Jungle Comics #3 - pt. 3

We're back and still looking through Fiction House's Jungle Comics #3 and seeing what lessons we can apply to running or playing my RPG Hideouts & Hoodlums from it.

This is Captain Terry Thunder of the Congo Lancers. The geography seems way off here, since the Congo is in central Africa, he desert is in northern Africa, and then they somehow find swamps, followed by more desert, before coming back to the jungles. Did they just make a big circle?

Regardless, the lesson we can take away from this is that the details of travel can be glossed over to get us to the main story.

You might feel as uncomfortable as I do looking at how the Africans are colored on this page. Now, in 4-color coloring, blue highlights often accompany something that is supposed to be interpreted as all-black, but you usually don't see this applied to black people. 

That said, the natives show some clever tactics in the last panel. While Terry can do nothing but try to resist the grappling attack, the other three are all free to try and beat him with their (spiked?) clubs. Now, there is an element of risk for them as well; I would rule that, if you were trying to attack an opponent being grappled, and you miss, you have to roll again to see if you hit the grappler on your side instead. 

"Smitten from ambush?" Are the natives using Cupid's arrows on them? What strange wording.

I also checked; grass rope is a real thing.

This is Wambi the Jungle Boy. I don't think much of Wambi, but these two trappers have a super-inflated idea of his value. Worth a million, in 1940 dollars, for being able to talk to animals? I'm skeptical...

Especially since animals have no problem talking to each other, across species lines.

It's remarkable that, just from word getting through the animal grapevine that Wambi is in trouble, an elephant and at least 11 gorillas show up to rescue him. It seems unlikely that Wambi would have this many support cast member animals, but perhaps his SCMs joined up with a wandering encounter...?

 I like to share unusual disarming attacks; this could be the first time we've ever seen a man disarmed with an orange.

This is from the next story, Roy Lance. "Nyama" is the word for spirit, used by the Dogon people of Africa. Did the author, know that, or was it a lucky guess?

More evidence of natives using poisoned weapons.

You don't often hear about cattle herding in Africa, but that's legit; they do keep cattle herds over there.

The last story we'll look at today is Simba, King of Beasts -- you know, Disney's other source material for The Lion King other than Hamlet. Simba, in turn, seems to have The Jungle Book as some of its source material, so that leaves me wondering if the boy isn't paralyzed with hypnosis instead of fear, ala Kaa. Regardless, not being able to do anything is one of the eight random results of a failed morale save now, in Hideouts & Hoodlums 2nd edition, so maybe it really is fear.

Of course, that reminds us that the boy is not a played Hero in this scenario, but a Supporting Cast Member under the control of the Editor. Simba is the Hero, obviously classed as a Fighter, with the Editor allowing Lion as a playable race. The Lions special abilities are being able to attack with bite and claw attacks, and hopefully a few extra Hit Dice too, or he's toast against this wandering encounter of an angry rhino.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)