Wednesday Comics: Octopus Bikini Knife Fight!
Thursday, April 8th, 2010
All Top #16 (March, 1949)
All Top was an anthology series published by Fox Features Syndicate between 1946 and 1949. Some featured characters, such as Blue Beetle and Phantom Lady, would eventually be acquired by DC Comics and are still around today. Others, like Rulah, Jungle Goddess, seen here fighting an octopus and wearing her signature giraffe-skin bikini, have faded into comics obscurity.
Rulah was created by artist Matt Baker and an uncredited writer, and she debuted in Zoot Comics #7 (June, 1947). She was similar to Sheena, the orignal female Tarzan clone, but instead of being raised in the jungle, Jane Dodge (changed to “Joan Grayson” in a later retelling of her origin) was a thrill-seeking socialite aviatrix who crashed her plane into the uncivilized African interior. Tragically, her clothes were destroyed in the crash, as was a passing giraffe who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Clad in the giraffe’s hide, Jane saves a local tribe from an evil white jungle queen, and Rulah, Jungle Goddess was born.
I’m not sure if the cover of All Top 16 is supposed to depict some sort of African Jungle Octopus, or if Rulah’s exploits occassionally took her to the beach. (I suppose that wouldn’t be out of the question considering that she wore a bathing suit everywhere she went.) Either way, this is one handsy cephalopod!
