Kwa of the Jungle (1932-1933)

Kwa of the Jungle was a Tarzan clone who appeared  in six jungle adventures in Thrilling Adventures. The byline was “Paul Regard” but the actual author was Perly Poore Sheehan (1875-1943). He also wrote the popular Captain Trouble series including The Red Road to Shamballah, and the Leopard Man series for Thrilling Adventures. Sheehan had stories adapted as movies. He even directed one himself in 1924.

“Kwa of the Jungle” (Thrilling Adventures, August 1932) begins the story of Kwa with the story of Mok, a huge gorilla that haunts the cave-dwelling furry people as their Spider God. This prehistoric scenario sounds like it is happening in the Stone Age, but wait… Kwa shows up, a man among apemen. He challenges and kills Mok, making him the hero of the jungle. Later Americans show up and we see this primordial scene is a lost world. Eventually Kwa will find out he is Nathaniel Rahan, millionaire. He goes to America but misses his jungle.

Now anyone who has read Edgar Rice Burroughs can see the similarities pretty quick. In Tarzan of the Apes (1914), Tarzan kills Kerchak to become the leader of the apes. Sheehan has created the subhuman furry people to temper this. Like Tarzan, Kwa can communicate with animals like monkeys and elephants. Also like Tarzan, he is rich. Tarzan is really Lord Greystoke, an English lord. Sheehan even invents a jungle dictionary ala ERB.

This first “novel” was about 26,000 words long. Having a third of the length of a Burroughs novel, Sheehan doesn’t begin at the beginning and work his way through. By 1932, many readers and viewers knew enough about Tarzan that starting with his parents and showing how he was adopted by apes wasn’t really necessary.

“Kwa and the Ape People” (Thrilling Adventures, January 1933) was another 25,000 worder. This time Kwa takes on the magic of Anansi, the giant spider. The stories get shorter each time.

“Kwa, King of Ophir” (Thrilling Adventures, February 1933) by the third outing we are not down to about 11,000 words, half of the original. This will become the usual length until the last story. Kwa faces off against Tappo Zan the Spotted Horror and wins the kingship of Ophir. (Do I need to suggest Opar?)

“Kwa and the Beast Men” (Thrilling Adventures, March 1933)

“Kwa and the Walking Moon” (Thrilling Adventures, April 1933)

“Kwa and the Swamp Demon” (Thrilling Adventures, May 1933), the last of the six stories is only about 4500 words long. Sheehan has exhausted his jungle reservoir. He moved on from the jungle swinger pretty quickly. Maybe he was bored writing them, the editors thought the character’s popularity wasn’t there or simply because he had other projects to pursue.

Another Tarzan clone in 1933 wasn’t going to make anyone’s career. This is probably why Otis Adelbert Kline, who was writing the Jan series in Weird Tales around the same time, never pumped out two dozen novels. The Paul Regard pseudonym (or was it a house name?) meant anyone could have taken over for Sheehan.

Later the Ki-Gor novels at Jungle Stories would be written by “John Peter Drummond” who was several ghost writers including John Murray Reynolds. The editors at Fiction House had learned their lesson. For this reason Ki-Gotr would even beat out the original apeman for prolificity with 51 original tales. More stories have been written since 2004.

One last note, Tarzan comic fans may know of the French comic Rahan that began in 1969. Originally written by Roger Lecureux and drawn by André Chéret, it has its cave man character wandering from tribe to tribe, using strong ethics and the scientific method to improve lives in the jungle. I have to wonder if Levureux read the Kwa stories and borrowed that name, Rahan. The comic was made into a TV show called Rahan: Son of the Dark Age.