Photo credit: Thomas Hawk (Creative Commons)

This year, 2009, is the international Year of the Gorilla – a drive to bring peoples attention to the plight of one of our nearest and most expressive relatives. This particular year marks 50 years since the first real scientific investigation into gorillas and by co-incidence it’s also fifty years since an explosion of gorilla and ape characters at DC Comics.

Gorilla Covers

The old comics were often driven by their covers. When artist Carmine Infantino was working with Julius Schwartz he’d design a cover then challenge Schwartz to fix a story to it. Either further back, DC publisher Irwin Donenfeld kept a ledger of sales and paid attention to any blips:

“All of a sudden, I would see a spike. Why did this one go up? Well, it had  a dinosaur on the cover. From then on, every month, one of the editors had magazine with a dinosaur on it.”

Irwin Donenfeld, pg 12, Alter Ego #26 (July 2003)

The sales of Strange Adventures #8 (May 1951) caused just such a blip. It was a science fiction title that featured stories that wouldn’t have been out-of-place in the Outer Limits or Twilight Zone. One particular 10-page story, “Evolution Plus” by Gardner Fox and Bob Oksner, featured a man’s brain trapped in the body of an ape. Julius Schwartz, the editor of DC’s science fiction titles recalled:

I remember him [Irwin Donenfeld] running into my office, “What happened to Strange Adventures #8?” I said, “Well, let’s look at the cover.” We did, and it had the following scene: we see it takes place in a zoo. We see a cage, and inside the case there’s a gorilla and he’s holding in his hand a slate and prints down, “Dear Helen, please help he – I’m the victim of a horrible scientific experiment.”

We decided perhaps it was beacause the gorilla was acting like a human being. Irwin says, “Let’s do it again.” We did another cover scene – I think it was a court scene, with a gorilla testifying. And we did a third one and Irwin say, “That’s it. Gorilla covers!” We started to use gorilla covers until Irwin said in desperation, “Stop! No more than one gorilla cover a month!”

Julius Schwartz, pg 13, Alter Ego #26 (July 2003)

Thereafter, gorilla covers – and the justification behind them – became part of DC legend. It wasn’t just the science fiction titles either, gorillas started popping up across the superhero line as well.

The 1959 seems to be when the explosion happened: Superman fought Titano in Superman #127 (February 1959) and befriended Beppo in Superboy #76 (October 1959). The long running strip, Congo Bill, was transformed into a gorilla strip when the adventurer learnt how to swap minds with the Congorilla in Action Comics #248 (January 1959). However, the Detective Chimp stories, which had run as a back up since Adventures of Rex the Wonder Dog #4 (July-August 1952),  faded away in 1959. These characters still remain popular with Congorilla now set to join the Justice League.

Some of the Detective Chimp stories had been written by John Broome and Carmine Infantino – the creative team on the The Flash comic. So when Broome, Infantino and Schwartz were looking around for new villains for the Flash it wasn’t entirely surprising that they ended up with a simian foe. Gorilla Grodd first appeared in The Flash #106 (April–May 1959) — see 1959 again!! There may be another reason 1959 was the launch point for so many gorilla characters.

This year, 2009, is the Year of the Gorilla, fifty years after the first appearance of these gorilla characters. Now I’m not suggesting the Year of the Gorilla is celebrating Gorilla Grodd, although it sounds like one of his schemes, but 1959 was also the year that scientist George Schaller spent living with gorillas in Central Africa. He later published a popular book about his experiences and called 1959 The Year of the Gorilla. It was Schaller’s study, started in the year that the greatest gorilla super villain appeared, which proved gorillas were gentle herbivores and not the monsters that popular culture assumed them to be.

The 2009 year of the Gorilla is important because gorilla populations face severe threats:

Some gorilla populations are the object of concerted conservation and restoration efforts. However, gorillas as a whole remain endangered and continue to face severe threats. All the great ape species of Africa – the bonobos, chimpanzees and gorillas- and the orangutans of Southeast Asia are in steep decline, and the rate of loss is increasing virtually everywhere. The conservation of viable wild populations of each species, necessary to prevent their extinction, represents a difficult challenge to humanity. Not only are these species humankind’s closest relatives, they also play a key role in their forest homes, which in turn regulate the global climate. A failure to save them from extinction would truly be an irreversible loss and a bad omen for humanity’s future prospects. Current conservation efforts need to be widened, as trends suggest that all great ape species could become extinct in the wild in the 21st century, and some even within a few decades. New approaches are needed to reverse this trajectory.

Year of the Gorilla Website