adventure
An adventure is an exciting experience or undertaking that is typically bold, sometimes risky. Adventures may be activities with danger such as traveling, exploring, skydiving, mountain climbing, scuba diving, river rafting, or other extreme spo ...
anthology
comic book
A comic book, also called comicbook, comic magazine or (in the United Kingdom and Ireland) simply comic, is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are of ...
published by
Fiction House
Fiction House was an American publisher of pulp magazines and comic books that existed from the 1920s to the 1950s. It was founded by John B. "Jack" Kelly and John W. Glenister.Saunders, David"JACK BYRNE (1902-1972),"Field Guide to Wild American P ...
from
1938
Events
January
* January 1
** The Constitution of Estonia#Third Constitution (de facto 1938–1940, de jure 1938–1992), new constitution of Estonia enters into force, which many consider to be the ending of the Era of Silence and the a ...
–
1953
Events
January
* January 6 – The Asian Socialist Conference opens in Rangoon, Burma.
* January 12 – Estonian émigrés found a Estonian government-in-exile, government-in-exile in Oslo.
* January 14
** Marshal Josip Broz Tito i ...
. ''Jumbo Comics'' was Fiction House's first comics title; the publisher had previously specialized in
pulp magazines
Pulp magazines (also referred to as "the pulps") were inexpensive fiction magazines that were published from 1896 to the late 1950s. The term "pulp" derives from the cheap wood pulp paper on which the magazines were printed. In contrast, magazine ...
. The lead feature for ''Jumbo Comics''' entire run was
Sheena, Queen of the Jungle
Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, is a fictional American comic book jungle girl heroine, originally published primarily by Fiction House during the Golden Age of Comic Books. She was the first female comic book character with her own title, with he ...
.
Notable creators who worked on ''Jumbo Comics'' include
Jack Kirby
Jack Kirby (born Jacob Kurtzberg; August 28, 1917 – February 6, 1994) was an American comic book artist, writer and editor, widely regarded as one of the medium's major innovators and one of its most prolific and influential creators. He gr ...
Bob Kane
Robert Kane (born Robert Kahn ; October 24, 1915 – November 3, 1998) was an American comic book writer, animator and artist who co-created Batman (with Bill Finger) and most early related characters for DC comics. He was inducted into the comi ...
,
Matt Baker
Matthew James Baker (born 23 December 1977) is a British television presenter. He co-presented the children's television show ''Blue Peter'' from 1999 until 2006, BBC One's ''Countryfile'' since 2009 and ''The One Show'' from 2011 to 2020, wit ...
,
Mort Meskin
Morton Meskin (May 30, 1916 – March 29, 1995)Social Security Death Index, SS# 071-16-1099. was an American comic book artist best known for his work in the 1940s Golden Age of Comic Books, well into the late-1950s and 1960s Silver Age.
Early ...
,
Lou Fine
Louis Kenneth Fine (November 26, 1914 – July 24, 1971)Louis Fine at the United States
Bob Powell
Bob Powell (né Stanley Robert Pawlowski; While gives Stanislav Pavlowsky, and gives Stanislav Pavlowsky, Bails and Ware note: "family name corrected by his son, Seth R. Powell July 2006." October 2, 1916
Art Saaf
Arthur Saaf (December 4, 1921 – April 21, 2007) was an American comics artist from the Golden Age of Comics who also worked in television. He commonly went by Art or Artie.
Career
Art Saaf was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1921 and developed ...
Lily Renée
Lily Renée Phillips ('' née'' Willheim; May 12, 1921 – August 24, 2022), often credited as L. Renée, Lily Renée, or Reney, was an Austrian-born American artist best known as one of the earliest women in the comic-book industry, beginning i ...
Jerry Iger
Samuel Maxwell "Jerry" Iger (; August 22, 1903 – September 5, 1990) was an American cartoonist and art-studio entrepreneur. With business partner Will Eisner, he co-founded Eisner & Iger, a comic book packager that produced comics on deman ...
was ''Jumbo Comics''' art director for its entire run.
Publication history
By the late 1930s, Fiction House publisher Thurman T. Scott expanded the company from
pulp magazines
Pulp magazines (also referred to as "the pulps") were inexpensive fiction magazines that were published from 1896 to the late 1950s. The term "pulp" derives from the cheap wood pulp paper on which the magazines were printed. In contrast, magazine ...
to
comic books
A comic book, also called comicbook, comic magazine or (in the United Kingdom and Ireland) simply comic, is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are of ...
