Markley’s Fevered Brain: Lord of the Jungle

Wayne Markley

Wayne Markley


by Wayne Markley

Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Tarzan: The Jesse Marsh Years Omnibus Vol. 01

Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Tarzan: The Jesse Marsh Years Omnibus Vol. 01


Dark Horse Comics just released the first volume of the Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan:  The Jesse Marsh Years Omnibus and I thought this would be a good time to review that book and the world of Tarzan in comic strips and comic books. A great deal of the comic strips have been collected either by the major publishers, Dark Horse, IDW and Titan Books, and about ten years worth of strips that have not been collected by the prior three publishers can be found in the always great, but hard to find, Comics Revue magazine. Dark Horse has also collected a small section of the Tarzan comic books so far, but there is more to come in the future. I am going to start off with the strip collections though.

Edgar Rice Burroughs Tarzan: The Sunday Comics

Edgar Rice Burroughs Tarzan: The Sunday Comics


Hal Foster, who is best known for his amazing Prince Valiant Sunday newspaper strip, did in fact do the Tarzan newspaper strip prior to Prince Valiant. If you have money, you can get his entire run as it has been reprinted in three oversized hardcovers, published by Dark Horse Comics. All of these books are in full color and come in the actual size they first appeared (that is huge) and the coloring is all redone to match the original newspaper strips and it looks amazing. The problem is these three volumes cost $125 each. Each volume has two plus years worth of Sunday strips (covering 1931-1937) as well as all sorts of historical articles. I personally would highly recommend them to any Tarzan fan as they are a great read and beautiful to look at. Not to be left out, IDW released all of Hal Foster’s daily Tarzan strips in volume seven of their LOAC Essentials collection. Foster only did the adaptation of Tarzan of the Apes, and as that is only 60 strips, IDW filled out this collection with three other Tarzan stories drawn by Rex Maxon. making this book over 300 strips long. But be for warned, as the Sundays are huge to reflect their original size, this LOAC collection is small and the shape of a daily newspaper strip, and being a daily they are in black and white. Beautiful reproduction of the strips though makes this, along with the Sundays, worth reading. Something worth noting, as Foster did in Prince Valiant (and Hogarth continued to do with Tarzan), all of the stories are told through third person narration, so there is no dialogue in the art; only text boxes, almost always above the panel.

Tarzan in the City of Gold: The Complete Burne Hogarth Comic Strip Library

Tarzan in the City of Gold: The Complete Burne Hogarth Comic Strip Library


Titan Books has picked up the task by reprinting all of Burne Hogarth’s Tarzans in full color hardcovers. Hogarth followed Foster on the Sunday Tarzan strips in 1937 and these four volumes reprint all of Hogarth’s work through 1949. (Note: Volume four is due out in March 17 and is not yet available.) All of these collections are written by Hogarth and others and include adaptations of Burroughs stories as well as original material. These volumes are just as nice as the Dark Horse Foster volumes, although smaller in size. The reproduction is not re-colored like the Foster collections were so at times the art is a bit dark, but these books are clearly the best reproductions of Hogarth’s Tarzan out there. The four volumes are titled after the lead story even though each collection has five or six stories. Vol. 1 is titled Tarzan in the City of Gold; Vol. 2 is Tarzan vs. the Barbarians; Vol. 3 is Tarzan vs. the Nazis; and Vol. 4 is Tarzan and the Lost Tribes. Please note these collections skip some Sunday runs where Hogarth left the strip for periods of time. The only place I know to find these missing strips are the long out of print NBM run of Tarzan HCs (17 volumes in all). While Hogarth obviously picked up where Foster left off, as he went on, the look of the strip became more and more his, as Foster went in a different direction stylistically than Hogarth.

Comics Revue

Comics Revue


In many blogs of the past I have sung the praise of Comics Revue. I am going to briefly mention them again here as every other month they reprint Tarzan strips in sequence. A lot of the material they collect has not been seen anywhere else, particularly the post Hogarth material by Bob Lubbers (1950-1954), John Celardo (1954-1967) whose style greatly reminds me a great deal of Russ Heath, Russ Manning (1967-1979), and others. They have done a great job of reprinting almost 15 years worth of Tarzan strips that are near impossible to find elsewhere. (Outside of the British Tarzan weekly from the ‘60s and a few Italian collections.)

Tarzan: The Complete Russ Manning Newspaper Strips

Tarzan: The Complete Russ Manning Newspaper Strips


The final collection of Tarzan newspaper strips I want to discuss are the four volume set of the complete Russ Manning Tarzan newspaper strips that IDW released. While Manning also did the Tarzan comic book for Gold Key, he moved to the newspaper strip in 1967 and did it through 1979 when he moved to the Star Wars newspaper strip. Manning was handpicked by the Burroughs estate to take over the strip and he proved to be a great choice. Over these four volumes you go everywhere from the darkest heart of Africa to Pal-ul-Don to Opar to Pellucidar. These are Tarzan as high adventure with epic storytelling that featured Tarzan, Jane, Korak and others. These are considered by most to be the best Tarzan strips since the Hogarth days (Although I did enjoy the ‘50s/’60s run of stories collected in Comics Revue). Each volume has almost 300 pages of daily and Sunday strips. The only negative is the Sunday strips are in black and white, which to be fair, does show off Manning’s sleek line work off better. A must read for any Tarzan fan.

