As a Tarzan fan you can’t but help notice all the knock offs and also-rans. Edgar Rice Burroughs created a cottage industry in the jungle. I came to the whole jungle genre late, in the 1970s so there were many decades of pseudo-Burroughs to enjoy. One of the franchises I never really explored was the one revolving around Jungle Jim Bradley. I saw reprints in the DC Tarzan Family comics but never really bought in. It turns out I was missing a lot.
Alex Raymond was about to become famous in 1934. On January 7th of that year he released both Flash Gordon and Jungle Jim into the world. Unlike Flash, Jim was only a Sunday strip, not having a daily black & white version. It would run on Sundays until August 8, 1954.
Raymond’s inspiration for Jungle Jim isn’t hard to figure out. The King Syndicate wanted a jungle strip to run against Hal Foster’s Tarzan. Raymond chose not to do an African ape man but a hunter in Southeast Asia. One of the reasons for this might have been 1931’s successful documentary Trader Horn as well as 1932”s Frank Buck documentary, Bring’em Back Alive.
The name of the character was reportedly based on Raymond’s brother, Jim, but I have to think that the playground equipment known as a “Jungle Gym” since the 1920s had its part too. The title summed up the character, exploited its jungle setting but also made the hero a common man with a name like Jim.
Like most comic heroes, such as Mandrake the Magician, Jim had to have a sidekick. His companion was the native warrior, Kolu. Typical to the white hero comics, Kolu was always subservient to his master. Later, a femme fatale named Lilli deVrille was added.
Now a successful Sunday comic, the character was brought to Radio. On November 2, 1935, The Adventures of Jungle Jim starring Matt Crowly began. Crowley would be replaced by Gerald Mohr on April 24, 1938. The 15 minute episodes would run until April 19, 1952, racking up 860 shows.
Another spin-off was the 1936 Whitman’s Big Little Book #1138 Jungle Jim. It was 432 pages of story with an illustration every opposite page. 1937 had a sequel Jungle Jim and the Vampire Woman.
Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon are probably better remembered for the movie serials starring Buster Crabbe than for anything else. It was a no-brainer that Jungle Jim would get one too. In 1937, Jungle Jim starring Grant Withers came to screens everywhere in glorious black & white. The episodes did not do well enough to warrant a sequel.
1937 also saw the original comic strips being collected for the first time in Ace Comics. The earliest comic books were all collections from the newspapers. Not until Superman and Action Comics came along would this change. Ace Comics ran the strip until 1947.
Raymond wouldn’t stay with the strip forever. When he enlisted in WWII his tenure ended but the comic went on. John Mayo and then Paul Norris drew the strip. Raymond was off to fight the Japanese and so was Jungle Jim. During the war years, his adventures were of a more military nature.
Columbia studios came calling again in 1948. A wonderful opportunity presented itself. Johnny Weismuller, the man who had played Tarzan in twelve films, had retired from the role. What better actor to play Jim Bradley? The resulting movies were never better than B-films but the studio made ten of them with Jungle Jim (1948) to Devil Goddess (1955). Also in 1955, twenty-six television episodes would be made from the ten films.
Based on the B-Movies success, the comics returned to Jungle Jim, but this time not as reprints. Ned Pines, who had once owned a chain of Pulps, started Standard Comics. In 1949 Standard would produce five issues with Paul Norris, who had worked on the comic strip, doing the art. Their last issue was in 1951.
But Jim didn’t stay unemployed for long. Dell Comics picked up the property in 1953 and published seventeen issues until 1959. These were written by Paul S. Newman and later by comic superstar, Gaylord Du Bois. Art was by Frank Thorne, Paul Norris and Creig Flessel.
Jungle Jim’s star was on the wane. With the comic strip ended, the films over, the television show stopping in 1956, it is a little surprising that in 1957 the Louis Marx Company created a Jungle Jim playset with plastic figures. The product doesn’t capitalize on the media directly but in a generic way with hunters, natives and animals.
In 1959 Archie Goodwin and Reed Crandall tried to restart Jungle Jim with a daily comic strip but the syndicate wasn’t interested. Despite this, comics would have another go. The King syndicate put out a reprint issue in 1967 but offered nothing new. (Perhaps testing the waters?) Charlton Comics produced seven issues of Jungle Jim between 1969 and 1970. These were written by Joe Gill and were drawn by an all-star crew including Pat Boyette, Steve Ditko and Wally Wood. Despite this muscle it ended quickly.
There have been numerous collections of Alex Raymond’s original Sundays since but for now Jungle Jim will remain a memory of the 1930s to 1950s, where he properly belongs. I can now enjoy him for what he was, no Tarzan replacement, but one of a legion of jungle heroes and heroines that make up the imaginary jungles of childhood.
