Jumbo Comics

Jumbo Comics
Jumbo Comics #1 (Sept 1938). Cover artist(s) unknown.
Publication information
Publisher	Fiction House
Schedule	ongoing monthly
Format	Tabloid (issues #1-8); standard (issues #9–167)
Genre	Adventure anthology
Publication date	Sept. 1938–Mar. 1953
No. of issues	167
Main character(s)	Sheena, Queen of the Jungle Inspector Dayton ZX-5, Spies in Action Ghost Gallery Sky Girl Long Bow
Creative team
Written by	Ruth Roche
Artist(s)	Jack Kirby, Bob Kane, Matt Baker, Mort Meskin, Lou Fine, Bob Powell, Mort Leav, Art Saaf, Dick Briefer, Lily Renée,
Editor(s)	Malcolm Reiss (issues #1-35), John F. "Jack" Byrne (issues #49–77), Claude E. Lapham (issues #62–162)

Jumbo Comics was an adventure anthology comic book published by Fiction House from 1938–1953. Jumbo Comics was Fiction House's first comics title; beforehand the publisher had specialized in pulp magazines. The lead feature for Jumbo Comics' entire run was Sheena, Queen of the Jungle.

Notable creators who worked on Jumbo Comics included Jack Kirby (working under a variety of pseudonyms), Bob Kane, Matt Baker, Mort Meskin, Lou Fine, Bob Powell, Mort Leav, Art Saaf, Dick Briefer, Lily Renée, and Ruth Roche. Jerry Iger was Jumbo Comics' art director for its entire run.

By the late 1930s, Fiction House publisher Thurman T. Scott expanded the company from pulp magazines to comic books, an emerging medium that began to seem a viable adjunct to the fading pulps. Receptive to a sales call by Eisner & Iger, one of the prominent "packagers" of that time that produced complete comic books on demand for publishers looking to enter the field, Scott published Jumbo Comics #1 (Sept. 1938) under Fiction House's Real Adventures Publishing Company imprint.

Sheena, Queen of the Jungle appeared in that initial issue. The character had debuted in 1937 in the British magazine Wags. Indeed, all the material Eisner & Iger prepared for Jumbo Comics #1 (and the subsequent seven issues) had originally appeared in Wags, which was a tabloid-sized publication. For this reason, Jumbo Comics #1-8 were oversize (10-1/2" x 14-1/2") and exclusively in black and white. (The name "Jumbo" was derived from the oversized publication size.) With issue #9, the title reverted to standard Golden Age comic size (8-1/2" x 10-1/2") and was printed in color.