VOODOO and VOODA and SEVEN SEAS COMICS

With its 19th issue in January 1955, Ajax-Farrell's VOODOO adopted a minor change to its cover dress. Instead of "Weird Fantastic Tales", which appeared above the title for the first 17 issues, or the somewhat milder "Astounding Fantasy!" that topped the logo on issue 18, this issue announced "Tales of Jungle Magic!"



You can read this comic at: VOODOO #19

While I wish I could say this was the beginning of a comic in the Jungle Horror subgenre, the tagline overpromised: there was only one tale of jungle magic leading off this comic, along with one jungle adventure in the South Seas islands subgenre, an Arctic adventure story and a routine horror story. A jungle horror format would have been entirely feasible: almost every horror anthology comic published in the 50's offered some jungle-based horror stories, with witch doctor curses, shrunken heads, gorilla brain transplants, etc. Star's TERRORS OF THE JUNGLE, despite its lurid name, featured mostly established jungle heroes like Jo-Jo and Rulah, rather than the implied horror content.

VOODOO, though, did come as close to a "Jungle Horror" comic as any I've seen. Although it was generally a pretty conventional horror comic for the era, it included a higher-than-usual percentage of jungle-themed stories--not in every issue, no, but sometimes more than one between its covers in a month. It seems, though, that Ajax-Farrell saw the writing on the wall, because they were about to get out of the horror comics business, as well as the superhero comics business, and devote themselves primarily to romance for a few years. Before they did, they tried to keep VOODOO going under less lurid, less conspicuous covers, spotlighting less alarming content while the public was being whipped up by Wertham's Seduction of the Innocent.

VOODOO #19's two jungle stories are "Destination Congo" and "The Thirsty Blade", both with Matt Baker art and both reprinted from SEVEN SEAS COMICS #5, from 1946. SEVEN SEAS COMICS was originally published by the Iger Studio, which issued a few comics--six issues of SEVEN SEAS COMICS and one each of BOBBY COMICS and STONY CRAIG--independently, but which mostly supplied content for other publishers. One reason VOODOO favored jungle stories is because Ajax-Farrell drew heavily from decade-old stories from that older series, reprinting them for a new audience. The "Pacific islands adventure" genre had never gained much traction in comics, but jungle comics had; I suppose the two are close enough that promoting these as jungle comics wasn't much of a stretch.

"Destination Congo" opens with a splash introducing the cast: Captain Ted, the native girl Misto, the native first mate Tanaka, the traitorous Bill, and Marty, "who paid a full price for worldly gain..." This introduction gives a B-movie feel, with suggestions of crime, treachery, and supernatural mystery.

And we start off with Misto performing "an ancient jungle rite" before "the fire of truth" in her New York apartment: Misto is casting a spell to bring her passage back to her island home. Bill and Marty, meanwhile, have found a "chump" to ship their cargo--guns--to the Diamond Isles, partway to some unspecified destination where, it is implied, they will be selling the weapons for nefarious purpose.

The "chump" is Captain Ted, who has managed to finish his purchase of The Dainty Jade, thanks to Bill's payment. Bill and Marty are claiming to be an oil prospector and engineer rather than gun smugglers, and these shady characters force Ted and Tanaka to set sail even as typhoons threaten.

Misto, who Bill and Marty saw in the city, arrives to book passage, and Ted allows her onboard over Bill's ojections. Misto, we learn, believes she has been brought here for some unknown purpose, and, intriguingly, thinks to herself: "I must be alert, even though I tire quickly these days..."

The typhoon strikes, Bill shows his true colors by wounding the captain with a shot from his pistol, and Misto assures Captain Ted that the villains will not live to carry out their plans.

Misto takes the wheel and steers the ship to the Diamond Isles, where she rejoins her people. Home at last, she begins to wither: she is actually an old woman, who is returning home to return to her true age and die in her homeland, lest her spirit be left in New York to wander as a ghost!

Bill and Marty are attacking the natives with their weapons, and Misto dives into the water to kill a shark, the carcass of which will play a part in her plan. That plan involves using the carcass to...um...I'm a little lost, but Ted and Tanaka toss some chum in the waves to attract the sharks, who'll devour the bad guys, and Misto ages and dies in the waters:



"The Legend" is the two-page text story. Said legend is that of R'wana and Ngobi, two hunters in love with the same girl, Blina. These Kenyans were the greatest hunters, and Blina the greatest beauty; R'wana was cruel and bloodthirsty, while Ngobi hunted only for the sake of feeding the people.

Fearing that Blina's father the chieftain of the village, would choose Ngobi for her mate, he proposes a challenge to determine which will become her husband: whoever can kill the black lion who has been worrying the village. Ngobi objects, arguing that the lion is no threat, but that attacking it and failing to kill it will turn it into a man-killer. The chief is confident that one of the men will succeed, and thus approves the challenge.

Ngobi is first to face the lion, and cannot bring himself to attempt the kill. R'wana has no such objections, and he takes his shot, wounding the beast. He thinks that since Ngobi didn't even try, he has won, but instead the villagers drive him to his hut in disgrace, realizing that Ngobi's concerns will now be proven.

