We may be taking a break from the horror-filled hero encounters over at THOIA for a bit-- but not here at AEET! We also have MORE MARCH MUMMY MACABREY on deck too! (I told ya's these shamblin' antiques would find their weird, wobbly way over to this blog as well-- didn't I say? Didn't I?!) And yeah, in our previous double feature post, we saw hottie heroine Fantomah take out some bandaged brute bags, --now today it's up to sizzlin' Sheena "Queen of the Jungle" (and Chim!) to swing into mummified action! From the March 1941 issue of Jumbo Comics #25, and featuring art by THOIA fan-fave, bad ass, Bob Powell, too!
3 comments:
The art ... wow. It's 41 so the tight paneling gets a pass but Powell really works every panel. From crumbling temples, to well and accurately drawn animals, to good girls and gun shooting he-man, every panel of this is is just great.
The mummy is fun but the animals in this: The chimp, the rhino is incredible, even the Ibis feels real. This is some great work for 41, which was usually full of animals sourced from memory.
Last panel, page 6, I love the line between the mummy and his victim. I know it's a strange panel to focus on but that's the kind of skill the really good artists had.
Been noticing something in these last two jungle girl stories -- they always jump into a fight but keep being saved by animal companions and men. I get these were aimed at boys and you needed the he-man action guy but the pattern is kind of obvious.
I took a look on GCD and saw this was only one of eight full stories in this comic book, not including the one and two pagers. Kids got a lot for just a dime back then.
It looks like the script was inspired by "The Mummies Hand" (1940)
This was a great addition to March Mummy month.
The paneling is so interesting here. Most pages adopt the nine-up format, with panels growing longer across the top from left to right (and therefore getting shorter along the bottom), creating a sort of staggered effect. Somehow this doesn't seem to effect the reading order, even when the story adopts an elderly frame narration writing style after page three. And while it feels pretty rigid and orderly--something I like, for the record--I note that it isn't really. Landscapes open up in horizontal framing starting on the rhino page, and there are lots of oddly L-shaped panels here and there to accommodate both caption order and action. It's really pretty inventive.
And when these competing needs resulted in odd spaces, the artist seems to have gotten pretty whimsical. I love the wee panel with the house on page one. Why? Why is that there? I don't care why.
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