Kaanga: Jungle Stories

  Kaanga: Jungle Stories is a written novel that reinterprets the adventures of Kaanga, White Man of the Jungle, as he originally appeared in Jungle Comics #1. He was a comic book character who first appeared in Jungle Comics #1, dated January 1940, in a series that ran to 1954. Along with Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, of Jumbo Comics, they were the most successful of their genre.
  Kaanga was a man with no superpowers, who had to survive in the jungle with his cunning and instincts, while facing many threats. As in the modern world today, change was coming to the jungle and his life. He met numerous allies and foes, whom he might befriend or fight. 
  He battles the slaver Bill Blackton and rescues Ann Mason from becoming a slave. She goes on to be his companion. He battles Doctor Wratt, who is trying to hypnotize all the people in the jungle, with his machine. He fights the villianous King Brut and his tribe of vicious natives. He is captured by the beautiful Queen Anitra, trying to make him her husband. Many more threats await Kaanga, but someone far more dangerous, is secretly in control in the jungle, someone who is the true power behind what is going on. Though he is courageous and strong, can Kaanga defeat these powers before they defeat him? And there is another power in the jungle to contend with. Who is the mysterious Phantomah?

  Jungle Comics ran from 1940 - 1954 and Kaanga was the star, being featured on every cover. Survival in the jungle was not easy for him, but he always found a way to overcome and adapt. Now Kaanga is long forgotten in comics, but the concept of a man living and surviving in the jungle is timeless.
  The jungle genre fascinated readers with stories of adventure and escape, to far off places with wild animals and exotic landscapes. The clash of civilization and nature is still with us though, both inside us and outside us. Hopefully the genre can find a place in people's imagination once more, giving us more adventures to be told.
  Look up the word "jungle" in the dictionary. In some ways, people never really left.

  Read part 2 of this series in Kaanga Returns: Jungle Stories II.
  Kindle edition also available.