less identical) jungle girl , named Tanee. Truth be told, it is entirely possible that Jo-Jo was entirely faithful and true and that Gwenna simply underwent an unintentional name change in the same way that Marvel Comics’ Bruce Banner became “Bob” Banner and finally Robert Bruce Banner some years later. Strange are the ways of comicbook editing!
Actually, Jo-Jo himself underwent a monicker mutation near the end of his vine-swinging career. Instead of Jo-Jo Comics #30, Fox in 1950 published an unnumbered comic with the title Jungle Jo whose title hero was clearly none other than Jo-Jo, minus his second syllable! Inside the comic were “Jo-Jo” stories, merely with that name omitted so that the feature was titled “Congo King.” Oddly, no attempt was made at first to alter his name in the captions or dialogue balloons, where he was still referred to as “Jo-Jo.” Had someone suddenly decided that there was something offensive about the term “Jo-Jo”? (Or maybe that it was just a silly name for a jungle lord—but then, it always had been.)
That Jungle Jo was followed by three more issues, numbered 1 to 3, before long with an actual “Jungle Jo” masthead and usage inside the comic as well.
Strange were the ways of Victor Fox and his big little comicbook company.
Another Fox jungle lord went by the name of Zago (they sure liked the letter “Z” at Fox!), who had a brief four-issue run in 1948
In the first half of the last century, pioneering documentary filmmakers, photographers, and authors Martin and Osa Johnson captured the public’s imagination with scenes and stories of distant, exotic lands. From 1917-1936 this married couple from Kansas traveled across the South Pacific, Borneo, and East and Central Africa. Through years of work in the field, they innovated wildlife film techniques and made documentary movies superior to others of the time.
The Johnsons’ legacy is a record of the cultures and wildlife of many remote areas of the world which have since undergone significant changes. It includes some of the earliest and best-quality images of East Africa and other regions. Consequently, it is of great value to researchers, continues to be used in modern documentary programs, and inspires new fans.
The work of Martin Elmer Johnson (1884-1937) and Osa Helen Leighty (1894-1953) resulted in dozens of popular commercial movies, lecture films, and shorts released by Metro, Fox, Columbia, and other studios. Their movies had wonderfully inspired Hollywood titles such as Simba (1928), Congorilla (1932), and Baboona (1935). Between them, the Johnsons also wrote 20 books and more than 100 magazine articles.
Osa Johnson’s autobiography I Married Adventure, with its eye-catching zebra-striped cover, was the No. 1 bestselling non-fiction book in 1940 and is still in
print in English, French, and Spanish. It had been written following Martin’s death in an airplane crash in California in January 1937.
The Martin and Osa Johnson Safari Museum was established in Osa’s hometown of Chanute, Kansas,
and band leader Xavier Cugat (1900-1990) and Mexican painter, caricaturist, and illustrator Miguel Covarrubias (1904-1957).
The Johnsons’ appearance continues in modern comic stories such as the 2020 FanFiction story “Batman: The Gorilla That Went Ape” by “zooman.”
While not “comics,” three of Osa Johnson’s children’s books, Pantaloons: Adventures of a Baby Elephant (1941), Snowball: Adventures of a Young Gorilla (1942), and Tarnish: The Story of a Lion Cub (1944), were beautifully illustrated by Arthur August Jansson (1890-1960). An earlier “Pantaloons” article by Osa, in Good Housekeeping magazine (1935), had told the story of the baby elephant the Johnsons brought back to the U.S. from their 1933-1934 “Flying Safari.” The (ghost-written) Pantaloons book, however, is a charming story of the adventures of a baby elephant in Africa with, presumably, the Johnsons (and their plane) making only a brief appearance as unnamed filmmakers.
Osa had a humorous comment about Pantaloons, as related in a January 30, 1942, account in the Tulsa Daily World:
Sam was the first pro I ever met up close and personal. The year was 1969 and I was an 18-year-old high school senior, working part-time before school at the Commack Post Office on Long Island, NY. After unloading mail sacks, I spotted a large flat package of comic pages Sam was mailing to Charlton. I was shocked and delighted to discover that a real live comicbook artist lived right in my own town.
Gathering my courage, I found Sam’s name in the phone book and called him. Then I nervously asked if my then-girlfriend and I could visit. Slightly suspicious, he asked me what comics of his I’d read. Fortunately, I actually was a fan and listed his recent Hercules series for Charlton (wild stuff!), as well as Dell’s Kona and various war comics.
Thus convinced, he invited gal-pal Karen and me over and
Another FLY-By-Night Hero?
we spent a couple of hours schmoozing. Mr. Glanzman was very friendly. Humble to a fault. And Jewish.
Our mouths dropped when he related a war story about his Southern shipmates on the USS Stevens. They had never seen a Jew before—and were genuinely surprised that Sam didn’t have horns!
Sam also mentioned that he and his brother Lou (whom he greatly admired!) had drawn comics way back in the Golden Age. I tried to press him on details, but memories of what titles exactly had faded with time. Back then there was no Grand Comics Database, Who’s Who of American Comics, or even Google to find out. There were few historical books or articles on Golden Age comics beyond the original Alter Ego and a few other ‘60s-era fanzines.
