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Wednesday, November 24, 2021

Number 2577: Jo-Jo’s hot medicine

Jo-Jo Congo King was yet another white man swinging from trees in the comic book jungle. Published by Fox Features, and done for Fox by the Jerry Iger shop, where artists, even one or two, did the actual drawing in the familiar Iger style.

Fox had a comic book called Jo-Jo Comics, which was designed for young children. It was canceled and the former title became the Congo King's name. It was done because second class mailing permits were expensive. Keeping the title, albeit with totally different contents, made it possible to continue the title and not have to pay for a new permit. A tactic I have mentioned a few times in this blog.

The Public Domain web site gave the names of women, who appeared as Jo-Jo’s girlfriend (“love interests," as claimed by PDSH). In this story the voluptuous two-piece garb wearer is Gwenna. Other names of the sexy female leads are Geesha, Yolda, Safra, and Mioa. Jo-Jo’s girlfriend list was packed.

From Jo-Jo #7A,* 1946:






*There were two issues numbered “7”, so for purposes of keeping track, one is #7A, the other #7B. This story is from #7A. The Grand Comics Database says, “There are two #7s. Numbering is corrected with #14, skipping #13.” Skip #13? Was someone at Fox Features superstitious?

Come back tomorrow for the annual Thanksgiving Turkey Awards. 


1 comment:

Daniel [oeconomist.com] said...

I well understand the desire and perhaps need to save money, but couldn't “Jo-Jo” have been the name of the sidekick or of a companion animal? Give the hero Jo-Jo the Wonder Elephant, and name the hero something such as “Kanark”, with [k], [n], /r/, [a], and [æ] sounds!

Anyway, how are these jungle white people being produced? The gene pool seems restricted. Sometimes there's a bunch of white girls, but never a lot of white guys. Everybody should be getting darker, or in two generations recessive traits will be coming to the fore. Is there just one shipwreck or airplane crash after another?

Of course, typically white readers would have been more comfortable imagining themselves as a white hero. And, with the warped prevailing morality of the time, real-world social backlash would have obtained had a white hero had a dark-skinned African romantic interest (though I suspect that a dark-skinned girl from India would have been accepted). But the result of pandering is of course just bizarre.

Normally, the Iger shop put its script “The End” in an ugly little cloud.