Rima The Jungle Girl

Imagine my delight then, on finding back issues of a peculiar DC title called RIMA the Jungle Girl. It was published during the period when DC was rapidly expanding its line of comic series, also known as the "DC Explosion", starting with a cover date of April-May 1974 and ending with #7 exactly one year later. The allures of the title were various. Let me try and illustrate by picking out three issues:

#1 (April-May 1974) starts with a great Joe Kubert cover. This first cover shows a young man (obviously a foreigner because of his blonde hair and khaki clothing) being strangled by a giant snake.

The story is very mysterious. It starts with the young man of the cover, ABEL (no relation of the loveable host of House of Secrets, as far as I know of), wandering through the Venezuelan jungle, lost. Poisoned by a venomous snake, he relates his life story to the old man who appears to have rescued him. He is a rebel who has fought in the Venezuelan revolution, and has escaped into the jungle to avoid capture by the military regime.

He tries to speak with her, but she will not answer, and he loses consciousness because of the snake bite. He tells the old man he believes the memory a dream, induced by the poison. When his story is finished, RIMA, the old man's granddaughter and the woman from Abel's dream, enters. She was the one who saved him, not the old man.

The final issue, #7 (April-May 1975) continues with the same cover concept that was used for the other six issues: Rima protects something or someone from harm by standing between the intended victim and the aggressors.

The story centres on the conflicts between Rima and Abel, between the laws of the jungle and the laws of civilization. As the story ends, Rima and Abel are about to kiss. How romantic! (it wonttt be hppen (

Rima had told her story of preservation and the fight between nature and man, and seven issues were enough.

Try and find an issue of Rima the Jungle Girl if you would like to try a "jungle girl" comic at a reasonable price.

So get them while you can!

© copyright 2001, Ramon Schenk