Saturday, February 20, 2010

Lance Hale in "The Zango Cannibals" (Lev Gleason;1941)







The weekend bonus story from the golden age of comics comes to you from Silver Streak Comics #8 (March 1941) originally published by Lev Gleason, and under a super-spiffy Jack Cole cover featuring Daredevil vs. The Claw (which I've included at no extra charge).

Lance Hale was a soldier of fortune who moved to Africa and then "adapted" himself to life in the wild by cross-dressing (?). I wonder if he had issues with his own sexuality, because one look at his chosen jungle wardrobe proves that he wasn't really cut out for life as a Tarzan clone. I mean come on, green tights, yellow booties, red trunks and an off-the-shoulder animal skin. Lance, old boy, what were you thinking? Fred Guardineer gets all the credit for this oddball story as both writer and artist.

The Catacombs is grateful to Don "Zu-Gogo" Falkos for providing the scans for this story. Note: The copyright for this issue, its contents and artwork belong to the original publisher and/or creators and is reproduced here solely for entertainment purposes.

Enjoy!

2 comments:

Mykal Banta said...

I have always loved the Golden Age jouch of Lev Gleason - in particular, I love the way he draws animals! Look at that awesome croc! -- Mykal

cash_gorman said...

Guardineer is one of my favorite GA artists. He is more famous for his work on the Magician heroes, but he drew a little of everything.

Lance Hale was a bit of a schizophrenic strip, especially if you just sample various stories from different times. He was your typical Great White Hunter, a space hero sci-fi hero with super powers, and the Tarzan-crossed-with-a-superhero depending on which story you read. However, there was a progression and continuity to the stories if you read them back to back, so it wasn't just a case of suddenly giving the character a new back-story and m.o. with nary an explanation (although there's a little of that in there as well).