The universe must really want me to tell you about the collage artist born Burgess Franklin Collins, who became known as, simply, Jess. And who am I to deny doing want the universe wants?

First, while reading the latest issue of the Paris Review, I came across a collage the artist had done in 1956 that made use of comics—and you already know how intrigued I am by collages like that.

Then (I assume because I wasn’t acting quickly enough), up popped a Publishers Weekly review of the book Jess: O! Tricky Cad and Other Jessoterica, which told me more about the former Manhattan Project radiochemist turned artist and informed me that the book’s “publication coincides with the beginning of a traveling exhibition of his work set for 2013 and 2014.”

So I guess I’d better share the image which intrigued me so, or else mentions of Jess will inevitably start creeping into every magazine I read!

And so, here’s the paste-up known as Nance—or what I assume is only a part of the work, since The Paris Review describes Nance as a “collage on four two-page spreads.”

You’ll have to forgive the way the magazine’s spine splits the image down the middle—that’s the only way I was able to scan it due to how it appears in the Paris Review.

Nance is part of the 1956 work, A Birthday Pillow Book for James, which Jess had made for poet and filmmaker James Broughton. But—made out of what?

At first I thought the figures had a Russ Manning feel to them, and perhaps came from Tarzan, but apparently Manning only worked on the Tarzan newspaper strip from 1969-1979, and besides, was Tarzan ever running around with what seem to be Native American Indians?

So it’s up to you to tell me—which 1956 comic strip did Jess cut up to create Nance?