I have previously posted on The Green Lama, a pulp hero created by Kendall Foster Crossen and published originally by Munsey in Double Detective from 1940-41. An actual Buddhist monk, The Green Lama was really rich playboy Jethro Dumont. Now he fights crime as The Green Lama.
Surprisingly, Crossen was able to hold onto the rights to The Green Lama, rather than the publisher holding him. Thus he was able to control his use in other media like comic books and radio. I had noted in my original posting about the comic book appearances from the Golden Age of comics, but didn’t have access to those stories at the time. But now they are more readily available, so wanted to cover them.
While The Green Lama appeared in Double Detective, he started to appear in stories in Prize Comics, published by Feature Publications (aka Prize Publications). What I didn’t know at the time was that Crossen was an editor at Munsey, which is probably how he was able to keep ahold of the rights. He worked out a deal with Feature to write Green Lama stories, with the artwork supplied by the Harry “A” Chesler shop, though am sure with Crossen still owning the rights.
Thus from issue #7 of Prize Comics through #34 (1940-43), The Green Lama appeared in eight-page stories. The first three were drawn by Mac Raboy, a comic book artist best known for his excellent run on Captain Marvel Jr. and, later, the Flash Gordon comic strip. After that, the artwork was done by Charles Sultan through #20, after which others, including Jack Binder, did different stories. But the story in #13 was done by Al Plastino and was a marked improvement. I thought it was Raboy. I wish he had done more.
Now, this version of The Green Lama was similar to the pulp version. In fact, on the lower third of the final page of the first few stories, the pulp stories were advertised. But the stories suffer from the limitations of the medium of comics at the time. There are no other ongoing characters in the stories. The GL goes after an array of spies and crooks, with a few yellow peril types. A Baroness von Elsa appears twice. Frankly, the poor art hurts the stories.
If you wish to read these, there are several options. One is to read the collection put out by Gwandanaland Comics, #1281. But it’s not a complete collection. It is missing the first two stories, and Prize Comics #8 actually had Green Lama on the cover, the first and only time. So this only had the stories from #9 through 34, and two stories are each missing one page. Also, in #24 was a story in which all the various heroes in the comic teamed up against Frankenstein’s Monster, who was another feature in the comic. And that was also left out, though the GL only appears for two pages, as did each of the other characters. Hopefully, they will be able to do a complete collection and maybe use the cover from #8 as the cover of the collection.
After the end of the Prize Comics run, Crossen met up with Horace L. Green in 1944, and they decided to create their own comic book company, forming Spark Publications. They brought on Mac Raboy to do The Green Lama in his own title that would run eight issues. Two other titles were created, Golden Lad, which lasted five issues, and Atoman, which had two. Sadly, Spark ended in 1946, which is too bad as these had some great stories and art for the time.
The Green Lama strip was great. This version was different from the prior Prize Comics version, and different from the pulps. The page count was longer, allowing for better-written stories. We get Tsarong, Jethro’s assistant, appears, along with the mysterious Magga. Now Jethro would say his Buddhist prayer, “Oh Mani Padme Hum!,” and, like Captain Marvel, be transformed into The Green Lama who can fly and wears a more superhero-ish version of his lama outfit.
If you wish to read these stories, there are a couple of options. Dark Horse Comics did two hardcover archives reprinting the complete eight-issue run of the Green Lama comics. Gwandanaland Comics has the complete eight-issue series in #946, but if you just want the GL stories, get #946-B. And if you want the GL stories from Prize and Spark together, #639 combines what’s in #1281 and #946-B. Just be advised, it doesn’t have anything additional from what’s in #1281.
Another volume to consider is the excellent Mac Raboy: Master of the Comics by Roger Hill published by Twomorrows in 2019. This book on Raboy’s career also includes a look at his work on The Green Lama, reprinting the wonderful Christmas story from Green Lama #7. It has a short chapter on Crossen that provides more info on his career as an editor and comicbook author than I had previously known. So check it out.
