KI-GOR
In
1963 I was stationed in France, with the 202nd MP Company, and
working patrol for a black NCO named Foster (I think that was his name). When I
stopped by the station, I found Sergeant Foster reading a Tarzan paperback by Edgar Rice Burroughs. This was during my
hardboiled period, when I was reading Mickey
Spillane and Shell Scott. I
remembered the old Tarzan movies
with Johnny Weismuller, and asked Foster if the stories weren't a little
racially demeaning, and he told me they weren't. After we discussed the
Burroughs' Tarzan for a while, he
convinced me to read one of the stories. That was my introduction to jungle
adventures, and I have been a fan ever since.
I haunted the Stars
& Stripes bookstore on base, until the lady that ran the establishment
got to know me like a son. Whenever I would walk into the store, she would grab
me by the arm and say, "Look what
just came in!" And take me to a paperback with a jungle scene or
dinosaur on the cover. This was how I discovered Doc Savage in 1964, when she led me to The Thousand-Headed Man, which had Doc fighting with a giant snake while a witch doctor looked on. So
by then I was hooked on Edgar Rice Burroughs and Kenneth Robeson. I probably
shouldn't tell this story, but in 1964, during the Cypress Crisis, I was among
a group of Army soldiers sent to an Air Base in Turkey, in case we had to
deploy to Cypress. Well, being Army on an Air Force base wasn't conducive to
good treatment. We were stuck away from the more civilized air force personnel,
and didn't get much sent our way. Being Army, we quickly learned our way
around, and one of the first places I discovered was where the special services
stored books that was to be distributed to the Air Force personnel. A few
nightly raids, and our Army unit had reading material. Of course, I had first
choice of any Edgar Rice Burroughs paperbacks! Or anything with a jungle scene
or dinosaur on the cover.
Tarzan, of
course, was the inspiration for many imitations in the pulps. I think that over
the years I have found any and everything that remotely resembles the original Jungle Lord. One of those imitators
appeared in JUNGLE STORIES, a FICTION HOUSE PUBLICATION, beginning
with the Winter 1939 issue, and running until Spring 1954, and 59 issues
(although some titles were repeats). The hero was Ki-Gor, a bronzed-skin muscular giant, wearing a loincloth with a
knife in a sheath at his side, and bow and quiver of arrows over his broad
shoulders. Standing six foot tall, he has blue eyes, and shoulder-length hair
bleached white by the sun. Unfortunately, the novels were very uneven. His blue
eyes would often turn gray, and his white hair would become yellow.
However, it was the stories that counted. Fantastic jungle
stories of lost lands, lost civilizations, prehistoric monsters, giant snakes,
elephants running amok, and talking gorillas. Everything a good jungle
adventure should be. Ki-Gor was in
reality the surviving son of a missionary named Robert Kilgour, who lived among
the beast of the jungle after his father was killed. He eventually met - and
married - Helene Vaughn. She is quite competent, but is constantly getting in
trouble. Two other aides are in all the stories. Timbu George, who was once
George Spelvin, an American Pullman porter and ship's cook, and eventually
became a Masai chief; And little
N'Geeso, chief of the Kamazila pygmy
tribe.
As most pulp fiction of the period, the Ki-Gor stories were formula at best, but highly imaginative, and
were probably the most successful and popular of the Tarzan imitators. The
titles alone were enough to whet the appetite of young readers perusing the
newsstands: The Empire of Doom, The Cannibal Horde, Caravan of Terror, Where
Man-Beasts Prowl. And those are the milder titles! The action within the
pages of JUNGLE STORIES brought us
the adventure we craved. Ki-Gor, the
White Jungle Lord deserves his niche on the shelf beside Tarzan The Ape Man. The jungle belonged to them!
I can just imagine that old lady from the Stars & Stripes grabbing my arm
once more, and saying, "Look what
just came in!"
Happy reading.
Interesting.
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