[positronic1]

Zago exists in a strange universe. He is claimed to be a "Jungle Prince", but unlike say Dell's BROTHERS OF THE SPEAR, that title is never explained. Zago exists without benefit of origin or hint of a backstory of any kind. He lives in a native village where all the females are light-skinned like himself, but all the males besides himself are dark-skinned. There are several instances where we see a dark-skinned native refer to a light-skinned girl as his daughter, or his mate (or the light-skinned girl refer to a dark-skinned male as father or husband). In addition, all of the women are young and attractive; and children or elders are never seen -- either female or male. In the one story where a child seems to appear, he actually turns out to be a 20-year-old midget! That not only seems to present an extremely odd picture of Africa, but seems especially puzzling when you remember these stories were published in 1948. Native women are, without exception, whether good or evil, portrayed as light-skinned. We never, ever see a dark-skinned woman, yet all the male natives are dark-skinned (as you would expect for Africa). At first when I noted this in a couple of stories, I simply wrote it off as a mistake of the colorist (they are notorious for not actually reading the scripts), but after a goodly number of stories, it became obvious that this policy was not only consistent, but quite deliberate, and somewhat baffling.

Link to the book: Zago, Jungle Prince 4