Thursday, November 10, 2011

Voodah in "The Trojan River Beast" (Golfing/McCombs;1945)

The W'gissi tribe constructs a wooden monster to scare another tribe away from their hunting grounds in an untitled story that I’ve dubbed “The Trojan River Beast”, starring the golden age warrior, Voodah, from Crown Comics #6 (Winter 1945). After this story, Voodah would make a single additional appearance in this incarnation, before he would become just another white jungle lord in a loincloth. What the reasoning behind this unfortunate change truly was is lost to the ages, but needless to say the forward thinking that had first allowed creator Matt Baker to present a black adventure hero had long since run its course. The splash page creator credit ‘Clarence Ramon’ is probably an alias for artist Bob Hebberd (with slight facial touch-ups by either Baker or Jack Kamen) in this issue originally published by Golfing/McCombs. 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!

3 comments:

Pappy said...

Great stuff you've been showing here lately, Chuck. I don't believe I've seen any of these jungle stories before, and it's nice to see you've alternated Kamen and Baker, two of the greats.

Chuck Wells said...

Thanks, Pappy! And let me say, right back at you over at your own blog.

I've long appreciated my fellow bloggers (like you) who predominantly post classic comics stories, and don't stray off course into other types of posts. Honestly, I will still continue to follow that muse when the mood strikes me, but I've recently made the decision to feature more comics stories in the Catacombs than I had been doing.

You see, Don Falkos provided me with such an abundant supply of "jungle-centric" comics stuff that it could take years to post it all and frankly, I'm itching to disseminate more of these great golden age adventures. For the time being, I'm gonna continue my "Gal" Friday posts too, but I'm pondering whether I should eliminate that feature as well.

Mykal Banta said...

" . . . "Gal" Friday posts too, but I'm pondering whether I should eliminate that feature as well."

That's just crazy talk!

But seriously, the more vintage comics posted the better I like it. Take this little gem, for example! What a cool story! The layouts here are just awesome!