R'wana sneaks through the night to assassinate his rival, but the lion attacks him! But Ngobi can now kill it without compunction, winning the hand of Blina, while R'wana dies, becoming a bitter, evil ghost.

Hey, that's actually one of the best old comics text stories I've ever read!

"The Thirsty Blade", the second jungle story in this issue, features the character Alani, the "South Sea Girl" who had an ongoing feature in SEVEN SEAS COMICS. It opens with the kind of scene the CCA would soon be forbidding, with a bound prisoner being mercilessly whipped while bound to a stake. But this prisoner bears the beating, reminding himself that he has an escape plan and a map the the Vanishing Isles...



The prisoner ("Bloody Roger") and his cutthroat companions revolt against the guards of the prison island, while Alani's blond boyfriend Ted dives for pearls in the seas around the peaceful Vanishing Isles. He's attacked by sharks, and Alani's spear misses the mark, so she dives in and slaughters the maneater with her knife! Alani is a formidable and capable woman in the classic jungle queen mode. She next proposes to show Ted to the "Mysto trees", as the escaped prisoners reach the island and begin to attack the villagers, who cry out for Alani.

The crew ambush and capture Alani and Ted, tying them to tree trunks so that they can observe the evening's scheduled "entertainment": the one by one execution of every villager!



But the opening event is to be the execution, by improvised guillotine, of Alani's handsome companion. Alani, though, notices that the contraption has used the vine of the Mysto tree to hold the blade, and she knows of its "astounding properties": shortly after being detached, the vines melt!

Since the ignorant cutthroats bound Alani with Mysto vine, she escapes, but she must save Ted before the vines disintegrated and drop the chop on her chap! Through an unbelievable coincidence, Ted escapes decapitation:



In a grisly and abrupt finish, that blade-stopping knife comes loose just in time to land on Bloody Roger himself, as he was in the process of finishing off the South Sea Girl, and the final caption hastily summarizes the aftermath of the story:





With issue 20, dated April 1955, Ajax-Farrell modified the title to VOODA, with "Introducing Jungle Princess" over the new logo:






You can read this comic at: VOODA #20

Note also that VOODA bears the seal of the Comics Code Authority, and the name change is likely to have been motivated by the CCA's disapproval of the implications of the word "voodoo", even though the topic itself was not specifically forbidden by the code.

The creative team on the initial Vooda story, "Fools Against Fortune!", has not yet been identified at the GCD.

Vooda is set in the Congo, but Vooda herself is colored as a white woman. The opening caption makes a conspicuous reference to "voodoo", suggesting to me that the decision to rename the comic may have come after the production (or perhaps alteration) of this story:





The king of the tribe steals food from the cruel white aliens, and is shot down for his attempt. They then tie the slain leader's young son to a tree, to serve as tiger bait, proposing to then kill the tiger and use its meat to feed the tribe! Yes, in the real world, the boy would have nothing to fear from the mythical African tiger, but comic book jungles don't always respect authentic habitats...

Vooda hears the news, and arrives to save the day, killing the tiger and saving the boy. At her instruction, the villagers imitate the sounds of wildlife:



This fools the white hunters into assembling for a hunt, and while the men are out pursuing nonexistent prey, the villagers take back their stolen food and relocate it elsewhere in the jungle.

She next orders that the tiger's carcass be "placed at the bottom of the green spring when the water's temperature reaches freezing." (?!)

Three days later, Vooda spies the hunters starving in the jungle. While she is watching, she's attacked by a giant snake, and must battle with it. The hunters, meanwhile, find the tiger carcass left as bait, and argue over it, fearing more days of starving ahead of them. One kills the other, and the tiger's mate arrives to kill the survivor!



Hey, I thought the random snake fight was intended to delay Vooda and prevent her from intervening in the deadly end to the white hunters, but it was just there to add a little more stereotypical jungle action--Vooda watches coldly as the men get their just desserts, and is acknowledged as a wise ruler for how she handled this situation!

This is a pretty vicious little tale that has more than a few holes in it. These "hunters" can't find any prey to feed on in the Congo jungles? Just because the animals the villagers imitated weren't really there doesn't mean there weren't any actual meaty creatures still in their natural habitats! And I was puzzled over the bit about the frozen waters--you'd think the writer would have stopped as soon as he typed the word "freezing" and rethink his plot!--but I realize now that this was intended as a means to justify the tiger meat being preserved when the hunters returned after three days of starvation. But wouldn't the story have been even better if they were fighting over a rotting carcass as the only disgusting option left to them?

For a supposed introduction to the character, we get almost nothing about Vooda. We can infer that she's a typical Jungle Queen type: white woman from the "civilized" world establishing her own "kingdom" where she's loved and respected by the natives as their savior against menaces. I suppose readers were more than capable of filling in the blanks themselves.

"Danger Safari", also from unidentified creators, is a reprint of the Roy Lance story "Roy Lance in the Revolt of the Black Continent" from JUNGLE COMICS #2, which I covered in my first jungle comics sampling of this thread. The character's name has been altered to "Kit", presumably because Fiction House retained the trademark to "Roy Lance." This revision adds a lot of dialogue to the many silent panels in the original; norms had changed in the comic book business, and these changes reflect that the captioned illustrations common in the early days of the medium were no longer sufficient.

