The Mystery: Sheena, Queen of the Jungle got her start as a comic book character. Created by the same man who gave us The Spirit, Doll Man, Blackhawk and Plastic Man… Will Eisner. Eisner and S. M. Iger did the strip under the pseudonym W. Morgan Thomas not because of embarrassment but to give the impression that their two-man operation was a large comics outfit with other artists. Sheena was the first powerful female character in a savage jungle world. To some, she is the first female Tarzan.
Sheena’s first appearance was in the British Wags #1 in 1937 but she soon after came to America in Jumbo Comics #1 (September 1938) and stayed for the entire run of the comic to April 1953. She had her own 18 issue self-titled comic too as well as appearances in Pulp magazines. In 1955-56 she was played by Irish McCalla on TV, by a topless Tanya Roberts in the film version in 1984, and by Gena Lee Nolin in another TV show in 2000.
Sheena holds records. She was the first female character to have her own title, beating Wonder Woman out by months. Her name has been memorialized in the title of the Ramones “Sheena is a Punk Rocker” to the singer Sheena Easton. Sheena has made her mark, being followed by a host of copy-cats: Rulah, Jungle Lil, Lorna, Shanna the She-Devil and so on.
So imagine my surprise when I saw the cover of Weird Tales for September 1930. Certain Weird Tales covers are classics and you see them all the time. Many of the earlier ones, not by Margaret Brundage or Virgil Finlay, are less familiar. C. C. Senf did many of the covers in the 1920s and early 30s, and September 1930 is one of them. It sports a Jungle Queen and a rather racist version of an African saving/attacking(?) a white explorer. “The Invisible Bond” by Arlton Eadie was this cover story. Now I wish I could tell you all about this tale but I don’t have a copy of September 1930 so for now it must remain a mystery, at least to me. What strikes me about this cover is how similar it is to all those Jumbo Comics covers that would appear 8 to l0 years later. Did Eadie write a Sheena-type story years before Eisner?
If you’d like to read the rest, please check out Monster 3:From the Pages of Dark Worlds Quarterly