Monday, August 29, 2016

Sheena, Queen of the Jungle In Black And White


Tarzan of the Apes, Lord of the Jungle, was created by Edgar Rice Burroughs in 1912.  His female counterpart, Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, was created by S.M. "Jerry" Iger and Will Eisner using the alias "W. Morgan Thomas" in 1937.  The early Sheena strips were one page and appeared in the British magazine "Wags".  Later they were reprinted in the American comic book "Jumbo Comics", published by Fiction House.  If you look at the bottom of some of these strips you will see Mort Meskin's name.  However, I think Will Eisner drew some of these strips.  I am not an expert on the subject of Golden Age comic artists and I am only using the references I have found on the internet for my information.  There are several comic book sources that I have used, and I will link them in this article.

Most of the images from Golden Age comics I am using come from The Digital Comic Museum.  There is another website that has these scans named Comic Book Plus.  For the record, I want to say that I made up two different aliases for these websites (although in hindsight, I should have used one for both).  I am Crimson-Blue-Green on DCM and Musical-Ghost on CB+.

Here is the first Sheena, Queen of the Jungle strip from "Wags".


The strip reprints in "Jumbo Comics" actually began with #11 for some reason.  I can't say why.  Since they were originally black and white, the "Jumbo" versions were tinted.  Anyway, here are the cover and Sheena pages for "Jumbo Comics" #1 (September 1938)







The cover and Sheena pages from "Jumbo Comics" #2 (October 1938).







The cover and Sheena pages from "Jumbo Comics" #3 (November 1938).





Sheena did not appear on the cover of "Jumbo Comics" #4 (December 1938), but here are the Sheena pages from that issue.















The cover and Sheena pages from "Jumbo Comics" #7 (April 1939).






The cover and Sheena pages from "Jumbo Comics" #8 (June - July 1939).






Finally, I have strip #44 from "Wags" taken from the Sheena portion of a Tarzan fansite. 


I hope everyone enjoyed reading all of this, and thank you if you did.  I have been a Sheena, Queen of the Jungle fan since 1984 at least, when I saw the film starring Tanya Roberts.  Only with recently discovering Golden Age comic books online have I finally been able to read the original comics.  Special thanks goes to all the scanners and uploaders.  Perhaps sometime I will share some color Sheena stories.            

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