If you missed the last one…
Last time we looked at comic book adaptation’s of Arthur Conan Doyle’s 1912 classic then went onto show some of the fall-out of that theme. Well, this time we have more comics that obviously take some inspiration from Doyle’s Cavemen & Dinosaurs. It should be pointed out that The Lost World was turned into a film as early as 1925. Probably more influential is King Kong (1933) with its giant apes and dinos. The point is that all the comic creators here were well versed in cinematic lost worlds and dinosaurs before they picked up their pens.
Golden Age
Mandrake the Magician daily comic from November 30, 1936 to April 17, 1937 was written by Lee Falk. It might surprise readers that Mandrake got to a lost world ahead of other comic strip characters like Tarzan and Flash Gordon (and Falk’s next success, The Phantom) but there was quite a bit of Science Fiction in the strip.
“Caveman Killers” (Jungle Comics #16, April 1941) was written by Frank Riddell. Jungle Comics was a spin-off of Jumbo Comics, where Sheena reigned supreme. Kaanga finds two different lost worlds, each with dinos and cavemen. In this one, he spends time exploring the caves of the prehistoric men.
“Valley of the Killer Birds” (Jungle Comics #17, May 1941) was written by Frank Riddell. In this one, he has to deal with pterodactyls. Kaanga had a Pulp cousin in Fiction House’s Jungle Stories, in Ki-Gor.
“Lost in the Underground World” (Captain Battle #2, Fall 1941) was written by Otto Binder. Superheroes often find lost worlds, for one story anyway. This one was written and drawn by two brothers. The older, Jack, owned his own shop (a studio of artists who produce strips for packagers) in the 1940s. And Otto, who was half of the Pulp pseudonym “Eando Binder” (with his other brother, Earl), who went on to write for Fawcett then DC.
“The Adventure of the Prehistoric Valley” (Action Comics #40, September 1941) was written and drawn by Fred Ray. Congo Bill got so popular he had a serial made about him in 1948. He will find another lost world, fifteen years later!
“Camilla, Queen of the Jungle” (Jungle Comics #33, September 1942) was written by Victor Ibsen. Camilla was one of the also-rans in Jungle Comics along with clunkers like White Panther, Tabu, Wizard of the Jungle and The Red Panther. Unlike Wambi the Jungle Boy, Camilla never got her own titular comic.
“Kaanga” (Jungle Comics #62, February 1945) was written by Frank Riddell. Still finding valleys filled with pterodons!
“The Lost Valley” (Star Spangled Comics #83, August 1948) was written by an unknown author. This one is a little different since there are no jungle lords involved. Tomahawk and his pals find a dino valley in America. For more on Tomahawk and dinosaurs, go here.
“Reign of the Reptiles” (Adventure Comics #139, April 1949) was written by Otto Binder. I wouldn’t want to take T. rex on with a bow!
“The Lost Civilization” (Nyoka the Jungle Girl #51, January 1951) was written by an unknown author. Nyoka was a character who started out in serials. For some reason she lasted a long time, going from Fawcett to Charlton to AC Comics. She racked up over a hundred issues from 1942 to 2005. Not bad for a character your grandparents saw as kids. And she doesn’t even wear a leopard outfit.
“Monsters of Evil Valley” (Wild Boy #4, October 1951) was written by an unknown author. Wild Boy was Ziff-Davis’s short-lived jungle character. What makes this one so interesting is the two men who drew him. Ross Andru and Mike Esposito would go on to do The War That Time Forgot for DC, drawing dinosaur-filled lost lands together for eight years.
“Charlie McCarthy the ‘Dinosaur Hunter'” (Four Color Comics #445, January 1953) was written by an unknown author.
“Dinosaur Island” (The House of Mystery #41, August 1955) was written by an unknown author.
“Tarzan and The Reptile With a Heart” (Tarzan’s Jungle Annual #4, August 1955) was written by Gaylord DuBois. Tarzan’s first encounter with a dinosaur goes back to Tarzan the Terrible (1921) by Edgar Rice Burroughs. A few years later he took him to the dino-filled lost world of Pellucidar in Tarzan at the Earth’s Core (1929). In 1953 Russ Manning went to work for Western and drew this other lost world tale. He would later take Tarzan to Pal-U-Don, Pellucidar and even to a place ERB never did, Caspak, The Land That Time Forgot.
Silver Age
“Congo Bill Stone Age Man” (Action Comics #220, September 1956) was written by an unknown author. Fifteen years later!
“The Shrouded Valley of Monsters” (Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan #107, August 1958) was written by Gaylord DuBois. Jesse Marsh drew Tarzan for Dell from 1947 to 1965, when Russ Manning took over full time. Jesse got to draw two lost valleys that Tarzan found.
“The Canyon of No Return” (Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan #131, July-August 1962) was written by Gaylord DuBois. Tarzan must have been pretty good at dealing with T. rex by the end of his jungle career. He encounters him time and again.
Bronze Age
Tarzan Sundays from July 12,1970 to April 2, 1972 was written and drawn by Russ Manning.
Saturday morning television and Sid and Marty Krofft gave us a lost land in Land of the Lost (1974-77). The show never got a comic but a cartoon series, based along the same idea, did. Hanna-Barbera’s Valley of the Dinosaurs (1974) had a comic book after the fact in 1975-76. The formula is the same in both shows, with a family trapped in a prehistoric backwater, trying to find their way home. Land of the Lost would be rebooted in 1991 then as a film with Will Ferrell in 2009.
Valley of the Dinosaurs #1-11 (April 1975-December 1976) Most of this run was written and drawn by Fred Himes.
“Domain of the Dark-Eyed Dragons” (The Flash #269, January 1979) was written by Cary Bates. You’d think the superheroes would have been done with dinosaurs with all the multiple versions of Earth they have to police, but The Flash got into one as late as 1979.
Stone Age
“Sons of the Dawn World Part 1” (Young All-Stars #28, August 1989) was written by Roy and Dann Thomas. The Thomases did one ten years later than that.
Conclusion
Fans of the original Conan Doyle novel got a television show in 1999-2002 with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World. The show adds the jungle girl, Veronica Layton, to the original cast of characters, making it a little closer to all these comics we have just seen. Sadly, it never got a comic version after cancellation. The spirit of Edgar Rice Burroughs ever shadows ACD. This shouldn’t be surprising since The Lost World was published in 1912 and ERB got started the same year.
More Covers
Many thanks for this feature! I love Lost World stories.