Post by MWGallaher on Dec 2, 2023 9:03:06 GMT -5
Wambi, the Jungle Boy, was a mainstay of Fiction House’s JUNGLE COMICS, appearing in all but the final five issues of that series’ 163-issue, 13-year run. During those 13 years, Fiction House published 18 issues of a solo series, WAMBI, JUNGLE BOY, but did so on what turned out to be a very irregular basis.
The first issue was dated Spring 1942, and the indicia designated it as a quarterly publication, but it hit the stands at 6-month intervals, with the following issues dated Winter 1942 and Spring 1943. After three bi-annual issues, the publication was suspended.
A fourth issue appeared five and half years later, with issue 4 dated Fall 1948, although no official publication frequency is specified in the indicia. The next issue would be in Fall 1949, implying an annual schedule. It was followed with number 6, Spring 1950, and continued at a sustained quarterly pace until ceasing publication with number 18, Winter 1952-53.
While trying to select an issue to sample, I initially considered the final issue, #18. As I read through the story “Jungle Terror Tests”, I realized that I had read it before, and had in fact written it up for this very thread. It turns out that I had done so in my overview of the various Fiction House backup features that never had their own comics. The “Jan of the Jungle” story in RANGERS COMICS #50, December 1949, uses the same art as WAMBI #18’s “Jungle Terror Tests”, from Winter 1952-53. The scripts are entirely different, as is the coloring, but the plot and art are unchanged, and “Jan” has been changed to “Wambi”…
The original:
Wambified:
Closer inspection showed that the final two issues of WAMBI both consisted entirely of reprinted “Jan of the Jungle” stories, all of which were rescripted. For the stories in WAMBI #17, more childish-looking faces were pasted over the drawings of Jan’s face, so he would look more like the young boy Wambi than like the young adult Jan, but Fiction House didn’t bother redrawing anything in WAMBI #18. In most such reprint conversions that I’ve seen in other old comics, the changes to the scripts consist of changing the characters’ names and occasionally rewriting some dialogue, but the Wambi conversions changed virtually all the speech and captions, while retaining the plots. It’s a significant amount of effort, more than I’d think would be worthwhile, so it’s unsurprising that Fox would save themselves the trouble of altering the faces on what they probably knew would be the final issue. Fortunately, Wambi and Jan are both males who wear loincloths and turbans, so it’s no big deal to have Wambi age a few years for his final issue.
Three months after his solo comic halted, Wambi was dumped from his long-time berth in JUNGLE COMICS, with his final appearance in issue 158, Spring 1953. By this time Wambi’s feature, still drawn by Henry Keifer, who had illustrated the character since the start, had been reduced to a sad 4 pages. For a good sample, we’ll look to Wambi in his prime:
WAMBI JUNGLE BOY #5, October 1949, Fiction House:
You can read this comic at comicbookplus.com. Henry Keifer provides the pencils and inks, with “Roy L. Smith” on the byline for everything. That was quite probably a house name for an unidentified writer, as the GCD only lists the name in connection with Wambi stories.
While Keifer’s art is a bit stiff and the relative proportions of the figures here might be a little off, it’s an intriguing cover, with a great ape helping Wambi uncage a tiger. The story titles are evocative, using exciting trigger words like “moon beasts” and “banshee apes”. Let’s see how they measure up to expectations!
First up is “Swampland Safari”, according to the cover blurb.
This story has the young white boy “Little Dan” being escorted via safari to join his father “Big Dan” by Big Dan’s long-time friend, Kirby. Little Dan is given a hunting rifle, in order that he should become a “real man”, per his father’s wishes, but Little Dan is a pacifistic lad, who despises hunting, but doesn’t wish to be seen as a coward.
When a tiger attacks, Little Dan is paralyzed with fear, but at Kirby’s urging he fires and wounds the beast, which retreats limping. Little Dan is sickened by his actions, and heads into the jungle.
He freezes again when confronted by Sirdah, the tiger, but is rescued by Wambi, who assures him there is no shame in trembling before the big cat. Summoning Tawn, the elephant, Wambi helps Little Dan onto the pachyderm’s back and takes him back to camp, where they find the safari has gone out in search of him.