, an emerging medium that began to seem a viable adjunct to the fading pulps. Receptive to a sales call by
Eisner & Iger
Eisner & Iger was a comic book "packager" that produced comics on demand for publishers entering the new medium during the late-1930s and 1940s period fans and historians call the Golden Age of Comic Books. Many of comic books' most significant c ...
, one of the prominent "packagers" of that time that produced complete comic books on demand for publishers looking to enter the field, Scott published ''Jumbo Comics'' #1 (Sept. 1938) under Fiction House's Real Adventures Publishing Company imprint.
Sheena, Queen of the Jungle
Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, is a fictional American comic book jungle girl heroine, originally published primarily by Fiction House during the Golden Age of Comic Books. She was the first female comic book character with her own title, with he ...
appeared in that initial issue. The character had debuted in 1937 in the
British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
Don Markstein's Toonopedia
Don Markstein's Toonopedia (subtitled A Vast Repository of Toonological Knowledge) is an online encyclopedia of print cartoons, comic strips and animation, initiated February 13, 2001. Donald D. Markstein, the sole writer and editor of Toonopedi ...
Archived from the original November 10, 2011 Indeed, all the material Eisner & Iger prepared for ''Jumbo Comics'' #1 (and the subsequent seven issues) had originally appeared in ''Wags'', which was a tabloid-sized publication. For this reason, ''Jumbo Comics'' #1-8 were oversize (10-1/2" x 14-1/2") and exclusively in black and white. (The name "Jumbo" was derived from the oversized publication size.)Sergi, Joe "Tales From the Code: The Near Extinction of Sheena," CBLDF website (January 25, 2013). With issue #9, the title reverted to standard Golden Age comic size (8-1/2" x 10-1/2") and was printed in color.
Bob Powell
Bob Powell (né Stanley Robert Pawlowski; While gives Stanislav Pavlowsky, and gives Stanislav Pavlowsky, Bails and Ware note: "family name corrected by his son, Seth R. Powell July 2006." October 2, 1916
's first published comic-book art is tentatively identified as the uncredited three-page story "A Letter of Introduction," featuring the famed
ventriloquist
Ventriloquism, or ventriloquy, is a performance act of stagecraft in which a person (a ventriloquist) creates the illusion that their voice is coming from elsewhere, usually a puppeteered prop known as a "dummy". The act of ventriloquism is v ...
Edgar Bergen
Edgar John Bergen (born Edgar John Berggren; February 16, 1903 – September 30, 1978) was an American ventriloquist, actor, comedian, vaudevillian and radio performer, best known for his proficiency in ventriloquism and his characters Ch ...
and his dummy,
Charlie McCarthy
Charlie McCarthy is Edgar Bergen's famed ventriloquist dummy partner. Charlie was part of Bergen's act as early as high school, and by 1930, was attired in his famous top hat, tuxedo, and monocle. The character was so well-known that his populari ...
, in ''Jumbo Comics'' #2 (Oct. 1938).
Lou Fine
Louis Kenneth Fine (November 26, 1914 – July 24, 1971)Louis Fine at the United States
pen name
A pen name, also called a ''nom de plume'' or a literary double, is a pseudonym (or, in some cases, a variant form of a real name) adopted by an author and printed on the title page or by-line of their works in place of their real name.
A pen na ...
"Fred Sande" (which strip originator
Jack Kirby
Jack Kirby (born Jacob Kurtzberg; August 28, 1917 – February 6, 1994) was an American comic book artist, writer and editor, widely regarded as one of the medium's major innovators and one of its most prolific and influential creators. He gr ...
had used in previous issues).
Ultimately, Fiction House published 167 issues of ''Jumbo Comics'' from September 1938–March 1953.
Recurring features
Three features in ''Jumbo Comics'' #1 representing
Jack Kirby
Jack Kirby (born Jacob Kurtzberg; August 28, 1917 – February 6, 1994) was an American comic book artist, writer and editor, widely regarded as one of the medium's major innovators and one of its most prolific and influential creators. He gr ...
