RKMBs Forums .::Robegories::. Comic Books Dumpster Diving II:Tarzan Family #60

Another week, another quarter comic. This is another one based on Edgar Rice Burroughs’s characters. I swear I do read other stuff, but this one was in the stack right under last week’s John Carter book. This, of course, was purchased at the same time and location as last week’s book, so you can read that column if you want to find out why and where I bought it. I’ll wait.



This week’s book is DC’s Tarzan Family #60, Nov-Dec 1975. It’s from DC’s Giant-sized line, so it’s chock full of Tarzan-y goodness. The letter’s page advises that this is the first issue of a new direction for the series. I’m not too clear on my history of the series, but I think this started as a “Korak, Son of Tarzan” but morphed into Tarzan Family to boost sales and maximize some of the other ERB licenses. Digression #1: During the mid-seventies, DC published both Batman Family and Superman Family. Both were in the “Giant-sized” format and featured lead stories that either starred or co-starred the title characters and back-ups featuring supporting characters such as Lois Lane, Jimmy Olson, Robin and Bat-girl. They’re pretty fun books if you can find ‘em cheap. I got quite a few of them years and years ago by, surprise surprise, digging through quarter boxes. They’re not quite Shakespeare, but their kinda fun. As a matter of fact, and of DC’s series of “Giant-sized” books from the seventies or very early eighties are usually pretty good deals, and have become pretty scarce in the quarter boxes. More and more often I’m starting to see these books bagged and boarded and selling for $5-$10 bucks each. I’ve been trying to complete my run of the $1.00 World’s Finest from the early eighties, but can’t bring myself to pay that kinda money for those books. End of digression. Overall, it’s a pretty good deal for your money. Fifty cents for (basically) five stories. Let’s break ‘em down in order, shall we?

First up is a Korak son of Tarzan story entitled “Forbidden Tomb” written by Bob Kanigher, edited by Joe Kubert with art by Rudy Florese. The art is very, very Kubertish and most people just skimming through would think that Joe Kubert drew the whole story. Kanigher’s story is so-so. Not absolutely terrible, but nothing to write home about either. It involves Korak discovering another lost African tribe (just about all the tribes in Tarzan books are “lost”, leading me to wonder what the hell is going on over there) who are in the process of burying a large metal sarcophagus, which gets struck by lightning. Korak opens the coffin to find a young boy about to be buried alive. The young boy, who identifies himself as Prince Im-Ho-Tep, states that his father, the king ordered him buried because he is considered a jinx, bringing bad luck with him wherever he goes. This is demonstrated when Korak takes the Prince home and stops at several other villages along the way, all of which conveniently get attacked by large monsters as soon as Prince Im-Ho-Tep shows up. Korak, of course, defeats them all in battle and then is able to explain them to villagers as being by-products of their own societies instead of some kind of curse. Korak and Price Im-Ho-Tep finally return to his village and confront the king, only to be attacked in the royal court by the King’s pet panther. After defeating the beast, Korak makes the leap of logic that it’s not the Prince who is a jinx, but the King’s advisor who is framing him. The King, using the complete lack of evidence presented to him, agrees completely and has his advisor imprisoned. Pretty convenient ending for a poorly paced story. I know Robert Kanigher is considered one of the early masters of the 8-12 page stories, but this one is pretty much a clunker. One thing that really bugged me was the usage of Ancient Egyptian themes when displaying the lost African tribe. The king is shown wearing a headdress similar to those of the early Pharaohs of Egypt and attendants in the royal court are also shown in garb similar to the ancient Egyptians. And, of course, Prince Im-Ho-Tep’s name is taken directly from Egyptian history. Of course, I don’t think that Kanigher (like most other people) didn’t realize that his namesake never was a Pharaoh, but actually the chief engineer/architect who built the original pyramids. Sounds good though. Another lame point is the added framing sequence that starts off the story featuring several Roman Gods who appear, for some unknown reason, to be testing the will of Korak without his knowledge. From comments in the letter pages, this appears to be an ongoing subplot, but it never is explained, or even followed up at the end of the story! The page would have been better used to flesh out the story instead. I don’t know what the Roman Gods have to do with Korak or the Tarzan mythos, but it seemed pretty inane in this case. Decent story, but nothing great.