Little Dan accompanies Wambi as they trek in search of the safari, relying on the advice of the animals, with whom Wambi can of course speak. The meddlesome jackals, though, reveal the boys’ location to the stewing Sirdah, who spreads word throughout the jungle that Wambi has “reverted to his kind”, and must be punished as a traitor.
Meanwhile, Kirby has reached Big Dan, and they go out in search of Big Dan’s son, hoping that by some miracle he has survived. Ogg the ape, Wambi’s friend, has caught word of the gossip against the man-cub, and swings off to warn Wambi. It’s then that Little Dan’s fears overcome his pacifism, and he shoots the friendly gorilla! The gunfire alerts Big Dan, who heads in their direction.
The animals are now holding Wambi at trial. Wambi mounts a strong defense, leading Sirdah and his jackals to abandon the sham legal proceedings and just kill the humans! Wambi fights off Sirdah with a handful of thorny branches, and the arrival of Big Dan ends with a bullet in Sirdah’s tail, putting an end to the skirmish. Little Dan has learned his lesson:
OK, that is not where I thought this story would end up! I suppose a jungle comic can't come down hard against hunting without closing the door to some precious plot options, and I don't think there was nearly as much anti-hunting sentiment in the 40's as there is today.
Next we have “Spoor of the Moon Beasts”, going by the cover’s story listing. Wambi and Ogg the great ape follow smoke to find a young native boy sitting by a fire. This is Kuda, “son of the great chief”, and he is friendly, but dismissive of Wambi’s lecturing about the danger of setting fires in the jungle. (Kuda is drawn and colored like an African, not as an Asian, but Indian jungle comics always seem to devolve into a generic jungle setting with no respect for established geography.)
Kuda proudly shows off the catch from his first hunt, a small deer tied to a tree. The animal-loving Wambi releases the arrogant boy’s captive, and Kuda pounces on Wambi but misses the nimble jungle boy. A plane passing overhead strikes fear into Kuda’s heart and he’s suddenly receptive to Wambi’s advice, putting out the fire and appreciating the wildlife. As they leave, Kuda realizes that the fire is still burning, and Wambi and Kuda, with the help of Ogg the ape, help the animals to evacuate:
For several pages, Kuda and Wambi and the animals work together to escape the flames and put out the fire, and Kuda pleases Wambi by acknowledging the lessons he has learned today. Before the story can end, the boys encounter a lion fighting a serpent over a fearful deer. Wambi fights them both and saves the deer, but finds that the animals are now shunning him, blaming Wambi for the fire.
The boys take refuge in a tree, where they sleep until wakened by a scream: a parachuting pilot is gripped in the trunk of an angry elephant. Wambi exerts his command over the beast and demands the pilot’s release. As the animals gather round, the pilot explains that his plane crash started the fire. This satisfies the animals, and peace reigns again. Tawn the elephant will take the pilot to the nearby settlement.
OK, Wambi is transparently inspired by Kipling’s Mowgli, and the animals’ suspicious mistrust of Mowgli did crop up frequently in The Jungle Book, but this is starting to feel repetitive…
The text story is “Slave Safari”. I think the cover copy was deceptive when it promised “many more” in addition to the three titled comics stories; there aren’t even any one page fillers like we often see in jungle comics. This story has no spot illustration, just text, and it tells of Wambi being captured by slave traders. Wambi is placed in chains—something he has never before seen, being a “man-cub” as he is—and is given a chopping tool, which he wisely refrains from using, since another slave tries to fight back and is killed with a dart from a blow-gun.
Wambi is ordered to chop down dead trees for firewood, but he intentionally also chops down a live tree used by monkeys, used to travel through the Indian jungle. When a “White-tail” monkey arrives and finds his “lofty highway” gone, he assists Wambi in freeing the slaves while the guard sleeps. One of the slaves is killed, but the rest rebel and kill their captors. Wambi returns to the jungle, declining the former slaves’ request to become their leader.