's first comic-book work following his debut in ''Wild Boy Magazine'':Per Kirby's recollection in interview, ''The Nostalgia Journal'' #30 (Nov. 1976), reprinted in ''The Comics Journal Library, Volume One: Jack Kirby'' (2002) , p. 3
* "The Diary of Dr. Hayward" —
science fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...
strip under the pseudonym "Curt Davis"; the strip was later continued by other artists until issue #9
* "Wilton of the West" — modern-West crimefighter strip as "Fred Sande"; the strip was later continued by other artists until c. issue #24
*
Alexandre Dumas
Alexandre Dumas (, ; ; born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie (), 24 July 1802 – 5 December 1870), also known as Alexandre Dumas père (where '' '' is French for 'father', to distinguish him from his son Alexandre Dumas fils), was a French writer ...
's ''
The Count of Monte Cristo
''The Count of Monte Cristo'' (french: Le Comte de Monte-Cristo) is an adventure novel written by French author Alexandre Dumas (''père'') completed in 1844. It is one of the author's more popular works, along with ''The Three Musketeers''. Li ...
'' — serialized adaptation as "Jack Curtiss"
In addition,
Victor Hugo
Victor-Marie Hugo (; 26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a French Romantic writer and politician. During a literary career that spanned more than sixty years, he wrote in a variety of genres and forms. He is considered to be one of the great ...
's ''
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
''The Hunchback of Notre-Dame'' (french: Notre-Dame de Paris, translation=''Our Lady of Paris'', originally titled ''Notre-Dame de Paris. 1482'') is a French Gothic novel by Victor Hugo, published in 1831. It focuses on the unfortunate story o ...
'' which ran in the first 8 issues.
Other recurring features:
Sheena, Queen of the Jungle — soon became the company's star character, and her adventures appeared in every issue of ''Jumbo Comics''. Over the years the Sheena feature was worked on by notable creators like
Bob Powell
Bob Powell (né Stanley Robert Pawlowski; While gives Stanislav Pavlowsky, and gives Stanislav Pavlowsky, Bails and Ware note: "family name corrected by his son, Seth R. Powell July 2006." October 2, 1916
,
Mort Meskin
Morton Meskin (May 30, 1916 – March 29, 1995)Social Security Death Index, SS# 071-16-1099. was an American comic book artist best known for his work in the 1940s Golden Age of Comic Books, well into the late-1950s and 1960s Silver Age.
Early ...
, and
Matt Baker
Matthew James Baker (born 23 December 1977) is a British television presenter. He co-presented the children's television show ''Blue Peter'' from 1999 until 2006, BBC One's ''Countryfile'' since 2009 and ''The One Show'' from 2011 to 2020, wit ...
.
ZX-5 Spies in Action — ran for almost the entire run of the title.
Ghost Gallery — ran from issue #40 until the book was cancelled.
Inspector Dayton — another recurring feature that debuted in the first issue and ran until issue #60 (Feb. 1944).
Hawks of the Seas — period adventure continuing a story from
Quality Comics
Quality Comics was an American comic book publishing company which operated from 1937 to 1956 and was a creative, influential force in what historians and fans call the Golden Age of Comic Books.
Notable, long-running titles published by Qualit ...
' ''Feature Funnies'' #12, after Eisner-Iger and Quality had had a falling out; the strip lasted about ten issues.
Peter Pupp — originally by
Bob Kane
Robert Kane (born Robert Kahn ; October 24, 1915 – November 3, 1998) was an American comic book writer, animator and artist who co-created Batman (with Bill Finger) and most early related characters for DC comics. He was inducted into the comi ...
; ran for the first 25 issues.
Spencer Steel — ran for the first 12 issues; also appeared in Fiction House's ''
Fight Comics
Combat ( French for ''fight'') is a purposeful violent conflict meant to physically harm or kill the opposition. Combat may be armed (using weapons) or unarmed ( not using weapons). Combat is sometimes resorted to as a method of self-defense, or ...
''.
Sky Girl — by
Matt Baker
Matthew James Baker (born 23 December 1977) is a British television presenter. He co-presented the children's television show ''Blue Peter'' from 1999 until 2006, BBC One's ''Countryfile'' since 2009 and ''The One Show'' from 2011 to 2020, wit ...
; ran in issues #69-139 (November 1944–December 1952), with some of the later stories being reprints.
Long Bow —
Western
Western may refer to:
Places
*Western, Nebraska, a village in the US
*Western, New York, a town in the US
*Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia
*Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia
*Western world, countries that id ...
feature which ran in issues #141-160 (Nov. 1950–June 1952), roughly concurrent with Fiction House's ''Long Bow'' series (which ran nine issues from 1951–Winter 1952/1953).