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 #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)

Jumbo Comics #7

With this issue we reach cover date April 1939 in comic book history.  To say that Peter Pupp begins it with a bang might be a forgivable pun since we are dealing with resistance to firearms here.

The giant robot seems to be immune to bullets, a special defense that doesn't exist yet in Hideouts & Hoodlums, but could. Quite a few mobster-types are immune to all non-magical and/or non-silver weapons. Of course, it is equally possible that the robot just has so many hit points that Peter Pupp can't observe any obvious damage yet.

As hesitant as I am to allow vehicles to crash into opponents for large amounts of damage, it does seem to happen with a fair amount of regularity in comic books. Perhaps a counter-balance would be to insist the driver/pilot/passengers will always run the risk of taking damage too.

One of the earliest Carpets of Flying in comics. Note the Bat-Man-like silhouette in the second to last panel, in a comic done by Bob Kane, pre-Bat-Man...

This is from Sheena Queen of the Jungle, and I would never encourage an Editor to do this -- let the heroes stumble across an unguarded seaplane loaded with machine guns and TNT -- unless they desperately needed more firepower to finish a scenario.

Evidence that Golden Age comic book characters start out weak and get stronger over time -- Sheena is here knocked out by a mobster so weak he isn't even a named villain, in just three combat turns.

This is from Spenser Steel.  They say the Internet has made the younger generations today less concerned with privacy, but apparently there was a time when you could walk up to a train conductor, ask him where a passenger purchased his ticket, and not be told it's none of your business...

Even Wilton of the West learns that cave-ins can be a random occurrence in caves, and events like cave-ins can be treated as wandering encounters.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)

Jumbo Comics #6

I'm not a fan of The Adventures of Tom Sherrill and can't get into this highly stylized art, but with this issue the adventures move off of Tom Sherrill to covering Indian legends...which I suspect are just made up and not actually researched. That said -- I like the idea of a magic rain-making arrow. It's a good one-shot trophy item for Hideouts & Hoodlums.

Bringing in a new supporting cast member can be an excuse to interact with all your old supporting cast, by way of introductions. Of course, in this case, it was an excuse to introduce an all-new supporting cast for Hawk.

Zula's giant robot has the power Turn Gun on (Good) Guys. That is one powerful upgrade on a robot!

But if you're reading Jumbo Comics, it's probably for Sheena Queen of the Jungle here.

Leopards have been discussed on this blog so often that they really need to replace cougars in the next edition.

Oily leaves are probably not ever going to be on the starting equipment list, but maybe there does need to be a game mechanic for blinding attacks.  I'll give it more thought...

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)

Jumbo Comics #5

Welcome to 1939!  We start the year off returning to Fiction House already and their premier title, Jumbo Comics. What can we learn from this issue that we can apply to Hideouts & Hoodlums?

In Hawks of the Seas, Will Eisner was reinventing the pacing of comic book stories. Here we see one of, if not the, first use of a cutaway scene within a page to something else going on that the reader needs to see, but the main character has no knowledge of.

These intermissions are a useful narrative tool, but a H&H Editor will have to think hard about whether to use them in a campaign. Will the players benefit from understanding the Editor's story better, without using their player knowledge to their advantage? It takes a mature group of players to be able to play that way.

Further, this issue marks the first time we've really had a good sense of where Hawks of the Seas takes place. It always seemed to be the West Indies, but now we can narrow it down to the Bahamas.

Dr. Snyde here kills one of his own henchmen with a single blow, which should be impossible in H&H -- he would be unconscious and need a second blow to kill him. Of course, perhaps a second blow occurs between panels. Or maybe the "not yet dead at zero hp" rule needs to be amended so it does not apply to non-Heroes. Or, maybe this needs to be a special rule where master criminals can kill their own henchmen automatically.

It seems clear that Budah is meant to be a djinn, which means that djinn cannot be hit by normal weapons (or at least Budah can't).

It's interesting that the trap can be deactivated and escaped just by touching sections of the wall.  It seems particularly odd since people trapped in a flooding room would naturally be touching the walls, either trying to find a way out or try to climb out. I would allow two search rolls in this case, one for each spot (opening the door without turning off the water first could make for a very wet hideout!).

I've previously discussed what to call the type of thing that Zula is. He was called a bogeyman previously by another character, but in this issue the narrator specifically calls him a monsterman.

There is a lot of visual detail here for describing the dressing in a mad scientist's laboratory.

The robot here is said to be 30' tall, but it seems even the narrator is exaggerating, because it only appears to be twice as tall as Zula. Since the robot can shoot lightning, I would suggest it is a huge version of a copper robot, as detailed in Book II: Mobsters and Trophies).

Though scientists suspected the moon was barren and lifeless in 1939, it couldn't prove this was true yet. That left a lot of leeway for making the moon anything you wanted it to be. If you want there to be valleys filled with cream cheese and giant lettuce plants, or just wind, water, and trees like on Earth, then you can do that in a Golden Age campaign.

This is clearly not Will Eisner, but I wonder if it inspired his strip, Espionage, for Quality?  ZX-5 acts a lot like Black X here, and his exchange with the unnamed highness reminds me of the chemistry between Black X and Madam Doom.

