It is winter as I write this. I live in a place where snow and cold can make life miserable. I commiserate with Rulah’s problems, except going out in the cold without proper warm clothing would put her in danger of frostbite. For not being used to the cold, Rulah is able to maintain her cool (ho-ho), and solve the problem. What else would one expect a jungle goddess to do?
“The Ice Beast” is from Fox’s Zoot Comics #10 (1947). Story and art by the Iger Studio.
The audience was presumed to consist of dimwits or of people unconcerned with the story as such, or perhaps of dimwitted people unconcerned with the story.
ReplyDeleteI think that, had I been a publisher in that era, I would have tried producing a magazine that truly were nothing but pin-up drawings, unconnected by any narrative thread (except in-so-far as I'd have two pages of text in the center of each issue). I probably would have been able to attract a considerable pool of contributors, as many comic-book artists weren't good at drawing anything but pretty girls, which suggests to me that they'd become illustrators with that as their principal objective.
Wow! Just wow! That is one amazing world that Rulah lives in.
ReplyDeleteSure,they acknowledge the cold. Some even died but for the most part they were pretty impervious to it as evidenced by the fact that the women continued to wear their little jungle bikinis and merely wrapped a small shawl around their shoulders.
And how is it that no one thought to build a fire? Or protect their feet? And I love how Rulah herself dons nothing more than a little leopard skirt and silk shawl to fend off the cold and like all the others does nothing to protect her feet.
Where did a little boy in Africa get a tiger skin? But of course in those days any animal that lived in a tropical rain forest, be it India, the Amazon or Australia also could be found in the tropics of Africa. Just listen to the sound tracks of all those old Tarzan movies where kookaburras from Australia and peacocks from India can plainly be heard calling in the background as proof.
I'll let the elephants living in the jungle (or rain forest as it more properly referred to today)slide. Once again thanks to all those old Johnny Weismuller Tarzan films it was common knowledge that any and all African animals could be found in the "jungle". But the sudden appearance of what looks like a cougar attacking Rulah is truly mystifying. Apparently Monstro's machine not only altered the temperatures but had the ability to transport animals from cold climates as well. I'd like to think that it was a crazed lioness but Rulah does refer to it as a snow animal.
Don't even get me started on the leopard, zebra, giraffe and lion all serenely hanging out together.
Of course the most incredible aspect of this amazing world is that all the women of the tribe are white supermodels while all the males are black.
Rulah had only taken over Zoot Comics in #7, but even this early (Nov 1947) there's GGA aplenty. I don't remember if the Swedish Bikini Team wore boots, but other than that I don't think they wore much more than this?
ReplyDeleteRick, the black men/white women characters have been noted before. Considering that black men had been lynched/murdered over attention to white women (i.e., Emmitt Till, whose death resulted from a lie by a white woman), it probably meant that Rulah might not have been the favorite reading material of the Ku Klux Klan (or maybe it was...who knows?)
ReplyDeleteThis issue of Zoot Comics was published in 1947; Zoot ended its run in 1948, which was the year of the "Dixiecrats." They were disaffected Democrats who founded a party aimed at keeping segregation laws. It seems an unusual time for publishing a comic book that showed black men and white women, but once again, who knows why?
Also, the strange comic book Africa had all kinds of animals not found in real-life Africa. I'll bet if you asked an average citizen in 1947 what animals were native to Africa they'd answer with all kinds of critters not known on that continent. P.S. When it comes to geography, most people aren't that up on it even 72 years later, claims Cynical Pappy.
Darci, wow, the Swedish Bikini Team! I had forgotten about them. I looked them up online (oh, the research I do for this blog!) and saw in one picture they were wearing their bikinis and boots.
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