Finally, “Lair of the Banshee Apes” (title, again, taken from the cover) has Wambi ordering the animals to share the one watering hole which has not gone dry, reminding them that “jungle law permits no bloodshed in time of drought!” When Wambi, searching for an alternative water source, discovers a deer that has been killed, the hyena, a beast of ill repute among the animal community, spreads word among the creatures that Wambi was the killer. The absence of claw and fang marks on the victim suggests that only a human could have committed this crime. Wambi finds himself a pariah among his animal friends and is himself barred from accessing the water!
The lonely Wambi eaves-drops on a baboon council and learns that they are planning to take over the water hole. When he swings off to alert the other animals, the hyena, having witnessed Wambi spying, rats him out to the baboons. Wambi soon finds himself trapped in a cave by the tribe of thirst-maddened primates, and escapes by hurling hornet nests at his enemies!
With Wambi at their side, the jungle beasts fend off the attacking baboons, but once the battle is won, they again shun Wambi as a violator of jungle law. Wambi knows he must clear his name by finding the buck’s real killer.
To no reader’s surprise, it was the hyena, who pushes Wambi into a lake inside a dormant volcano crater. Wambi is rescued by a friendly python, and catches up to the hyena, who is cleverly wielding a pointy stick to kill his next victim:
His crimes exposed, the hyena is spared by the kind Wambi, put on a sort of “jungle probation”. Wambi leads the animals to the volcanic lake, where water is plentiful, and the story closes with Wambi moralizing about hasty accusations.
And here we go again. These have got to be the least faithful denizens of the jungle I’ve ever seen in a comic book: they turn against Wambi again and again, with only Ogg staying loyal to him.
While there is admittedly some charm to how Kiefer renders these stories, WAMBI is no Jungle Gem. It doesn’t sink to the level of Jungle Junk, but I have no desire to waste any more time reading a Wambi story. I didn’t like The Jungle Book in the first place, so why would I like a poor imitation? WAMBI is the weakest of Fiction House's jungle offerings, but it must have had some strength to be granted its own series over, say, Camilla or Fantomah or Tabu or Jan of the Jungle. Perhaps its likeness to "respectable" children's literature gave it the edge as a counter to the more lurid and adult SHEENA and KAANGA?
The first issue was dated Spring 1942, and the indicia designated it as a quarterly publication, but it hit the stands at 6-month intervals, with the following issues dated Winter 1942 and Spring 1943. After three bi-annual issues, the publication was suspended.
A fourth issue appeared five and half years later, with issue 4 dated Fall 1948, although no official publication frequency is specified in the indicia. The next issue would be in Fall 1949, implying an annual schedule. It was followed with number 6, Spring 1950, and continued at a sustained quarterly pace until ceasing publication with number 18, Winter 1952-53.
While trying to select an issue to sample, I initially considered the final issue, #18. As I read through the story “Jungle Terror Tests”, I realized that I had read it before, and had in fact written it up for this very thread. It turns out that I had done so in my overview of the various Fiction House backup features that never had their own comics. The “Jan of the Jungle” story in RANGERS COMICS #50, December 1949, uses the same art as WAMBI #18’s “Jungle Terror Tests”, from Winter 1952-53. The scripts are entirely different, as is the coloring, but the plot and art are unchanged, and “Jan” has been changed to “Wambi”…
The original:
Wambified:
Closer inspection showed that the final two issues of WAMBI both consisted entirely of reprinted “Jan of the Jungle” stories, all of which were rescripted. For the stories in WAMBI #17, more childish-looking faces were pasted over the drawings of Jan’s face, so he would look more like the young boy Wambi than like the young adult Jan, but Fiction House didn’t bother redrawing anything in WAMBI #18. In most such reprint conversions that I’ve seen in other old comics, the changes to the scripts consist of changing the characters’ names and occasionally rewriting some dialogue, but the Wambi conversions changed virtually all the speech and captions, while retaining the plots. It’s a significant amount of effort, more than I’d think would be worthwhile, so it’s unsurprising that Fox would save themselves the trouble of altering the faces on what they probably knew would be the final issue. Fortunately, Wambi and Jan are both males who wear loincloths and turbans, so it’s no big deal to have Wambi age a few years for his final issue.
