Rima The Jungle Girl was another one of those casualties of the great DC implosion, where for a myriad of financial reasons, potentially interesting series were cancelled right at birth.
Rima lasted seven issues, and started with an adaptation of it's source novel, the 1904 Green Mansions: A Romance Of The Tropical Forest by the Edwardian naturalist W.H.Hudson.
The first four issues seem to be a fairly speedy run-through of the novel ( having not read it, I couldn't say ) with occasionally quite stiff, literary dialogue that reaches for, but never quite achieves, poetry.
Rima herself has had quite a speckled history under the radar, appearing in such varied places as The All-New Super Friends Hour on saturday morning TV, The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and a 1959 film adaptation where she was played by Audrey Hepburn.
If I'm honest, she's not really up there with Shanna The She-Devil or Sheena as far as great jungle queens go. She's an ethereal spirit of the forest who generally seems to speak in birdsong, which is fine for a supporting character, but not for a marquee headliner.
Her boyfriend Abel is a reformed mercenary who falls instantly in love with her on sight, and is the typical dullard that inhabits jungle stories, declaring undying love one minute, then running off with any ' civilized ' woman that happens to stroll past the next.
And once we get past the fairly unexciting novel, scripter Robert Kanigher unfortunately falls back on tried and tested Tarzan tropes for the rest of the run, like sneering bad guys abusing the natives, and irksome kids who need life lessons.
So why am I recommending Rima The Jungle Girl? Well, it's obvious, isn't it? Firstly, the covers are by Joe Kubert, a man incapable of delivering a dull illustration. And secondly the insides are by Nestor Redondo.
Hello..? Eyes up here, buster. Yeah, Rima The Jungle Girl is drawn by Nestor Redondo, and if any numbskull ever tries to tell you that comics aren't proper art, just point them in the direction of this series.
It also has great colouring, particularly for the processes of the time. Check out this beautiful moonlit scene:
Basically, Rima The Jungle Girl is a class act. Here's a done in one issue as proof.
