The Many Lives Of Buck Johnson

Buck Johnson had a busy year in 1941 with two consecutive comic book premieres. He’s an explorer that first appeared in Speed Comics #13 from Harvey created by Frank Lawrence. He was another "great white" explorer who captured wild animals and used his skills to trap a tiger that he labels as a man-eater while saving his overzealous photographer girlfriend Helen when she was trying to snap a picture of the striped predator which chases the dizzy dame up a tree. A few months later, Buck jumped ship from his single trip with Harvey to Great Comics Publications in the first two issues of their appropriately titled Great Comics which only lasted three issues altogether. This time the creator is under the name Andre LeBlanc and has Buck still as a hunter working with a supposedly different camerawoman named Irene. They are hunting a mad elephant in the Mayal peninsula where they are attacked by a panther that Irene shoots dead simply for the crime of being hungry. She didn't mind the idea of turning its pelt into racket, all that while Buck permanently packs the elephant's trunk. Their second trip took them to Africa where they are leaped upon by the frisky feline fella Malu wearing leopard skin. Malu gets rescued by Buck and pledges to reform. This ticks off the rest of the Leopard Men tribe who launch an assault on the rest of Buck's native party at their village. Buck and his friends return to camp just as the Leopard Men attack who kidnap him and take him to their chief. Irene leads the rest of their group to free their friends, but Irene gets too preoccupied with getting Buck's near execution on film instead of saving her boyfriend. The Leopard Men ironically get chased off by some leopards they had captured leaving Irene to look like a real heel. Whether or not the Buck Johnson from Harvey is the same one from Great Comics is the exact same character is unknown, even though the original creator Frank Lawrence seems to only have one credit in comics history, where the Haitian-born second creator Andre LeBlanc is listed on having worked on from legacy titles like Flash Gordon, The Spirit, and The Phantom. Since both versions of the character came out within a few months of each other, it's not hard to believe that the two creators are the same person, although why Frank/Andre felt the need to change his own name as opposed to just renaming the greedy jungle jockey is up in the air.

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