Number 643


Fantomah, Daughter of the Pharaohs



We've come to the end of Jungle Girl Week. I've saved my favorite for last, because Fantomah was such a strange character, jungle girl or otherwise. Fantomah isn't wearing the regulation jungle girl bikini, but then I told you last Sunday I kind of like those harem outfits. (Probably a result of sneaking peeks at the back pages of my mom's Confidential magazines in the '50s, with their alluring Frederick's of Hollywood ads.)

When I first showed a Fantomah story in Pappy's #116, taken from Jungle Comics #15, she was billed as "The Mystery Woman of the Jungle" and she looked like this:

But that was from a strip by the noted screwball artist, Fletcher Hanks, who I assume wrote it as well (his stories had a weirdness about them peculiar to him). By the time of this Fantomah strip in Jungle Comics #29, 1942, she was billed as "Daughter of the Pharaohs," and had apparently given up the skullhead look. I really don't know a lot about Fantomah except what I've read on the Internet, and you can check her out if you read this.

Artwork on this story is attributed by the Grand Comics Database to George Appel.

Hope you've enjoyed our jungle girl week. We had a six-day week, but I deserve a day's rest and I'll be back on Sunday.

Chuck Wells is also featuring jungle girls this week, so check them out here.






Thanks to everyone for checking in this week. I hope we can do this again sometime. Thanks to Chuck Wells for being a great sport and making it twice the fun.