Inspirations for the Chums of Chance

[Sterling Clover]

i certainly recognize the register the chums sections are written in,  
especially early on (and god, those italics a few pages in!  i was in  
stitches.) and I've seen plenty of reviews city various dimestore  
type works as the jumping-off-point: Tom Swift (which leapt to my  
mind -- certainly the fat cook is a bit of a Chow [I was raised on  
the "Jr." run of the series] & of course they're mentioned in The  
Secret Integration); Nancy Drew; Frank Merriwell; etc. I'm starting  
to think there's quite some Tintin in there too. But I'm starting to  
wonder if there's a particular source that's even closer to the  
material, or particular books/comics that were particularly into the  
digging up forgotten ice caverns/journeying to Tibetan mystics end of  
things. Or that had a particular fascination with airships and  
journeys into a hollow earth for that matter.

Any thoughts?

--S