Jumbo Comics #13 - pt. 1

We're back to Fiction House now and their main publication, headlined by Sheena, Queen of the Jungle. It's a peculiar story for a lot of reasons, so let's take them one at a time. First, it seems strange that Sheena is okay with elephant hunters. Second, Zulus come from southern Africa, and my understanding was that Sheena's adventures were in northern Africa. Third, Zulus didn't use bows and arrows, apparently exclusively favoring melee weapons (though I've only done a little research on that). Fourth, Zulu were not head hunters (again, limited research, but that seems highly unlikely).

Fifth, having the Zulu stream across the plain in, practically, single file is visually appealing and probably easier to draw, but not a sound strategy. Sixth, Bob is waaay too reckless when it comes to starting forest fires. Think about the environment, Bob!

Not a story flaw, per se, but I want to pause to talk about this lion combat and emulating it in the Hideouts & Hoodlums rules. Sheena climbing onto the lion's back to keep away from its bite and claws actually makes realistic sense, but does not work in H&H where facing is barely important in combat. If facing isn't important, then it isn't necessary that Sheena grapple the lion before attacking it, and then she wouldn't be thrown off. And even if the lion reversed the hold and threw Sheena off, there's nothing in the rules that mean Sheena would drop her weapon. Of course -- and I say this a lot -- there doesn't have to be game mechanics explanation for most of this; much of it could be flavor text.

I also keep saying two more things, how much I hate seeing animals killed and how sick I am of animals, or mobsters, being one-shotted.

Seven, it's weird that Sheena is only okay with male elephants being killed...

While exploring, they just happen to come across a cave. Can physical locations be wandering encounters? If you want them to be.

I had to double check to make sure I hadn't already covered this story on the blog because this is, what, the third time we've seen an elephants' graveyard in a comic book so far?

Eight, how are poachers worse than hunters? 

There's a lot of different versions out there of what happens to people who mess with elephants' graveyards. In this one, at least 10 elephants show up to stampede you to death. That's a pretty high challenge level.

Nine -- tripping over a snake is lame, Bob.

In a jungle genre adventure, animals need to have greater than animal intelligence so they can do things like rescue people and communicate to each other.

Having a few more pages to kill, another wandering encounter comes along. This is a good technique for when you've finished the scenario for the night, but Sheena's player says he can stay a bit later.

At least cobras are jungle-appropriate. 

"Golleh", or Dick Briefer (Bob Kane's replacement on this feature), really pulls out all the stops on this wacky ride, with figures squashed and stretched way beyond the point of cartooniness. Perhaps appropriately, Peter Pupp has been shortened to a mere three-page presence, of which I'll only share one of you here (and given how racist it is, consider that a blessing).

"Maravian Crater" is a clue for where this story is meant to take place, since the Moravian Crater is a real place in Germany. Why the villain is, then, a Chinaman, is beyond me...

This page is from Will Eisner's Hawk of the Seas, his great , unfinished pirate saga. Here we see a treasure hunt in progress, with some great ideas for wilderness dressing to look for on such a hunt.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Jumbo Comics #12 - pt. 2

We'll pick up soon after where we left off in Hawks of the Seas. To recap, Hawk and his small group of castle defenders are in a stand-off, holding onto only the armory/powder room, besieged by pirates who have taken the rest of the castle. Here we get a reverse exploration scenario -- instead of finding their way into the castle, they have to sneak around the castle from one room, gathering the food and supplies they'll need to hold out.

There's also a great example here of outside-the-box thinking when it comes to multi-level hideout exploration; you can always go outside and move from window to window (though you may leave yourself vulnerable to missile attacks!).

I would say that taking a gunshot wound, while swinging on a rope one-handed, would require a save vs. science to keep your hand on the rope. 

Normally, you don't have to worry in Hideouts & Hoodlums about bleeding out and losing more hit points over time, but the Editor can assign this to non-Heroes, as happens here to Tito.

Throwing a curtain on your opponent is certainly cinematic, but how effective is it as a combat tactic? It won't blind or ensnare your opponent for long, as it certainly can't take more than 1 30-second game turn to get a curtain off your head.

However, if you consider the opponent prone, because the opponent cannot see to defend himself, that could mean a +2 attack bonus for the curtain-thrower, on the following turn. If running away, like Hawk is, then the opponent would be getting a -4 penalty to hit for not being able to see (but +1 for attacking from behind), and that is assuming a successful skill check first to hear that Hawk is running and where.

Kudos to Hawk's player for not using player knowledge about what happened to Tito when he tried that same move.

You just don't see hatchets getting used much, exception by Asians and American Indians. How refreshing to see one in pirate hands (even if the scene is unusually violent for the refined Will Eisner).

The pirates have become drunken hoodlums in time for the big brawl, making them slightly tougher foes.

Move silently is an expert skill check, though as a half-pint Jeremy may have a "racial" bonus.

Shoulder paralysis is a complication not normally given to Heroes who have been stunned.

How typically random, like any game session -- the main bad guy goes down right away, and then it's his flunkies who wind up TPK'ing the party.

