FICTION HOUSE FEMMES

 No "catfights for two" between Sheena and MANGRA.

Fun with FUTURA.

Lissome LYSSA

DORNA dukes it out with dorks, and then with rival CLAUDIA.

Cover girl.

QUEENS' GAMBITS

Various scenes from SHEENA #2.

Disappointingly, "Black Orchid of Death" introduces competition for Sheena in the hot "Orchid Princess" Twan, but there's no final struggle between the two jungle queens: Twan just loses out on hunky Bob and kills her advisor in retaliation.

 

Solo Sheena.

Sheena helps an unnamed ruler of an unnamed tribe (so I'll just call her "The Native Queen" for my own reference) fend off the usurpation of her evil brother, whom the Queen stabs to death.

Finally, an artist must've got bored drawing hot jungle mamas, since for in "Claws of the Spotted Terror," the Leopard Queen Curso is a fugly lady, despite her crew of leopard men and trained leopards.

 

LUANA TUNES

 I have no clue as to why, around 1973, Warren Publishing decides to issue a very loose adaptation of a scene from the 1968 Italian-made flick LUANA. All I can say is that writer Doug Moench and artist Esteban Maroto made Luana much more combative than the film does. There was also a 1974 paperback adaptation of the flick, which I have not read in a long time. Possibly the film got released to American theaters around that time.

  

JUNGLE GALLERY

 

JUNGLE GALLERY

 Nyoka. nullifying nuisances.

JUNGLE GALLERY

 

Sheena leads the pack, as always.

However, Camilla comes in second with two strong showings.

However, a story I'll entitle (for reference) as "The Death Idol" (JUNGLE COMICS #46, 1943) requires a little explication. In it, an evil chieftain named Kann has set up an idol that seems to curse dead those who come near it, though the reality is that the idol dispenses deadly (fast-acting) germs. Kann denies his sister Lelia the right to marry her beloved, the strangely named tribesman "Red Rogue," though Kann gives no reason for the injunction. Foreign Legionnaire Terry Thunder, having wandered very far from his usual North African haunts, gets involved. Despite the hero's presence, Lelia saves the day. She stumbles across the door in the back of the idol, and when her brother gets close, she triggers the germs, kills him, and gains the freedom to marry her beloved. As for the most unusual aspect of "Idol," Lelia is portrayed as the only White person in an otherwise Black tribe. But since this wasn't a strip by Black artist Matt Baker-- an artist who frequently had his heroes encounter tribes of Black men married to White women, I suppose for his own amusement-- it's pretty likely that Lelia was simply intended to be Black but a colorist rendered her as White.            

JUMBO THRILLS

 No scene like the cover of JUMBO 105 inside the comic. 

The Sheena story concerns the Jungle Queen contending with juvenile warriors, whom her mate calls "the Dead End Kids of the jungle." Along the way she beats up some more standard villains.

 

SWING OUT, NYOKA

 

CAMILLA DROPPINGS

 

JUNGLE GALLERY

 

Despite her Polynesian-looking attire, zombie queen Tiana does her corpse-calling in a Brazilian jungle, courtesty of OUT OF THE NIGHT #13.

JUNGLE GALLERY

 From JUMBO #35.                                                                                       

JUNGLE GALLERY

 More Sheena sockery from issue #16.                                                                                                           

  

                                                                                                                The jungle queen also takes down a forgettable bird-cultist named Zinda.                                                                                                                     

MAKING AMERICOMICS GREAT AGAIN

 Two outings for TARA OF THE JUNGLE...

And one for DRAGONFLY.