Number 1933: Rulah looks cute in her little Zoot suit

Rulah, Jungle Goddess, was once a rich society playgirl named Jane Dodge. That explains why she is telling one of the attractive half-dressed “native” girls around her (page 2, panel 2), “You should see your hair now, just like they were wearing the last time I was on Park Avenue...” You can read more about the strange career of Judy/Rulah in Don Markstein’s Toonopedia. Don tells not only of Rulah’s original origin, but a second origin story, told less than two years later.

Rulah was popular enough to be the lead feature in Zoot Comics, later changed to Rulah, Jungle Goddess. She was also featured in All-Top Comics. As has been mentioned before, Rulah’s stories were designed to appeal to guys who like girls in abbreviated costumes. The other aspects of Rulah’s jungle domain are still unclear; for instance, why the girls are white and the men are black, as our friend Daniel brought up in our comments section the last time I showed a Rulah story. Comic book jungles are fantasy places, as witness all of the stories of Sheena, Lorna, and even Tarzan I have shown on this blog, whose African jungles are places where the geography and settings remind me not of Africa but of Never-Neverland..

Despite her obvious charms, Rulah was only published in comics for about two years (not counting various reprints that came later from other publishers). I’m not sure what happened, but Rulah was provided to Fox Features by the Jerry Iger shop, and they may have had a falling out. Victor Fox was notorious for not paying, and went out of business not long after. As much as I respect the late Don Markstein, he got it wrong when he said Matt Baker was the artist for the run of this feature.

This story comes from Zoot Comics #9 (1947), which was Rulah’s third appearance.

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