In what is probably the last in this series of articles, I give an overview of another of the major pulp publishers and their pulp heroes: Fiction House.
Established in the 1920s as a pulp publisher of aviation, western and sports pulps, they later got into jungle and detective fiction. They added comic books in the 1930s, and it’s kind of funny how several of their titles for pulp and comics matched: Fight Stories/Fight Comics, Jungle Stories/Jungle Comics, Planet Stories/Planet Comics, Wings/Wings Comics, etc. They did get into super heroes in the comics, but frankly I can’t recall who they created, and for some reason they never got into pulp heroes — to a degree.
They did get into jungle heroes.
In their Jungle Stories pulp was the long-running Ki-Gor, a Tarzan pastiche. Altus Press is reprinting the original stories, and several new stories have been written, mainly by people wanting to do a Tarzan story, but unable to.
Strangely enough, in Jungle Comics Fiction House had Ka’a’nga, a Tarzan clone. I’m told the characters are pretty much alike, so it’s strange they didn’t use the same names. Some Ka’a’nga stories have been reprinted; AC Comics reprinted some Ka’a’nga stories but retitled the character “Ki-Gorr”!
They had other jungle heroes as well, especially in the comics. For instance, Otis Adelbert Kline‘s Jan of the Jungle appeared in Ranger Comics around 1948.
But their most famous character is Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, created for them by the team of Will Eisner and Jerry Iger for their comics. She actually first appeared in the U.K. in 1937, before showing up in the U.S. in 1938, appearing before Wonder Woman. She would be one of the few comic book characters to make the transition to pulps, with a trio of stories all reprinted by Altus Press.
While Fiction House went under in the early ’50s, Sheena lived on. Most probably recall her from the famous mid-1950s TV series staring Irish McCalla. Or perhaps the 1980s movie staring Tanya Roberts.
But beyond their jungle heroes, Fiction House didn’t have any other types of pulp heroes. Certainly nothing to compare with those from the other pulp publishers. But their jungle heroes probably make up for that.
