The Lost World in Comics I

In a previous post I wrote about a seven page story, “Creatures of Fantasy”, that jammed Arthur Conan Doyle, Jules Verne and Edgar Rice Burroughs into one tale. Looking back at this story, I started to wonder how many actual adaptations there are of Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World, the novel that named a sub-genre. Surely Gilberton did the book with its cavemen and dinosaurs back in Classics Illustrated in the 1940 or 50s. Right? Nope.

The first adaptation is in French. In fact, the French have adapted the novel six times, making them the true Conan Doyle fans. In 1957, Le Monde perdu, by Rémy Bourlès appeared in black and white. Bourlès wrote and drew the comic.

The first American comic is actually Four Color #1145 based on the 1960 film with Claude Rains. The movie was adapted by Paul S. Newman. Art was done by Gil Kane and Mike Peppe. This was the third version of the novel on film. The 1925 adaptation’s influenced on other films was huge. King Kong  borrows the lost world idea but is not a Conan Doyle film. There were many others to follow.

Eagle magazine adapted the novel in  Eagle #10-29 (March 10 – July 21, 1962) and in French in Pilote #176-194 (March 7 – July 11, 1963) Read them here.

1975 gave us a parody in Le Monde perdu by Nino. I don’t believe this is Alex Nino who was busy working in the US at DC and Marvel Comics in 1975.

The children’s magazine Look and Learn serialized the novel in 1982

In 1990, we got Challenger : Le Monde perdu, by André-Paul Duchateau & Patrice Sanahujas.

Millennium Comics produced a two issue adaptation as Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World in 1995. Donald Marquez wrote and drew the comic. This appeared four years before the television show The Lost World (1999-2002).

2004 had Le Monde perdu de Maple White by Anne Porot & Patrick Deubelbeis.

2008 saw Les Mondes perdus de Conan Doyle by Laurence Tramaux & Patrick Deubelbeiss.

Le Monde perdu by Christophe Bec & Fabrizio Faina /Mauro Salvatori appeared in 2013.

So much for the official stuff. As “Creatures of Fantasy” proved, there were plenty of artists and writers willing to borrow the idea of cavemen and dinosaurs. I looked at one of these already in Ka-Zar’s home of The Savage Land. But there were others. The lost worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs: Pellucidar (1914, Caspak (1918) and Pal-U-Don (1921) get mixed in here as do the balloons and other elements of Jules Verne. Lost worlds were such a part of the Pulps, that comics had to have them too.

1940 saw “The Lost World” a comic in Planet Comics #7 to #57, but this lengthy serial like its 1988 reboot with Hunt Bowman, are set in space. As was Osamu Tezuka’s manga, Lost World in 1948. Prehistoric space worlds of dinosaurs are not quite what we are talking about here. Perhaps in another post sometime. I’m sticking to the closest Arthur Conan Doyle clones I can today.

“Sergeant Spook” in Blue Bolt V.1 #11-12 (April-May 1941) gave us with a two-parter, one filled with dinosaurs and one with cavemen. Malcolm Kildale wrote and drew the strip.

“Monsters of Mura!” (Dagar, Desert Hawk #14, February 1948) was written by an unknown author. The art was done by Edmond Good. Dagar and his pals fight through a sand storm to find the lost city of the lizard people. The reptilians have giant iguanas for mounts. The artist has taken a page out of Hal Roach’s The Lost World (1940) with its iguanas and alligators doing stand-in for animated dinos.

The best of them all was Frank Frazetta’s Thun’Da, King of the Jungle, who lived in a world of dinosaurs in issue #1 (1952). When the editors wanted to turn Thun’Da into just another vine-swinger, Frazetta quit. Bob Powell took over.

Lorna was Marvel’s jungle girl in a jungle filled with them. She meets a crazy version of Professor Challenger in “The Lost World” (Lorna the Jungle Girl #13, May 1955). Escaping justice, the mad professor uses a race of giants from a lost land for his troops to attack civilization. This story was written by Don Rico.

Turok, Son of Stone began in Four Color #596 (December 1954) then #656 (October 19655) had his own comic in March-May 1956. Gold Key picked up the comic with #30 (December 1962) which ran until April 1982. Later versions inspired a video game and more comics. The comic was created by Gaylord DuBois. There were numerous artists but the George Wilson covers are quite memorable. The basic idea was that Turok and his young friend, Andar, wander into a lost world filled with cavemen and dinosaurs. Also plant monsters.

Turok wasn’t alone. There were several comics with caveman heroes. One of these was Kona, Monarch of Monster Island. He debuted in Four Color #1256 (February-April 1962) and ran for twenty-one issues to March 1967. Here we mix the jungle lord with Kong’s island of gigantic monsters for some real action.

Spooky #105 (August 1968) had a Casper story called “Found: A Lost World”. The author and artist are unknown. Casper finds a valley inhabited by prehistoric creatures and cavemen. He has stone hatchets thrown through him. He leads the cave people to the outside world, where they become fans of rock music. Casper apologizes for turning them into beatniks and hippies. We don’t know who the writer is but he was obviously a “square”, man.

Conclusion

There so many more examples of lost worlds in comics. Arthur Conan Doyle gave us a long-living trope with the lost world inhabited by both primitive humans and dinosaurs. The Pulpsters like Edgar Rice Burroughs and Lester Dent created other worlds of dinosaurs and action. (Later writers like Ian Cameron and James Rollins brought the lost world back in novels.) The movies, starting with The Lost World in 1925, thrilled us with animated dinosaurs, creating an entire genre of movies, the monster picture. (Think Godzilla to Jurassic Park!) Television got there eventually too, with shows like Land of the Lost (1973 and 1991 and later films), Valley of the Dinosaurs (1974) and Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle (1976). The Lost World in comics has been there with all the other media since 1940 at least.

You might think this concept is old-fashioned in a day when every inch of the world has been mapped by satellites. But I remember the thrill towards the end of Aquaman (2018) when Jason Mamoa’s watery superhero emerges in a lost world. Most of that film was a pretty dull tale of aquatic politics but they had my attention when we got to the Hidden Sea. I wish the entire movie had been set there.

For more lost land action…Part II