Not so today! We now know that Samuel Joseph Glanzman was born on December 5, 1924, and began his comics career in late 1939 in the studios of early comicbook packager Funnies, Inc. However, technically, Sam’s first comicbook art appeared in the fan page of Tip Top Comics #44, in December 1939, drawn when he was at the tail end of fourteen.
EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION: Robert “Bob” Laughlin (1925-2006) never received formal art training, but nonetheless went on to accomplish his childhood goal of becoming a professional cartoonist. After serving in the U.S. Army during World War II, Laughlin was hired by Fawcett Publications’ comics department in 1946 to lay out contents pages, design house ads, and handle corrections on comicbook stories. Two years later he went freelance and became one of the regular artists on Fawcett’s Monte Hale Western, drawing two adventures per month of the cowboy film-star from 1948-51. Laughlin also illustrated filler features for various Fawcett comics and, after the demise of the line, had his own comic strip in Fawcett’s Mechanix Illustrated magazine for over two decades. He drew a short-lived syndicated strip (Cuffy, 1963-64), inked George Gately’s Heathcliff daily strip from 1978-88, created Kitz ’n’ Katz comic strips during the ’80s, and produced numerous sets of baseball cards during his career. William Harper originally interviewed Laughlin in a 1984 issue of FCA-SOB (later reprinted in the 2001 book Fawcett Companion). The following previously unpublished interview with Laughlin was conducted in 1991 via mail by my late friend—and frequent FCA contributing writer— John G. Pierce, who discovered it in his files and sent it to me shortly before he passed away in 2022. —PCH
JOHN G. PIERCE: Could you tell me a little bit about your family and how you first became interested in cartooning/comics art?
BOB LAUGHLIN: When I was young, I would watch my dad draw cartoons, and ever since then, I wanted to be a cartoonist and draw comics. My dad, William Laughlin, didn’t draw professionally, but he was a good artist. He worked in advertising, writing copy for ads that were displayed on New York City subway trains. My mom’s name was Gwendolyn and she was a housewife. I had a sister named Virginia who was three years older than me.
JGP: Where were you born?
LAUGHLIN: I was born in Englewood, New Jersey, on September 18, 1925, but grew up in Leonia, New Jersey, and went to high school there as well. I was the art director on the school’s yearbook staff.
Edna
Kay Woods, Len Leone, Wendell Crowley, Elinor Mendelsohn, Will Lieberson.
JGP: Where did you go after graduating high school?
LAUGHLIN: I entered the U.S. Army in December of 1943 and was sent to Fort Jackson in Columbia, South Carolina. I drew a strip called Spud Skinner for the Army newspaper, the Fort Jackson Journal.
JGP: How long did you serve in the Army?
LAUGHLIN: I was discharged in 1946, and I joined Fawcett Publications’ comics department that same year, in September.
East Is East, And West Is West…
(Left:) The previously published 1947 photo of Fawcett’s comics department in New York City, all wearing Captain Marvel sweatshirts. (Left to right:) Bob Laughlin, Roy Ald, Ginny Provisiero,
Hagen,
JGP: What were your main duties at Fawcett?
LAUGHLIN: By the time I joined Fawcett, they were having all comic art pages done and delivered by freelance artists. Once we received them, I would do any minor “doctoring up” of the artwork that was needed, and did dialogue corrections inside the word balloons as directed by the editors. The comics department was set up in one big room, except for editor-in-chief
Will Lieberson’s office. Working alongside Len Leone, we also both handled the layouts of contents pages and advertisements—such as those for the Captain Marvel Club and ads promoting other Fawcett comic titles.
JGP: Do you recall some of the artists who stopped by to drop off their work?
LAUGHLIN: Some artists I got to know better than others. I became close friends with Carl Pfeufer—one of my heroes of the comics and a great artistic influence to me. The pages he penciled that were inked by his collaborator, John Jordan— such as Tom Mix Western—were some of my favorites.
JGP: What about C.C. Beck?
LAUGHLIN: Beck didn’t talk to us “menial” artists much! [laughs] I lived in Leonia, New Jersey, just minutes away from Beck, who lived in Englewood. I did go over to his house once or twice, but I never really got to know him very well.
JGP: How long did you continue in this position?
LAUGHLIN: In 1948 I left to start freelancing for Fawcett. After [I drew] up a sample “Tom Mix” story (never published), Will Lieberson assigned me to Monte Hale Western. The Westerns were all the rage at the time, and Fawcett did a lot of them. My first assignment was a “Hale” story done for Western Hero, with Captain Marvel’s Wendell Crowley editing. I then went on doing two of the four stories in each issue of Monte Hale Western from 1948 to 1951. I’d get a script, lay it out in pencil for the editor—first Roy
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ALTER EGO #190
MITCH MAGLIO examines vintage jungle comics heroes (Kaänga, Ka-Zar, Sheena, Rulah, Jo-Jo/Congo King, Thun’da, Tarzan) with art by LOU FINE, WILL EISNER, FRANK FRAZETTA, MATT BAKER, BOB POWELL, ALEX SCHOMBURG, and others! Plus: the comicbook career of reallife jungle explorers MARTIN AND OSA JOHNSON, FCA, Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, and more! (84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 https://twomorrows.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=98_55&products_id=1783
Leo
“We’ll Have These Moments To Remember”
Robert Laughlin’s Leonia (NJ) High School senior photo, 1943. Bob was art director on the school yearbook staff, and a star pitcher for the school’s baseball team.