Up next is a Tarzan/Korak story called “Escape from Pellicidar” and seems to be a continuation of an earlier story, but it’s hard to tell. There’s no credits at all, and I have no idea if this is a reprint or a new story. For those not familiar with the concept, Pellicidar is another one of ERB’s concepts, but this one featuring a savage civilization that exists inside the hollow earth, where the earth’s molten core keeps the land in perpetual daylight. ERB’s Pellicidar, which was featured in about a half dozen novels sounds like an odd concept to me. Even though I haven’t read any of the books myself, everything I’ve heard about them sounds weird. For one thing, since the molten core keeps the land in eternal daylight, Burroughs theorized that time stood still, which explains why men are still savages and dinosaurs roam the land. Secondly, there is no horizon inside the hollow earth because of the reverse curvature of the land. Never mind. The odd layout of the panels makes it appear that it may have been a collection of either daily or Sunday strips of some sort, but it’s hard to tell. To be honest, I read the story, but didn’t absorb too much of it, due to the fact that it appeared to be the final part of an ongoing adventure. Not very exciting, but interesting just to see all the different ERB characters interact.

The third story in the book is an adaptation of ERB’s “Pirates of Venus” featuring his character Carson Napier. Pretty much the same concept as the John Carter series, but set on Venus instead of Mars. Instead of the protagonist being transported to Mars without warning, our hero purposely tried to reach Mars by making a really goofy rocket. Of course, he had everything all mapped out to the last decimal, but forgot to figure in the gravitational pull of Earth’s Moon and was yanked off course causing him to land on Venus, where, surprise surprise, he found alien monsters and savage humanoids. Carson had also trained himself to have some kind of ESP/mental telepathy, but it hasn’t played into the story yet, so I don’t really know the specifics behind it. I haven’t seen any of these original novels in print either, so I don’t know if they’re any good or not. The story is adapted by Len Wein and M W Kaluta, so at least it’s nice to look at. The only complaint about the art is that the old newsprint that DC used back then really muddies up Kaluta’s fine lines, which is a real shame. It looks like this is only an adaptation of chapter one of the book, so there was probably quite a ways to go.

The next part of the book is probably the best and most disappointing part of the series. To fill space, DC decided to start reprinting Hal Foster’s Tarzan Sunday pages in full color. Sounds great, and they should look beautiful, but unfortunately, they had to shrink them down to about 1/3 the original size to make them fit! This renders them completely unreadable, with the text too small to make any sense of. Damn shame too, considering the historical significance of these strips. For those not familiar with them, Hal Foster was the original artist on Prince Valiant and the strips were originally commissioned and overseen by Burroughs himself. From what I can tell, they look beautiful, but the art is so damn muddy I can’t be sure. These are straight 3 panels across and four panels down grids, not the illustrative style that Foster would later became renowned for later in his career. Quite a shame, and a waste of paper. I think NBM has reprinted these semi- recently, so anybody who is interested should check around for those.

The final (phew!) story features a newly created character called “Amazon of Barsoom”, which uses the Mars of the John Carter stories, but expands upon it with different characters and situations. The five page story features a script by Bob Kanigher again and art by “Zamora”, who sounds familiar, but I can’t quite place it. I think he might have been one of the South American artists who worked in a very popular studio during the mid-seventies headed up by some guy whose name I can’t recall right now (it’s on the tip of my tongue, but I’m sick of racking my brain…) Is Nestor Redondo the name I’m trying to think of maybe? The art has a “cartoon-y” feel to it, but isn’t that bad. The story is neither here nor there (again.) Nothing great, but nothing terrible either. The cover also shows that a John Carter story should have been included too, but I think it was shunted for the Hal Foster strips.

Not much info from the letters page, but some of the house ads are pretty neat to look at, including a two page spread featuring all the oversized treasury editions that DC had published. I recognize a few of them, including a Dick Tracy one that my uncle picked up at flea market for me. I’d love to get my hands on the two Shazam and the Tarzan one that they show. My local Graham Cracker shop has had them for a couple of years sitting on the racks, but I don’t wanna pay the twenty bucks they’re asking for them…The center spread is an ad for that season’s new Saturday morning line-up on CBS, including a live-action show called “Ghost Busters” which stars “Larry Storch and Forrest Tucker – In person!” Pretty exciting stuff! There’s an ad for the Marvel/DC co-production of Wizard of OZ, which was a prelude to the big crossovers they would do later on. Superman and Batman both appear in half page ads reminding you which books you can buy each month to read their latest adventures (six for each, but Superman kinda cheats by listing Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes.) Last, but not least, is an ad for Alan Light’s “The Buyer’s Guide to Comics Fandom” newspaper, which later became “Comic’s Buyers Guide.” A one year (24 issue) subscription would set you back five whole dollars! I just realized the other day that I’ve had an uninterrupted subscription to CBG for nearly twenty years. Just thought somebody might care…:(

That’s it for this month, and I promise, whatever book I pull out next time, it’ll have nothing to do with Edgar Rice Burroughs. Maybe.

Bob Kanigher is the guy who did weird Batman stories?

When the hell did Tarzan gt a son?

Tarzan has had a son since before World War I, actually. In one novel he was a baby, and in the next he was a teenager, all within the space of a couple of years. This has led some Burroughs scholars (such as Philip Jose Farmer) to theorize that Tarzan and Jane had two sons: one who was born to Jane, and a teenage son who was adopted after his parents were killed.

It was John Clayton. Good ol', easy-to-remember John. Just like Tarzan, the Lord of Greystoke himself, John Clayton. Just like Tarzan's dad... John Clayton, who was named after Tarzan's grandfather... yep, you guessed it: John Clayton.

(P.S.: Can you guess what John "Korak" Clayton named HIS son? Trust me, it's a pretty easy guess... )

Here's a nice timeline of Tarzan's life as defined by Burroughs' novels, which shows when Tarzan's son was born:

http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~stephan/Tarzan/tarzlive.html

Huh. I didn't know that.

Yeah, I love all these Edgar Rice Burroughs adaptations.

Comics publishers Dell and Gold Key were putting out TARZAN and KORAK titles prior to DC. DC purchased the rights, and continued the series under the DC label.
The first DC issue was TARZAN 207 (April 1972), and I loved this run while Joe Kubert was doing the story and art on the series, adapting the Tarzan novels.


larger cover image:
http://fullsize.207.GIF

Issues 207-210 adapts Tarzan of the Apes (the first E.R.B. novel) and issues 219-223 adapt The Return of Tarzan (the second E.R.B. novel.)

Both are outstanding adaptations, and for me are more definitive than any of the Tarzan movies ever done.

Scattered issues from 211-218 adapt stories from Jungle Tales of Tarzan. The last Kubert E.R.B. adaptation is in issues 231-234, of Tarzan and the Lion Man.
And shortly after that Kubert stopped doing the art, and the art chores were taken over by several of the many artists DC employed from the Phillipines during the 1970's, who despite the talent of many of these artists, were hired because they worked for a tiny fraction of what artists in the U.S. were paid.
(Rudy Florese, Franc Reyes, Alex Nino, Nestor Redondo, Alfredo Alcala, Tony DeZuniga, Ernie Chan a.k.a. Ernie Chua, Quico Redondo, Noly Panaligan, Flor Dery, Gerry Taloac, Rubeny, E.R.Cruz and many others among them.)

The early Kubert TARZAN issues also feature some beautiful reprints of the Hal Foster Tarzan newspaper features.

The horrible printing you mention in TARZAN FAMILY, Rufus, comes from the printing process going from steel engraving plates to plastic ones, during the 1975-1980 era, which diminished much of what was published in this period.
But the Foster pages look much better printed in these earlier issues from 1972. And you can definitely see the Foster influence on Kubert's version of Tarzan.





http://fullsize.46.GIF

Less mentioned is the KORAK, SON OF TARZAN book, which DC began publishing with issue 46 (June 1972).
The Korak stories were initially written by Len Wein (46 and 47) and then Robert Khaniger took over scripting the Korak feature.
I loved the art by Frank Thorne, and the Carson of Venus feature (by Kaluta) is also beautifully illustrated and pleasant to read.

The Carson of Venus story in TARZAN FAMILY 60 is reprinted from KORAK 46. Beginning with issue 60, TARZAN FAMILY reprinted the Carson of Venus stories from KORAK in sequential order.
Kaluta did this 5-7 page Carson of Venus series in Korak 46-56, and then it continued for a few more episodes in TARZAN 230-234, before Kaluta's Carson of Venus faded into oblivion.
Kaluta also did a fill-in issue of the Pellucidar feature in WEIRD WORLDS 3, that is very much worth seeing.




http://fullsize.1.GIF


Both KORAK and TARZAN had backup features of the other E.R.B. characters. Carson of Venus (Kaluta), and Beyond the Farthest Star (Dan Green, Howard Chaykin), John Carter of Mars (Len Wein/Murphy Anderson), and Pellucidar (Dennis O'Neil/Alan Weiss).
The latter two, after the 52-page era ended, and the backups were mostly squeezed out, DC launched WEIRD WORLDS (Sept 1972), with John Carter of Mars (Len Wein/Murphy Anderson), and Pellucidar (Dennis O'Neil/Alan Weiss), that lasted 7 issues.
Issues 8-10 launched a new S-F series, "Iron Wolf" by Chaykin, and the E.R.B. stuff in WEIRD WORLDS was discontinued.

The popularity of the E.R.B. material at DC also resulted in publishing SWORD OF SORCERY (adapting Fritz Lieber's Fafhrd and Grey Mouser adventures), by O'Neil and Chaykin, with inks by "Crusty Bunkers" (a.k.a., Neal Adams and other artists in his studio).

http://fullsize.1.GIF

Plus many other pulp-based adventure-type series from DC, such as THE SHADOW, JUSTICE INC., BEOWULF, and THE WARLORD (the last being Grell's own version of Pellucidar). A nice addition to the great diversity of DC titles at the time, including war, western, mystery, science fiction, and humor titles, with a wide variety of art styles.


The TARZAN FAMILY run in 1975-1976 marked the closing days of the E.R.B. franchise being published by DC. (The KORAK title changed to TARZAN FAMILY, beginning with issue 60. )

The covers for these series can be viewed here:

• KORAK covers (Dell) issues 1-45
  http://www.milehighcomics.com/list&title=48393593816
  
  KORAK covers (DC), issues 46-59
  http://www.milehighcomics.com/list&title=48394643728
  
  TARZAN FAMILY covers, issues 60-66
  http://www.milehighcomics.com/list&title=85608774568
  
  
  TARZAN (DC) covers, issues 207-258
  http://www.milehighcomics.com/list&title85581476856=
  
  WEIRD WORLDS covers, issues 1-10
  http://www.milehighcomics.com/list&title=94900495768
  
  SWORD OF SORCERY covers, issues 1-5
  http://www.milehighcomics.com/list&title=84787743384

After Kubert stopped doing the series, the E.R.B. people were less pleased with what DC was doing with their characters, and soon after, Marvel took over the publishing rights, and began their own versions of TARZAN (Roy Thomas/John Buscema) and JOHN CARTER (Marv Wolfman/Gil Kane) from 1976-1979.



The TARZAN title by Roy Thomas and John Buscema I considered something of a dud. Their work on CONAN and SAVAGE SWORD being far more inspired.

Marvel's JOHN CARTER title by Wolfman and Gil Kane is much more enjoyable. Including a fill-in issue (number 18, 1978)with very clean and detailed art by a brand-new-to-the-field Frank Miller.

The covers for all these Marvel issues:

• JOHN CARTER (Marvel) covers. issues 1-28
  http://www.milehighcomics.com/list&title=45802411000
  
  TARZAN (Marvel) covers, issues 1-29
  http://www.milehighcomics.com/list&title=85575177384

That pretty much sums it up! And answers some questions I had about the various DC stuff. Thanks! I've found that they're pretty fun reads if you can pick 'em up cheap, but I don't want to pay the prices most dealers expect for 'em...

My pleasure, Rufus.

Aside from the Kubert TARZAN issues, my favorites are the KORAK issues by Frank Thorne, with "Carson of Venus" backup stories by Kaluta.

I think the best one to sample is issue 49, which features the origin of Korak ( I think this would interest you too, T-Dave, if you'd like to see Korak from the beginning ).



Unless high-grade copies can be bought for under 10.00, I more often look for G/VG copies, which can be bought for a fraction of the price.
If they're 15.00 or 20.00 in mint, they're usually 2 or 3 dollars in G/VG.

And the way I look at it, you also don't have to be afraid to read and potentially damage a G/VG book, the way you would reading a mint copy.
So whenever possible, I always go for the reading copies.


--------------------


"This Man, This Wonder Boy..."

One I'd forgotten to mention was the rather interesting first DC appearance of Fafhrd and Grey Mouser in a couple issues of WONDER WOMAN, issues 201 and 202, prior to the later SWORD OF SORCERY title a year or so later.



Interesting for a number of reasons.

First, it was a great story by Dennis O'Neil and Dick Giordano, in the middle of a consistently good run by O'Neil (issues 178-203). This run featured a Wonder Woman who had lost her powers, and was having adventures as a non-super-powered Diana Prince, which I think made the series more character-driven, and made WW more heroic, having to use her wits instead of her powers.
O'Neil incorporated detective-type stories with a blend of eastern philosophy and martail arts.

Second, there's a Bond-movie-like appeal, of globetrotting to different locations all over the world.
In these two particular issues, an airline journey to Southeast Asia, in search of the lost city of Shangri-La, involving a bit of Eastern mysticism.

Third, teaming WW up with Catwoman in a reluctant partnership, where WW is first trying to stop a crime, then fighting alongside Catwoman for their lives.

Fourth, a one-time venture (to my knowledge) into comics scripting by award-winning science fiction writer Samuel R Delany.

You can view the enlarged covers, as well as some of the interior pages, at this link:

• WONDER WOMAN covers
  http://www.milehighcomics.com/cgi-bin/ba...amp;snumber=181

Another great WW story from this run (unrelated to the Burroughs and sword-and-sorcery material) is issue 195, scripted by O'Neil, with art by Wallace Wood. A ghost story set at an isolated northeastern country inn, cut from the rest of the world by a snowstorm.