Unauthorized Tarzan

Unauthorized Tarzan


Next we move on to the Tarzan comic book reprints. I bring these up because Dark Horse just released the first volume of Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Tarzan the Jesse Marsh Years Omnibus. Jesse Marsh did the Tarzan comic books for Dell Comics from 1947-1965 (Issue 1 through 154). Dark Horse did 11 hardcover collections reprinting the first 56 issues of the Dell Tarzan comics. Now they are collecting 3 hardcovers into one oversized (over 700 pages) trade paperback. This first volume reprints the two Four Color Tarzan comics and the first 16 issues of the Tarzan comic. This is a very nice collection of hard to find material. Marsh’s early work on Tarzan was a bit on the simple side and not as nice as a lot of the newspaper strip material, but there is a charm and warmth to it. Over time his art improves a lot as he finds the groove of the characters of Tarzan and his world. I should note prior to Tarzan, Marsh did mostly Disney adaptations and newspaper strips so his early style is understandable. I do hope Dark Horse is able to reprint all of his work, and get beyond the 56 issues they did in the hardcovers. Following Jesse Marsh on the comic books was Russ Manning, who took over in 1965 and he continued on the book it until 1972 when DC got the rights to Tarzan. Dark Horse did one collection of the Russ Manning comics reprinting the first 11 issues that he did, #156-167 (but skipping issues 162 and 165). Again I am hopeful that Dark Horse will collect the rest of these Manning stories at some point also. Dark Horse also did a hardcover collection of the Charlton short run series, Jungle Tales of Tarzan by Sam Glanzman called the Unauthorized Tarzan. I am a big admirer of Glanzman’s work but this was not his best. (The story here is Charlton thought Tarzan was in the public domain and started their own title to compete with Dell/Gold Key, but they soon got the dreaded letter from the lawyers and the books was cancelled.)

Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan: The Complete Joe Kubert Years

Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan: The Complete Joe Kubert Years


Dark Horse (god love them) has also published Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan: The Complete Joe Kubert Years that reprints the DC Tarzan comics that started to be released in 1972 with issue 207 continuing the numbering from Gold Key. Kubert stayed on the book through 1975 and his entire run is collected in this one omnibus, Tarzan #207-235. While going from Russ Manning to Joe Kubert is admittedly a big shock, it is also a good one as Kubert’s Tarzan is some of his best work and some of the best Tarzan comic books ever done. Kubert’s Tarzan is gritty and dirty and it is very faithful to the original Burroughs stories. Kubert adapts Tarzan of the Apes, Return of Tarzan, and Tarzan and the Lion Man among a number of original stories. As like almost all of Kubert’s work, it is so detailed and stylized you feel like you are in the jungle with Tarzan and Jane. As much as I love Foster, Hogarth, Manning, and John Celardo on Tarzan, to me Kubert’s run was always the best.

Tarzan on the Planet of the Apes

Tarzan on the Planet of the Apes


Alas, there is still more Tarzan comics that have not been collected yet, as DC kept the book going for a number of years after Kubert. Then there is a long run by Marvel by the great John Buscema. There are also a number of original miniseries from Dark Horse Comics (including the recent Tarzan on the Planet of the Apes which was really good) and Dynamite Publishing, who publishes new material under the name Lord of the Jungle. There are also small runs from Malibu (which Dark Horse collected) and a number of European versions. The Burroughs estate still does a new Tarzan comic strip that to the best of my knowledge is only available online. I am also sure there are a number of publishers I am forgetting.

This wraps up my overview of Tarzan in comic strips and comic books. There is so much more material that can be collected featuring the Lord of the Jungle if someone gets to it; from all the newspaper strips between Hogarth and Manning, and post Manning (including work by Gil Kane, Mike Grell, and many others) and tons of Jesse Marsh Dell comics and Russ Manning Gold Key comics. Let’s hope Dark Horse continues with the omnibus beyond what they did in hardcover collections. Everything I have written here is my opinion and does not reflect the thoughts or opinions of Westfield Comics or their employees, although I know of a few customers that would disagree with what I have written here. So what do you think? Do you like Tarzan? The classic newspaper material? The comics? Something I have not mentioned here? What else are you reading that I am missing out on? I want to know! I can be reached at MFBWAY@AOL.COM or on Facebook at Wayne Markley. And one final thing…

Thank you.

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