For H&H purposes, I want to point out the battle of bluffs going on here. In certain editions of certain games, one would resolve this with rolling dice, higher bluff roll wins. I am glad H&H isn't like that. I am much more interested in seeing how a player responds to a bluff, and how well he or she can bluff back. I would probably still roll an encounter reaction roll, but try to factor that in to a reasonable response to the bluff in that situation.

Here we seem to have examples -- albeit racist ones -- of bloodthirsty hoodlums (which first appeared in The Trophy Case, but also snuck into one earlier printing of Book II).  Ali Pasha also seems to be demonstrating psionics; it looks a lot like Mass Domination.  Am I going to have to include psionics in 2nd edition?

 Lastly, this is from Wilton of the West, and we get to see that old chestnut -- the "shoot your own arrow" trick. Lucky dice rolling, or flavor text? This would be up to the Editor. Is it important to the story that Wilton split his arrow to impress the other guests? Then his player could be asked to roll to attack the target (with the same AC to hit the bulls-eye as it was the first time).  If not, then this is just something to do while waiting for the encounter at the end of the page and can be hand-waved as successful.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)

Jumbo Comics #4

Ouch!  Take that, Bob Kane -- Peter Pupp is bumped off the lead feature this month in favor of Inspector Dayton.



This page reminds me that not all traps need to be intentionally left in a hideout. Rotting floorboards giving way (maybe a 2 in 6 chance if normal weight steps on them) could lead to a serious fall.



And if any one ever says to you in Hideouts & Hoodlums that there is only a 1 in a million chance of something working, you know that's got to be only character-driven hyperbole!  In H&H, there should always be at least a 1% chance of anything happening.

I have no game mechanics to discuss from this page of Will Eisner's Hawks of the Seas.  Just enjoy this page layout, as Eisner slowly develops into the powerful storyteller he will become.

This is quite a horrible death trap -- not only is the old man about to be impaled and crushed by a spiked platform descending towards him, but his daughter is chained up nearby and being forced to watch! Extrapolating from this, an evilly-inclined Editor can see how a Superhero could be forced to remain in a deathtrap, without wrecking his way out, by threatening innocents (especially supporting cast!) within sight if the Superhero foils the trap.

Didn't I just see a one-eyed oriental in Tex Thompson? Is this a pulp novel archetype I'm just seeing now?



I think it's interesting that the little girl calls this guy a bogeyman. H&H doesn't currently have any mobster type called a bogeyman. And I like how he can hypnotize and levitate others. Maybe this needs to be a thing? Maybe they could even all have a weakness for tea...

Maybe a pepper jar should be on the starting equipment list? It does seem to be particularly good at blinding bad guys, besides the more obvious use of making people sneeze.

Bob seems to be changing classes (something that was detailed in Supplement I: National). He's going from a Fighter to an Explorer (a class introduced in The Trophy Case v. 1 no. 2) and picking up the tracking skill, plus he seems to be improving with his chance to hit with thrown missile weapons (a bonus not currently available to the Explorer class).


In H&H 2nd ed., though, the Explorer class will likely no longer exist. In that case, Bob's training is all flavor text describing his leveling.

This seems like it would be an interesting jungle-based hideout. The natives here have a lair in a petrified forest so dense that it's just like tunnels underground.

This page shows that even a thrown rock should be allowed to do real damage. But how much? The full 1d6 in the original, more abstract weapon damage system, but probably 1-3 in the expanded weapon damage system.




(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)

Jumbo Comics #3

We've already seen a few dragons on this blog, but this is the first moon dragon. It looks like its only pair of legs are too weak for a claw attack, but it can bite and gore with its horn. It has a hot breath, possibly a steam breath weapon. It might also be particularly vulnerable to electrical damage -- or Peter's electric ray gun is particularly powerful.

There are several elements of this page to ponder. One is how far away the noise is that Peter hears through the first door; Editors will need to play it by ear (ahem) how far sound travels in their hideouts.


Two, what is the size of an anthropomorphic animal? The scale of the panels seems to suggest that Peter Pupp is short. Does that mean that a "giant" he encounters might just be 6' tall? Or is the scimitar-wielding guard more like an ogre?


Third, what should the chance be of a gun jamming? Or, because it's a raygun, does it have charges and has just run out?

 Two cents for a newspaper, according to Spenser Steel!

Inspector Dayton's player might be tempted by that check, especially if he thinks it equals 10,000 XP. However, a distinction needs to be made in the game between money earned as a trophy and money just given to them. Ripping it up in the villain's face should still be worth 100 XP for a good deed award, though.

This is ZX-5, who came up with a rather clever, if not dangerous, way of escaping from a plane's machine guns while parachuting to safety. Of course, how safe this is depends on if the Editor rules that tree tops are soft enough to cushion some of the falling damage. There are an awful lot of sharp branches in trees, after all, usually facing upwards. I might allow, if feeling generous, a save vs. plot to land "safely" in the treetops for half-damage, or else inflict full damage -- or possibly more for being impaled on branches!


(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)