Posted in: Comics, Heritage Sponsored, Vintage Paper | Tagged: fiction house, golden age, Tiger Girl

The Long-Running Tiger Girl Saga from Fiction House, Up for Auction

Tiger Girl was created by artist Robert Webb and ran from 1944 to the end of Fiction House in 1954, briefly featuring Matt Baker art.

Fight Comics #32 is the first appearance of Tiger Girl, a long-running jungle girl character from publisher Fiction House. Tiger Girl was created by artist Robert Webb with an unknown writer, with the artwork taken over by a number of Fiction House / Iger Studio notables over the years, including Matt Baker, Jack Kamen, and John Forte. Her stories ran continuously from 1944 to the end of Fiction House in 1954, first in Fight Comics and then in Jungle Comics. It should be no surprise that the publisher whose most popular character was Sheena would attempt to duplicate that success with other jungle girl characters, and Tiger Girl was one of the most popular of these.  An underappreciated and long-lived Fiction House character, there's a Tiger Girl Group of 9 (Fiction House, 1947-52) Condition: Average GD- at the 2024 July 7-9 Sunday, Monday & Tuesday Comic Books Select Auction #122428 at Heritage Auctions.

As explained in Fight Comics #32, Tiger Girl was a princess of a lost civilization from India who lived in a hidden kingdom in Africa. She was an excellent leader and fighter and who had control over a pair of tiger companions. The character typically spent her adventures protecting her domain from outsiders and others who meant harm.  Fight Comics #33 elaborated on the character's background, as it was discovered that her father, Rajah Vishnu, had brought her to Africa after the death of her Irish mother.

Tiger Girl creator Robert Hayward Webb was born in 1915 in New York. He was a 1939 graduate of the Pratt Institute in the area of Pictorial Illustration. Webb was a long-time member of the Iger Studio, and became best known for his work at Fiction House on characters also including Sheena, Kayo Kirby. He died in 2000 at the age of 85.

Tiger Girl took over the covers of Fight Comics beginning with issue #49, and the series continued with Tiger Girl covers until war-themed covers took over with issue #82 during the Korean War era. In later years, Fiction House mainstay Maurice Whitman produced a number of memorable covers for the character. The Tiger Girl stories in issues #50-55 appear to be some combination of Matt Baker and Jack Kamen artwork.

Readers were clearly drawn to the ongoing saga of this jungle adventurer, as she ultimately became one of Fiction House's longest-lived characters. Her stories continued to be published for over a decade until the company ceased operations in 1954. A very popular late-era Golden Age character, there's a Tiger Girl Group of 9 (Fiction House, 1947-52) Condition: Average GD- at the 2024 July 7-9 Sunday, Monday & Tuesday Comic Books Select Auction #122428 at Heritage Auctions.

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