Jay Jackson (1) (1905–1954)

A nifty little treat from the past!

I like old newspaper comic strips from the 1930s, '40s, and '50s, but here's one about which I have been woefully ignorant. It ran in the Chicago Defender, a paper by and for African Americans that began in 1905 and continues today online.

Bungleton Green was the star of a gag strip in the paper until new creator Jay Jackson (who also wrote and drew the strip "Speed Jaxon" on the same comics page) took it over and transitioned it to an action and adventure serial with Bungleton becoming mentor to a group of teens who tangle with ghosts, magic rings, Nazis, time travel, and mad scientists.

If you're not used to old comic strips, I'm sure the twists and turns of the plot will seem abrupt and bizarre; even I found some of the sudden left turns here to be quite jarring. But there is considerable energy in the anything-can-happen storytelling in these chapters. (It gets so out-there at times, I started to suspect that the book was a hoax created by modern hands as a satire, but I researched and confirmed this really was created in the 1940s.)

Prince Whipple

The Scooby gang finds they are able to summon up ghosts from the past to help them, like DC's Kid Eternity character.

The Monocle

German spies are trying to sabotage America's ability to win World War II by fomenting racism amongst integrated factory workers and developing a mind control gas.

The Scientist

The gang has been kidnapped and taken to Germany to be tortured in a concentration camp. Their only chance for escape is an old scientist and his time machine.

1778

Whisked back to Revolutionary America, Bungleton and the kids are immediately enslaved and just as quickly join an insurrection for freedom.

2043

Leaving slavery in the past, the gang is now in a future where racism no longer exists in the "United States of the World" thanks to a group of young people who were able to trick a racist senator into not filibustering a voting rights bill. It also helps, apparently, that most of the Deep South was destroyed by a tidal wave?!?!?!

The Green Men

That tidal wave was caused by the rising of a new continent in the Atlantic called Vert. The green people who live there do have Jim Crow laws that discriminate . . . but only against white people. This longest chapter in the book has the leader of the Mystic Commandos, Bud Happyhallow, touring Vert with Jon Smythe, a white citizen of the future who cannot get over how awful it is to be denied rooms at hotels, seats on public transportation, and jobs for which he is qualified. And then he runs afoul of a lynch mob!

A Superman

Having disappeared for a good chunk of the book, Bungleton reappears in time to be taken captive by mad scientists who want to use him as a guinea pig in their experiments to give humans superpowers.

The ending is unexpected, but makes perfect sense. I'd certainly be interested in seeing a follow-up collection to see where Jackson's imagination took Bungleton next.

FOR REFERENCE:

Contents:
• Commando Raids against Racism: Jay Jackson's Audacious Comics / Jeet Heer
• Bungleton Green and the Mystic Commandos: October 1942-January 1945 / Jay Jackson
~ Prince Whipple: February 1943 - July 1943 [sic, actually November 1942 - February 1943]
~ The Monocle: Feburary 1943 - July 1943
~ The Scientist: March 1944 - December 1944 [sic, actually July 1943 - August 1943]
~ 1778: September 1943 - December 1943
~ 2043: December 1943 - December 1944 [sic, actually December 1943 - February 1944]
~ The Green Men: February 1944 - November 1944
~ A Superman: December 1944 - July 1943 [sic, actually December 1944 - January 1945]
• Jackson's Passwords / Jay Jackson… (más)