Three months after his solo comic halted, Wambi was dumped from his long-time berth in JUNGLE COMICS, with his final appearance in issue 158, Spring 1953. By this time Wambi’s feature, still drawn by Henry Keifer, who had illustrated the character since the start, had been reduced to a sad 4 pages. For a good sample, we’ll look to Wambi in his prime:
WAMBI JUNGLE BOY #5, October 1949, Fiction House:
You can read this comic at comicbookplus.com. Henry Keifer provides the pencils and inks, with “Roy L. Smith” on the byline for everything. That was quite probably a house name for an unidentified writer, as the GCD only lists the name in connection with Wambi stories.
While Keifer’s art is a bit stiff and the relative proportions of the figures here might be a little off, it’s an intriguing cover, with a great ape helping Wambi uncage a tiger. The story titles are evocative, using exciting trigger words like “moon beasts” and “banshee apes”. Let’s see how they measure up to expectations!
First up is “Swampland Safari”, according to the cover blurb.
This story has the young white boy “Little Dan” being escorted via safari to join his father “Big Dan” by Big Dan’s long-time friend, Kirby. Little Dan is given a hunting rifle, in order that he should become a “real man”, per his father’s wishes, but Little Dan is a pacifistic lad, who despises hunting, but doesn’t wish to be seen as a coward.
When a tiger attacks, Little Dan is paralyzed with fear, but at Kirby’s urging he fires and wounds the beast, which retreats limping. Little Dan is sickened by his actions, and heads into the jungle.
He freezes again when confronted by Sirdah, the tiger, but is rescued by Wambi, who assures him there is no shame in trembling before the big cat. Summoning Tawn, the elephant, Wambi helps Little Dan onto the pachyderm’s back and takes him back to camp, where they find the safari has gone out in search of him.
Little Dan accompanies Wambi as they trek in search of the safari, relying on the advice of the animals, with whom Wambi can of course speak. The meddlesome jackals, though, reveal the boys’ location to the stewing Sirdah, who spreads word throughout the jungle that Wambi has “reverted to his kind”, and must be punished as a traitor.
Meanwhile, Kirby has reached Big Dan, and they go out in search of Big Dan’s son, hoping that by some miracle he has survived. Ogg the ape, Wambi’s friend, has caught word of the gossip against the man-cub, and swings off to warn Wambi. It’s then that Little Dan’s fears overcome his pacifism, and he shoots the friendly gorilla! The gunfire alerts Big Dan, who heads in their direction.
The animals are now holding Wambi at trial. Wambi mounts a strong defense, leading Sirdah and his jackals to abandon the sham legal proceedings and just kill the humans! Wambi fights off Sirdah with a handful of thorny branches, and the arrival of Big Dan ends with a bullet in Sirdah’s tail, putting an end to the skirmish. Little Dan has learned his lesson:
OK, that is not where I thought this story would end up! I suppose a jungle comic can't come down hard against hunting without closing the door to some precious plot options, and I don't think there was nearly as much anti-hunting sentiment in the 40's as there is today.
Next we have “Spoor of the Moon Beasts”, going by the cover’s story listing. Wambi and Ogg the great ape follow smoke to find a young native boy sitting by a fire. This is Kuda, “son of the great chief”, and he is friendly, but dismissive of Wambi’s lecturing about the danger of setting fires in the jungle. (Kuda is drawn and colored like an African, not as an Asian, but Indian jungle comics always seem to devolve into a generic jungle setting with no respect for established geography.)
Kuda proudly shows off the catch from his first hunt, a small deer tied to a tree. The animal-loving Wambi releases the arrogant boy’s captive, and Kuda pounces on Wambi but misses the nimble jungle boy. A plane passing overhead strikes fear into Kuda’s heart and he’s suddenly receptive to Wambi’s advice, putting out the fire and appreciating the wildlife. As they leave, Kuda realizes that the fire is still burning, and Wambi and Kuda, with the help of Ogg the ape, help the animals to evacuate:
For several pages, Kuda and Wambi and the animals work together to escape the flames and put out the fire, and Kuda pleases Wambi by acknowledging the lessons he has learned today. Before the story can end, the boys encounter a lion fighting a serpent over a fearful deer. Wambi fights them both and saves the deer, but finds that the animals are now shunning him, blaming Wambi for the fire.