Hawks appears to be dead at the end of this installment. It will be interesting to see what happens next issue!

Wilton of the West finds a treasure map, purporting to show the way to an unlikely lost Aztec City as far north as Texas.

We have seen before hideouts that can only be entered via water, but not one that requires swimming such a long route underwater to get to, where the chance of drowning before you reach the Aztec city is a dangerous possibility.

As cool as it may be to have your Heroes encounter a step pyramid made entirely out of gold, it's really not a good idea to put that much wealth in front of them and make them greedy. Your entire scenario could become derailed by them trying to steal as many bricks from the pyramid as they can carry.

Getting kings to fail morale saves is highly profitable.

Natives act an awful lot like superstitious hoodlums sometimes. I'm starting to wonder again if I can even distinguish superstitious hoodlums as a separate mobstertype.

This is Stuart Taylor's feature, though he's nowhere to be seen here. Instead, we have Scarpo, an alchemist, Mephisto (the actual demon Mephisto), some unnamed 14th century queen (Queen Philippa?), and a lot of hideout dressing (for torture rooms).

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Jumbo Comics #12 - pt. 1

Small village? Riyadha is the capital city of Saudi Arabia and had a population of 40,000 circa 1940.

So, the plot is that this rich guy wants slaves, but there are none left to find in the Middle East, so his head slaver offers to get him some nice ones from the "heart of Africa." The problem here is that Sheena is well over 1,000 miles away. Greece and India are about as far away as Sheena is.

This page is all about the evidence that grappling rules apply to human vs. animal combat as well. It's definitely not about the fact that Sheena's just been bathing.

I've struggled with what to do with slavers, as a mobstertype. Apparently, slavers can make anyone compliant once they're in chains. Even Heroes? Anyone, even Heroes, captured by slavers must save vs. plot or do as they're told until freed. Shades of Gor!

The point of this page is to show how easy it is to get into a hideout, and how few guards a main bad guy needs when a Hero is going in solo.

It's always good tactics to have reinforcements show up when the battle is already engaged, in case the Heroes burnt all their their best attacks at the beginning.

When you draw out your hideout maps on graph paper with 10' to a square, you wind up with large dimensions like that last panel.

Is "scattering the guards" an attack form? Are they being scattered by the trample damage the horses are inflicting? Or are they failing their morale saves when they see the horses coming at them?

Map! It seems that Sheena's original village was in the very west edge of Kenya, or maybe Uganda. Not that it maters now that the village has been razed. You can see how choked up Sheena is over it.

This is Hawks of the Seas, getting ready to defend a castle. He doesn't have much of a defending force -- heck, he doesn't even have a very good map of the island to plan with either! If he has enough time, he should probably send someone to scout around and get a better sense of the terrain.

Loyalty isn't just important for Heroes' supporting cast; the employees of non-Hero characters will need to be checked during stressful times too. You never know when those barracks may turn empty.

We never get a good sense for just how many pirates are swarming around the castle, but if it's 25+ then I can see why Hawk and his pals are having trouble holding their own. The tactics of forming a living shield wall around the less capable fighters, and switching to melee weapons when they run out of ammo, are sound, though throwing rocks instead of switching to melee weapons, maybe not so good (unless he has a DEX bonus to hit, but not from STR!).

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Jumbo Comics #11 - pt. 1

After a long pause I see I was still shuffling through December 1939. Here we rejoin Sheena, throwing a party for guests, when they are ambushed by natives. The natives are described as giants, but I've talked before about how that term is thrown around too loosely in comics and needn't be taken seriously.

The natives ambushing the dancers are enjoying light cover (bushes don't have enough mass to count as hard cover), but also may be firing from darkness (despite the fact we can see them on the page). In 1st edition there was the distinction of them firing from dim light that was half as good as firing from darkness (-2 to be hit vs. -4), but I dislike that rule and have discarded it for being too subjective.  In 2nd ed., it's either dark or it isn't.

Now, 8' tall humans...maybe at this point I do need to consider statting them different. Not sure how to distinguish them from real giants, though. Pseudo-giants?

I don't stat lionesses any differently from male lions.

The story gives us no clue how Bob manages to scale that sheer wall, but apparently he does it with ease. Maybe it really is as sloped as it appears to be.

That's a rhino charging through the wall, showing that rhinos have a pretty good wrecking things chance (equal to extraordinary men, 3rd level superheroes, at least).  In all my years of playing That Other Game, I never considered making a rhino an indoor encounter -- but look, I have a precedent for that now!

"Little rascal"? That chimp just saved your bacon, Sheena. Show a little respect! It must be a little embarrassing when the Editor has to rush in with an animal supporting cast member to save the day, though -- to be fair -- the Editor really had no business putting them up against a rhino at their level in the first place. Keep appropriate challenge levels in mind!

This is The Hawk (of the Seas), and it raises an interesting point for me that not every encounter needs to go straight to combat after surprise is rolled. Some opponents might only want to attack under surprise conditions, disengaging and coming at the Hero(es) later from another angle.

