Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Jungo the Man Beast (Holyoke;1946)










Here is another obscure jungle character making his debut in the Catacombs thanks to Don "Zu-Gogo" Falkos who has provided 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.

The origin of Jungo the Man Beast is from the golden age series, Sparkling Stars #15 (Jul. 1946); originally published by Holyoke. The cover is included today as a bonus feature. There are no writer/artist credits for me to share with you, although I will have more Jungo adventures in the queue, so maybe that will change.

Phil Gant was the macho star of the "Jungo" movie serial and he eventually traveled to Africa in order to prove that he could really live the life of a jungle lord. However, upon arriving in the “Dark Continent”, he somehow received a blow to his head which gave him amnesia and the mistaken belief that he really was Jungo, the Man-Beast. Watch as his Hollywood friends and fiance, Gloria Dean, rescue him and try to restore his memory. Gant eventually recovers his memory; then he and Gloria (who strangely alternates between calling him Phil and Jungo) become rulers of a tribe on some lost tropical looking island. The idea has similarities to the plot of ERB's "The Lion Man" only in that case the actor thinking he's Tarzan is a complete coward, which his amnesia does nothing to alleviate.

Enjoy!

4 comments:

Pappy said...

I can still be surprised; I have never seen nor heard of this character. And you answered the question I had, "What Tarzan book does this remind me of?"

Tarzan and the Lion Man, of course. Thanks, Chuck.

Chuck Wells said...

You are more than welcome, Pappy.

Jungo is definitely the name of this character in Sparkling Stars #15, but there is a discrepancy in the GCD listings. At least a couple of the issues refer to this character as "Jungol", but as far as I can determine, he is Jungo is subsequent stories. There may also have been a separate character using the name "Jungol" elsewhere, but I'm not enough of an authority to verify that.

borky said...

Maybe it's me, Chuck, but the moment I saw the title of this strip, Jungo, Carl Jung's head appeared on Jungo's shoulders and I laughed my way right through it.

I must be going through a silly half hour, though, because then I noticed 'Chuck Wells' and thought: what kind of hobby is that to recommend to people, chucking wells, and who should we chuck them at?

Maybe I'm not really me - maybe I'm me cat and somebody's slipped me a catnip mickey finn!

Feel free to say: if you keep making contributions like this I'll be chucking wells at you in a minute!

I don't take drugs so haven't got the munchies, but if I did, would you recommend a Freud egg?

Good job me daughter's not here or she'd be saying, "You think you're so funny...!"

Chuck Wells said...

My daughters say that to me quite often. My son probably would too, but he just gives me a peculiar look.