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Number 1025

Land of the Lost...found

I'm very taken by this clever children's comic from the late '40s. Isabel Manning Hewson created and wrote the radio series on which the comic is based, and she also wrote the comic, illustrated by Olive Bailey.

Bhob Stewart explained it in his editorial, "Perigee to Perilune," in Heavy Metal magazine, Fall, 1987:

[Speaking of characters in comics who came from radio]: "Such linkages may have been strongest in the case of Isabel Manning Hewson. As the writer/producer/narrator of Land of the Lost (aired by ABC beginning in 1944) and the scripter of EC's Land of the Lost comic book (illustrated by Olive Bailey), she maintained a consistency of characters and stories in both, duplicating the storylines. She also received credit for the story in the 1948 Land of the Lost animated short. The control Hewson exercised over Land of the Lost enabled her to actually become a fantasy fiction character: she wrote herself (as a little girl) into both the comic book and radio storylines. Each week Isabel and her friend Billy traveled underwater with a glowing red fish named Red Lantern, tour guide to all "of-fish-ally-lost" objects beneath the waves. Today, Red Lantern has himself become "of-fish-ally-lost" and forgotten, even though the radio actor who brought him to life was Art Carney."

You can visit Bhob's fantastic blog, Potrzebie.

You can see the Famous Studios cartoon, "The Land of the Lost" on YouTube here.

I've shown the stories from Land of the Lost #1 in Pappy's #706, Pappy's #859, and Pappy's #944.

This is the first story from EC Comics' Land of the Lost Comics #2, 1946: