Tarzan in comics


, a fictional character created by Edgar Rice Burroughs, first appeared in the 1912 novel Tarzan of the Apes, and then in 23 sequels. The character proved immensely popular and quickly made the jump to other media, including comics.

Comic strips

Tarzan of the Apes was adapted into newspaper strip form, first published January 7, 1929, with illustrations by Hal Foster. A full page Sunday strip began on March 15, 1931, with artwork by Rex Maxon. United Feature Syndicate distributed the strip.
Over the years, many artists have drawn the Tarzan comic strip, notably Rex Maxon, Burne Hogarth, Ruben Moreira, Dan Barry, Paul Reinman, Bob Lubbers, John Celardo, Russ Manning, Gil Kane, Mike Grell, Gray Morrow and Eric Battle.
The daily strip began to reprint old dailies after the last Russ Manning daily. The Sunday strip also turned to reprints after May 19, 2002. Both strips continue as reprints today in a few newspapers and in Comics Revue magazine.
The comic strip has often borrowed plots and characters from the Burroughs Tarzan books. Writer Don Kraar, who wrote the strip from 1983 to 1995, included in his stories characters from other books by Edgar Rice Burroughs, including David Innes of Pellucidar and John Carter of Mars.

Stories

Shortly after the daily strip launched in 1929, the stories were given titles; this practice ran until 1939. The Sunday stories had titles from 1931 until 1950.
Daily stories:
  1. Tarzan of the Apes
  2. Return of Tarzan
  3. Beasts of Tarzan
  4. Son of Tarzan
  5. Jewels of Opar
  6. Lost Empire
  7. Golden Lion
  8. At the Earth's Core
  9. Tarzan the Terrible
  10. The Ant Men
  11. Tarzan the Untamed
  12. Tarzan the Ape Man
  13. Tarzan the Invincible
  14. City of Gold
  15. The Lion Man
  16. The Fire Gods
  17. Tarzan Twins
  18. The Leopard Men
  19. The Mayan Goddess
  20. Tarzan's Quest
  21. Tarzan the Magnificent
  22. Tarzan Under Fire
  23. Tarzan the Fearless
  24. The Forbidden City
  25. The Elephant Men
  26. The Fires of Tohr
Sunday stories:
  1. Rex Maxon Sundays
  2. Foreign Legion
  3. Hulva the Beautiful
  4. The Lion Tamer
  5. Korak
  6. The Elephants Graveyard
  7. The Egyptian Adventure
  8. The Arab Maiden
  9. The White God
  10. The Aviatrix
  11. The Lost Vikings
  12. Flint
  13. In the City of Gold
  14. Tarzan and the Boers
  15. Tarzan and the Chinese
  16. Tarzan and the Pygmies
  17. Tarzan and the Amazons
  18. Tarzan and the Boers
  19. People of the Sea and the Fire
  20. Tarzan Against Dagga Ramba
  21. The Fatal Fountain
  22. Tarzan and the Barbarians
  23. Tarzan Against Kandullah and the Nazis
  24. Don Macabre
  25. Tarzan Against the Nazis
  26. Goru-Bongara
  27. Orizu Khan
  28. The Island of Ka-Gor
  29. Tarzan and N'ani
  30. The Island of Mua-Ao
  31. Tarzan and the Ononones
  32. Tarzan and the Adventurers
  33. The Wild Game Hunter

    Reprints

  • NBM Publishing did a quality reprint series of the Foster and Hogarth work on Tarzan in a series of hardback and paperback reprints in the 1990s. In 2014, Dark Horse Books reprinted the Hal Foster and Burne Hogarth Sundays in the original full page size in 3 volumes.
  • Titan Books did a reprint of the Burne Hogarth Sundays and dailies in a series of 5 volumes starting in 2014.
  • One full year of the strip is reprinted by The Library of American Comics in the LoAC Essentials line of books. The book covers a year of Hal Foster's run.
  • The Library of American Comics reprinted Russ Manning's run of the Tarzan newspaper strip, in their 4 volume series, Tarzan: The Complete Russ Manning Newspaper Strips.

    Comic books

United States

Tarzan has appeared in many comic books from numerous publishers over the years, notably Western Publishing, Charlton Comics, DC Comics, Marvel Comics and Dark Horse Comics. The character's earliest comic book appearances were in comic strip reprints published in several titles, such as Sparkler, Tip Top Comics and Single Series.

Western Publishing

Western Publishing published Tarzan in Dell Comics' Four Color Comics #134 & 161 in 1947, before giving him his own series, Tarzan #1–131, through Dell Comics as well as in some Dell Giants and March of Comics giveaways, then continued the series with #132–206 through their own Gold Key Comics. This series featured artwork by Jesse Marsh, Russ Manning, and Doug Wildey. It included adaptions of most of Edgar Rice Burroughs's original Tarzan books, as well as original stories and other features. Almost all of the Dell Tarzan stories were written by Gaylord Du Bois. When Western refused to expand the number of Edgar Rice Burroughs comic books being published, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. sold the rights to DC Comics, who were willing to publish more comics so long as they sold. This decision was motivated by the lucrative overseas reprint rights, which Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. were selling to foreign publishers on a per-page rate.

DC Comics

DC Comics took over the series in 1972, publishing Tarzan #207–258 from April 1972 to February 1977. DC continued the numbering from the Gold Key series, rather than starting over at #1. Publishers believed at the time that a series would sell less if people perceived it as new.
This version initially showcased artist Joe Kubert's depiction of the character, considered some of the best work of the artist's career. Comics historian Les Daniels noted that Kubert's "scripts and artwork ranked among the most authentic and effective ever seen". DC Comics writer and executive Paul Levitz stated in 2010 that "Joe Kubert produced an adaptation that Burroughs aficionados could respect". The series featured some adaptations of the Burroughs books in addition to original stories, adapting Tarzan of the Apes, The Return of Tarzan, Jungle Tales of Tarzan, Tarzan the Untamed, Tarzan and the Lion Man and Tarzan and the Castaways. Issues #230 to #235 of the series were in the 100 Page Super Spectacular format.
Initially the series featured adaptions of other Burroughs creations, and had the companion titles Korak, Son of Tarzan and Weird Worlds. The Korak series was later renamed The Tarzan Family, into which all the non-Tarzan Burroughs adaptations were consolidated. During this period, the British arm of Warner Bros., the corporate parent of DC Comics, published Tarzan and Korak for the British market. Two issues of Limited Collectors' Edition featured reprints of Kubert's Tarzan stories.
Because Russ Manning's portrayal of Tarzan was considered "definitive" in most countries, Joe Kubert's Tarzan comics were not well-received outside of the U.S.A., and were consistently outsold by reprints of Manning's Tarzan. Afraid that foreign publishers would stop purchasing reprint rights to the new comics, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. hired Manning to oversee the creation of exclusively overseas editions done in Manning's style.

Marvel Comics

In 1977 the series moved to Marvel Comics, retitled as Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle. Marvel published 29 issues from June 1977 to October 1979 and three Annuals. It restarted the numbering rather than assuming that used by the previous publishers. The series was written by Roy Thomas and featured artwork by John Buscema. Burroughs books adapted by Marvel include Tarzan of the Apes, Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar and Jungle Tales of Tarzan. Mark Evanier remarked that
... the whole Marvel deal was doomed from the start.... The foreign publishers did not want adaptations. Roy Thomas felt they should do adaptations. They wanted the Russ Manning versions, but John Buscema wanted to make it as much like the Joe Kubert version as possible. Also, the foreign publishers needed stories in fifteen-page increments, because most of the books feature thirty pages of material and two pages of ads. Everything that made the books commercial in America, made them uncommercial overseas.
Marvel did not continue the Tarzan Family title, publishing instead a series on Burroughs' primary non-Tarzan character, John Carter, Warlord of Mars. Marvel Super Special #29 featured a Tarzan story by writers Sharman DiVono and Mark Evanier and artist Dan Spiegle.

Dark Horse Comics

Dark Horse Comics has published various Tarzan series from 1996 to the present, including archive reprints of works from previous publishers such as Western/Gold Key and DC. Dark Horse and DC published two crossover titles teaming Tarzan with Batman and Superman. Batman/Tarzan: Claws of the Cat-woman is a "straight" team-up between Tarzan and the 1930s Batman to save an ancient city – during which the two form an effective team as they acknowledge their similar origins, despite such differences as Tarzan's willingness to use lethal force. Superman/Tarzan: Sons of the Jungle is a revisionist version in which Lord Greystoke grows up in England, while Kal-El is raised by the apes as "Argozan", although the two switch roles at the conclusion with Greystoke remaining in the jungle while Kal-El returns to the city, Greystoke stating in a letter to his parents that he feels as though he has found his true place. Tarzan also fought the Predators in the Tarzan vs. Predator: At the Earth's Core miniseries.
In 2015, Sequential Pulp Comics, a graphic novel imprint distributed by Dark Horse Comics, published Jungle Tales of Tarzan by writer Martin Powell and artists Pablo Marcos, Terry Beatty, Will Meugniot, Nik Poliwko, Antonio Romero Olmedo, Mark Wheatley, Diana Leto, Steven E. Gordon, Lowell Isaac, Tom Floyd, and Jamie Chase. The cover was by Daren Bader.

Idaho Comics Group

Although Dark Horse Comics holds the comic book licensing rights for the Tarzan character, in 2014 they allowed Idaho Comics Group to publish Tarzan and the Comics of Idaho #1. Edgar Rice Burroughs spent many formative years in Idaho and wrote his first draft of Tarzan in the state. Tarzan and the Comics of Idaho was a comic book anthology showcasing the comic book creators from Idaho. It featured stories and art from Charles Soule, Dennis Eichhorn, Todd Clark of the nationally syndicated Lola comic strip, Steve Moore, Dame Darcy, and others. Only 500 copies of this comic book were printed and all of the proceeds were to benefit the Boise Public Library.
In 2015, Tarzan and the Comics of Idaho #2 was released. This edition featured work by Monte Michael Moore, Dennis Eichhorn, Bill Schelly, Todd Clark of the nationally syndicated Lola comic strip, the award-winning poet of Miss Lost Nation Bethany Schultz Hurst, and many more.