Number 2201: Good girl Sheena

Sheena,  Queen of the Jungle, was very popular during the 1940s. Fiction House, the publisher, aimed its comics at men, specifically young men, who liked looking at cheesecake artwork. They got that with Sheena, who was the first of many under-clothed, well-coiffed and shapely jungle women who followed her.

I have been looking for information on Robert H. Webb (who sometimes signed himself R.H. Webb or even Bob Webb), the artist during the greater part of Sheena’s comic book existence. I just can’t find out much, not even when Webb was born or died, or if he is still alive. What I found out in an online article here is that Webb did penciling and layouts, but did not draw the figure of Sheena. WHAT!? And here I have always imagined some comic book artist, not particularly well paid and yet working hard, finding satisfaction in being able to draw sexy females on every page. As the article explains, Webb worked for the Jerry Iger Shop, and the pages went through various artists’ hands for the drawing and then inker David Heames would, as the article states, “ink over the entire strip to obliterate any discernible differences in the different artist’s [sic] styles.”

The page also explains the comic book term “Good Girl Art,” or GGA. I first read the term in the '70s, and it can be read two ways: one, the pictures are of good girls, or two, the real meaning, is that the artwork featuring girls is good, and then good means sexy. The term caught on, and it caught on because it was used to describe pin-up covers and artwork featuring women like Sheena.

Our story today is from Jumbo Comics #82 (1945).

Posted in: Pappy Comics