The boys take refuge in a tree, where they sleep until wakened by a scream: a parachuting pilot is gripped in the trunk of an angry elephant. Wambi exerts his command over the beast and demands the pilot’s release. As the animals gather round, the pilot explains that his plane crash started the fire. This satisfies the animals, and peace reigns again. Tawn the elephant will take the pilot to the nearby settlement.
OK, Wambi is transparently inspired by Kipling’s Mowgli, and the animals’ suspicious mistrust of Mowgli did crop up frequently in The Jungle Book, but this is starting to feel repetitive…
The text story is “Slave Safari”. I think the cover copy was deceptive when it promised “many more” in addition to the three titled comics stories; there aren’t even any one page fillers like we often see in jungle comics. This story has no spot illustration, just text, and it tells of Wambi being captured by slave traders. Wambi is placed in chains—something he has never before seen, being a “man-cub” as he is—and is given a chopping tool, which he wisely refrains from using, since another slave tries to fight back and is killed with a dart from a blow-gun.
Wambi is ordered to chop down dead trees for firewood, but he intentionally also chops down a live tree used by monkeys, used to travel through the Indian jungle. When a “White-tail” monkey arrives and finds his “lofty highway” gone, he assists Wambi in freeing the slaves while the guard sleeps. One of the slaves is killed, but the rest rebel and kill their captors. Wambi returns to the jungle, declining the former slaves’ request to become their leader.
Finally, “Lair of the Banshee Apes” (title, again, taken from the cover) has Wambi ordering the animals to share the one watering hole which has not gone dry, reminding them that “jungle law permits no bloodshed in time of drought!” When Wambi, searching for an alternative water source, discovers a deer that has been killed, the hyena, a beast of ill repute among the animal community, spreads word among the creatures that Wambi was the killer. The absence of claw and fang marks on the victim suggests that only a human could have committed this crime. Wambi finds himself a pariah among his animal friends and is himself barred from accessing the water!
The lonely Wambi eaves-drops on a baboon council and learns that they are planning to take over the water hole. When he swings off to alert the other animals, the hyena, having witnessed Wambi spying, rats him out to the baboons. Wambi soon finds himself trapped in a cave by the tribe of thirst-maddened primates, and escapes by hurling hornet nests at his enemies!
With Wambi at their side, the jungle beasts fend off the attacking baboons, but once the battle is won, they again shun Wambi as a violator of jungle law. Wambi knows he must clear his name by finding the buck’s real killer.
To no reader’s surprise, it was the hyena, who pushes Wambi into a lake inside a dormant volcano crater. Wambi is rescued by a friendly python, and catches up to the hyena, who is cleverly wielding a pointy stick to kill his next victim:
His crimes exposed, the hyena is spared by the kind Wambi, put on a sort of “jungle probation”. Wambi leads the animals to the volcanic lake, where water is plentiful, and the story closes with Wambi moralizing about hasty accusations.
And here we go again. These have got to be the least faithful denizens of the jungle I’ve ever seen in a comic book: they turn against Wambi again and again, with only Ogg staying loyal to him.
While there is admittedly some charm to how Kiefer renders these stories, WAMBI is no Jungle Gem. It doesn’t sink to the level of Jungle Junk, but I have no desire to waste any more time reading a Wambi story. I didn’t like The Jungle Book in the first place, so why would I like a poor imitation? WAMBI is the weakest of Fiction House's jungle offerings, but it must have had some strength to be granted its own series over, say, Camilla or Fantomah or Tabu or Jan of the Jungle. Perhaps its likeness to "respectable" children's literature gave it the edge as a counter to the more lurid and adult SHEENA and KAANGA?
