The first of my "professional" comics creations, even though she was never published. Leenah of the Lions was born during my tenure as a production assistant (color separator) at Bill Black's AC Comics plant, and my exposure to their jungle-girl character Tara on Jungle Island. I was originally being groomed to be the regular artist for Tara, but as things turned out there was no series... I also suspect my penchant for drawing athletic women was causing Bill to reconsider; he'd made no secret of his dislike for muscles on women. So I started drawing my own jungle girl, the way I thought she should look.

(This was around 1981-82 or so, at the beginning of women's bodybuilding, when Rachel McLish and Lisa Lyon were considered extremely muscular; even I was holding back on Leenah's muscularity.)

I have no idea where the name "Leenah of the Lions" came from. But "lions" was such a part of the name that I cast about for a reason for the character to associate with lions. The gimmick I came up with: Leenah shares a strange, almost telepathic link with lions that enables her to communicate with them. I'm still rather fond of this idea, since it creates opportunities for various of Leenah's "companions" to become full-fledged characters themselves.

All my plans for bringing Leenah to print went "blooey" when LH-Art (through their "mainstream" arm, Elsewhere Productions) brought out Kyra, a jungle girl they'd been publishing and distributing through mail order for some time. I was to find out later that they'd also been publishing another jungle muscle-girl, "Kageena" (Kyra's mother). I was concerned that Leenah would seem like a copycat concept once Kyra hit the shelves.

Leenah and her friends, the lions and "the Colonel", all still occupy a warm spot in my heart; and I still hope for the opportunity to see them find their audience.

The drawings above are from my sketchbook, from around 1985; newly colored for this page.

©2000 David C. Matthews