Jungle Quadathalon

Comic books are full of incredible feats of strength and timing. Swinging on vines through a jungle, like Tarzan, seems to me to be an arduous task, tantamount to the very limits of Olympic abilities.

In fact, perhaps that could be an Olympic event that elite athletes would be capable of—a timed quadathalon obstacle course — swinging, diving, swimming, and wrestling an alligator alá Johnny Weismuller. The garments would be animal skins (faux of course). The women's event might look somewhat like the images below.

Jungle Drama

Joe Kubert wasn't just about war drama. He was about jungle drama too. His Tarzan renderings are probably the best in the whole comic history of Edgar Rice Burroughs' character, including Hal Foster's. Unfortunately I thought many of the stories were rather lackluster, as most jungle stories tend to be, in my opinion. I just wish he had done more of ERB's Mars or Venus art.

These are a few of my favorite Tarzans by Joe.

Decrepit Bookshop

I was twelvish when I had to have some dentistry work done.  On a Saturday morning I had to take the city bus, alone, downtown to an ancient medical building, with spooky old hallways and reeking of horrible medical odors—by myself, mind you, submitting myself to a creaky, greasy old geezer putting his huge hands in my mouth and inflicting great jabbing pain. Well needless to say, as I left the office, I was feeling pretty sorry for myself.

It was a cold rainy day, as I recall, and as I left the building I was sort of lost, having lost track of the bus stop. Looking around, trying to get my bearings, my sight and senses were drawn to a hole-in-the-wall decrepit bookshop, with a sign advertising 2nd hand magazines. With a sense of foreboding gloom I entered, expecting to be tossed out on my ear. But the old guy at the counter looked somewhat friendly and ignored me. So I warily and curiously poked around a bit, not knowing what to expect at this point.

Well, you can see where this is going. This was the early 60's when printed material was truly ephemera, not expected to last, and valued but little. I was too young to realize the extent of treasures that abounded in this shop, but I certainly recognized several long long bins of comics settled smack in the middle of the store. Salivating, I shuffled through them, and recognized some of the comics I had seen advertised in the first comics I had ever bought. And then more, and older. Most of them were priced at 8 cents, directly on the cover (!) with a marker. Some had the title of the cover torn off (a practice that was actually illegal, as those were store returns that were supposed to have been destroyed). Some were priced at an unheard of 50 cents, but oh, those were the nice ones.

Besides my bus fare, I had 2 dollars that was supposed to buy me some lunch (early 60s, remember?). But to hell with food, now I had to figure just which comics were the best for the price. Four good ones, or like 24(!) of the 8 centers?

I can't believe I had the nerve, but I told the guy that a couple of these 50 centers were pretty beat up, and could he go any lower? Nonchalantly he said said he could drop two of them to 40 cents. And BAM, this is what I bought:

This Jungle Comics was a beauty, but I sold it a couple of years ago for a lot more than 50 cents.

I sort of liked Krypto back then. I've already told you what I dork I was (am).

This Adventure was so beat up it should have been an 8 center, but I loved these panel covers.

And this Detective was in decent shape, but had that awful 8 cent mark on it, making it worth 8 cents, but actually I sold it too, years later, for quite a bit more.

Panel covers were cool, by my standard, and this was a book-length Wayne Boring story. It got more beat up in my possession.