The new dialogue does add some substance and personality that was lacking. It also refines one story detail: in the original, all of the African tribes are united in uprising, but here, some tribes are opposing the villainous Dawambo.

Original:



Reprint:



"Kimbo, Boy of the Jungle" is next, with art attributed, according the the GCD, to the "Iger Shop", so, presumably, it was a group effort by several artists.



At least one prehistoric dinosaur has survived and been revived in Kimbo's jungle homeland. It's presence prevents the people from hunting food, so now Zodi must join the search for food, leaving his girlfriend Ranu behind to fend off the advances of the evil Mordu, who wants Ranu as his bride.

Zodi's band encounters the dinosaur, and only Zodi survives. Kimbo, a white (of course...) jungle boy arrives to aid Zodi and join him in hunting down the monster. But first he sends Zodi back to his village to recover.

Mordu convinces the village that Zodi has murdered his tribemen, and is exiled, leaving Mordu to claim the lovely Ranu.

In the wild, Zodi is helpless when attacked by a big cat, but Kimbo comes to the rescue. Together, they defeat the giant lizard and restore Zodi's good name, leading to Mordu's exile:



Kimbo is another out-of-nowhere white savior type, and again the reader is left to fill in any gaps as to why this kid is such a hero to the natives. The dinosaur adds a bit of spice to this tale, but it's pretty lame stuff, rendered in a rather pedestrian style.

"Bull Stampede" is the two page text story. It has safari members Rod Carson and Terry Drummond--both great examples of the kinds of names comics writers of the time seemed to dub their adventuring characters!--triggering an elephant stampede to chase off the threatening Swami tribe. This one is not one of the best text stories I've found in old comics, for sure.

Finally, writer Manning Lee Stokes and artist Matt Baker deliver "Echoes of an A-Bomb." This is a reprint of another South Sea Girl story from SEVEN SEAS COMICS #6, with the name of its lead character Alani relettered as "Vooda." Over the course of its three-issue run, several South Sea Girl stories would be revised to become "Vooda" stories. Some of the apparently new Vooda stories could be left-over, unpublished inventory from Iger, altered to feature this "new" character.

Like the Roy Lance story, Ajax-Farrell have added dialogue:

Vooda:



South Sea Girl:



Throughout the story, many word balloons have been expanded, slowing down the reading experience, but the effect is not as much an improvement as it was to the under-scripted Roy Lance tale. It doesn't appear to me that the additions to the scripts in either were intended to satisfy new CCA restrictions, but that they were intended to make the comics feel like a more substantial reading experience.

The villains here are members of "Death, Unlimited", here to test atomic bombs. Vooda has friends from Washington arriving to aid the island. She swims to the nearby American ship to get aid, and they reach the island just as the bad guys' dirigible heads off to a safe distance for detonating the explosion.

Vooda:



South Sea Girl:



Vooda grabs the tether, climbing to the cabin of the dirigible and grabs the bomb's radio controller, tossing it out into the ocean below. The men try to fight her, but one plunges to his demise, followed by Vooda, whose superior swimming skills allow her to survive.

Well, Ajax-Farrell didn't even try to reconcile the two stories: this certainly isn't the Congo setting of the first story. Fortunately, the Vanishing Isles of the South Sea Girl stories is home to a variety of fauna, including gorillas, so reprints in later issues could better pass themselves off as jungle stories.

I'll consider this look at VOODOO/VOODA to suffice as my sampling of SEVEN SEAS COMICS as well, since SEVEN SEAS COMICS' most prominent jungle material is reprinted here. I did skim a few issues, which included several other sea-going features that didn't go deeply into the jungle. The first issue provides an introduction to Alani, the South Sea Girl, establishing her as the "young beautiful ruler and protector" of the Vanishing Isles, "where the pounding surf sweeps adventure against lush shores."



To my great surprise, this first South Sea Girl story turns out to be the story reprinted as "Destination Congo" in VOODOO #19! Alani has been turned into "Misto", and, in order to satisfy the more horrific expectations of readers of VOODOO, assigned a fate to age into an old hag once she reached her shores:






As in previously cited examples, Ajax-Farrell padded the dialogue here, beyond rewriting the script to make it something more like a horror tale. They also performed some surgery on the art, joining panels from different pages:

Reprint/Remodel:



Original:



Instead of aging and dying with the sharks, Alani survives to wave farewell to Captain Ted, who departs while the mists guarding the Vanishing Isles are gone.

So Alani the South Sea Girl appeared in three different guises over the course of VOODOO/VOODA: as Misto, the doomed mystery woman from the Congo, as Alani the South Sea Girl, and as Vooda the Jungle Princess.

Of the three versions, I prefer the original South Sea Girl, but Vooda makes for slightly above average jungle fare, with stories that provide a bit more bite than then defanged 50's fare that would follow the adoption of the Comics Code. There's some nice Matt Baker art, providing plenty of atmosphere. Not a Jungle Gem, but well worth a 1955 dime to readers of the time.