Though guns can be disarmed through the least efforts and at a distance, disarming a sword takes attacking in melee, this time with grappling.

Despite outnumbering the Hawk five to one, these pirates still stupidly attack him one at a time. Of course, this makes solo play much easier.

Bad guys may feign death so they can sneak away when the Heroes aren't looking. This isn't a skill so much as it's the bad guy taking advantage of the Hero being too busy to check for signs of life.

And here we have an example of the Hero using disguise to sneak into the hideout.

Under certain circumstances -- like being the only person in the room with a gun -- the Hero can force morale saves to happen by not attacking, but just threatening to.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Jumbo Comics #10

It finally happened!  Jumbo Comics is now in color!

Sheena benefits from color, but the lion benefits from a narrator describing his actions as if it had human-level intelligence. It's a tradition going back at least as far as Tarzan to ascribe animals with names, motives, and cognitive thought. But is that fair to your players? It's up to each Editor to decide how smart animals and mobsters are in their games; Hideouts & Hoodlums 2nd edition will not be including an Intelligence stat for mobster types.

That's a weird muzzle on that cat, but I suspect that's supposed to be a leopard. Leopards are statted as cougars in H&H.

This leopard's hide, incidentally, becomes the swimsuit-like outfit that Sheena wears for the rest of her run (it must be machine washable).

This is Stuart Taylor in Weird Stories of the Supernatural, and if that long title doesn't sound familiar, this was The Diary of Dr. Hayward. Dr. Hayward had long since become supporting cast to Stuart in the title. Unresolved is their imprisonment by Ali Pasha, who was forcing Stuart to test his time travel machine for him; now all the good guys seem to be free to time travel on their own without worries.

Here, they are 20,000 years in the past, where they are running afoul of ape-men. Ape-men will be statted in 2nd ed. Here we see ape-men can be good archers.

A tyrannosaurus rex? Really? That looks more like a diplodicus to me. But my real issue is the tiger-man. I already have ape-men and ant-men -- do I need a different entry for every animal-headed man variant that comes along? Or do I need to drag out the beast-man from 1st ed. (found only in one issue of The Trophy Case and pretty much abandoned after that) and fold all of these into that?

It's pretty cool how the tiger-men can control tigers like that. They also seem to prefer human queens. Or are there no female tiger-men? This could get weird...

Still, I like the detail here, of this prehistoric setting. Not sure if tiger-men will survive to the present day, but maybe I'll find out as the story progresses.

I think these are the first bolas I've seen in comics! I may have to include them in the 2nd ed. rules now, alongside lariats.

Hawk of the Seas has now been shortened to The Hawk. Here we get a map and a really good sense of place. But is that any surprise, coming from the Eisner shop?

ZX-5 is looking particularly good in an Eisner-like way this month. Here we have a lonely castle in the middle of a really big lake. We also can see some of the layout of the castle, and how big and empty the rooms are.

More trouble with distinguishing nobles from spies. And are female spies also vamps?

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Jumbo Comics #9

I don't always have perfect digital copies of old comic books to look at, and Jumbo Comics is a perfect example of that. So far, I've had to settle for looking at the entire series in black and white. Normally, that doesn't trouble me greatly, but I do wish I could see "The Golden City" here in color, and determine how much of that "golden" is literal description and how much of it is hyperbole.

We get treated to some great visuals of this hidden land, most especially the courtyard of a palace. We see a dais, two trees growing up behind a throne carved to look like a many-armed demon. A man on the throne, flanked by trained apes. Looks to be quite an encounter!

A rare instance of a gun jam in comics.

The ape is using its "rend" special attack on Bob. Bob doesn't seem to be appreciating it.

The ape takes lethal damage from a fall. Bob was knocked out after two turns of fighting an ape (really, the ape just wailing on him mercilessly), but here is already recovered just a turn or two later.

The text doesn't match up with the pictures when Sheena and Bob fall into the trap. The caption says they are entering the courtyard, but they just fought the apes in the courtyard. It must mean "As they enter the palace".

The ol' trap door leading to an underground river trap. Note that Bob tries and falls to save them by holding onto the trap door, suggesting that the Editor gave them a saving throw to try and save themselves.

Peter Pupp runs into a 20' tall moon giant. They look and act like hill giants, but they're as big as cloud giants.

The Hawk fights Gor, a black "giant". Gor is able to pay "no attention to the rain of punches", probably because he's statted as a thug, and has a thug's Armor Class, despite wearing no actual armor. The Hawk keeps swinging, but isn't actually hitting well enough to do damage yet.

I think that's pretty funny.

Wilton of the West is teamed up with the Crimson Rider with this issue, the Crimson Rider being a cowboy, but of the Mysteryman class. My evidence of this? Mysterymen trigger morale saves as soon as they show up, while other classes have to do something first.

The Crimson Rider isn't concerned about making a 20' leap on horseback, and probably for good reason. The world record for a jumping horse leap is 28', so I'd probably give the Crimson Rider a ...4 in 6 chance of making the jump successfully?

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)