Characters and Story
Illustrator Alex Raymond and pulp magazine author Don Moore created the original strip as a topper to run above Raymond's Flash Gordon. Jungle Jim and Flash Gordon were launched simultaneously on January 7, 1934.
Unlike the protagonists of Tarzan, Ka-Zar, Kaanga and other comics with jungle themes, Jim Bradley was based in Southeastern Asia rather than Africa, and he was a hunter rather than a wild man in a loincloth.
Other characters included the large, strong native Kolu (who served his white comrade Jim in a manner somewhat similar to the character of Lothar in Mandrake the Magician). The femme fatale Lille DeVrille was added to the cast two years after the strip's debut.
The comic's early years generally featured stories revolving around pirates, slave traders and other common jungle antagonists. As World War II approached, Jungle Jim, like many American comics, developed a wartime theme, with Jim fighting the Japanese, and it moved from its position as a topper strip to its own independent Sunday page.
During WWII, artist Raymond enlisted as a Marine. Successors included John Mayo (creator of Future Eye) and Paul Norris (creator of DC Comics' Aquaman). Don Moore continued to script through the succession of artists. The strip, which never ran as a daily, came to an end in 1954.
From 1937 to 1947, the comic strip was reprinted in Ace Comics, published by David McKay. From 1949 to 1951, there were 11 original Jungle Jim comic books produced by Standard Comics. Dell Comics published 20 issues of Jungle Jim from 1953 to 1959; the last eight issues (#13-20) were written by Gaylord Du Bois.
King Features Syndicate published a single issue of Jungle Jim in 1967. This was designated #5 and was a reprint of Dell's issue #5 with a new cover by Wally Wood. Charlton Comics then picked up Dell's numbering for another seven issues (#22-28) in 1969-70 with stories scripted by Wood, Pat Boyette, Bhob Stewart, Joe Gill and others. Artists on the Charlton stories were Wood, Boyette, Steve Ditko, Roger Brand and Tom Palmer.
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“The child ... stands upon a place apart, a little spectator of the world, before whom men and women come and go, events fall out, years open their slow story and are noted or let go as his mood chances to serve them. The play touches him not. He but looks on, thinks his own thought, and turns away, not even expecting his cue to enter the plot and speak. He waits,—he knows not for what.”
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