When I was a kid, my first exposure to Tarzan was via the Johnny Weismuller films on Saturday afternoon television. Then one year, on a family vacation, DC’s Tarzan #223 was part of the stack of comics to keep me occupied in car during the drive. It was the concluding chapter of Joe Kubert’s adaptation of ERB’s second Tarzan novel, The Return of Tarzan, and pretty much blew me away. It featured a hidden city of gold (Opar), a high priestess with the hots for Tarzan (La), a tribe of beast men, and a big ol’ whopper of a twist at the end. Who knew Tarzan could be like this?
It wasn’t too much longer before DC released treasury editions collecting Joe Kubert’s adaptations of the first two Tarzan novels, and I was hooked. The comics led me to the books, and to this day The Return of Tarzan remains my favorite of the books, although I tend to think of the first two together as a single novel. I even have a hardcover BOMC edition which collects the under a single cover. Speaking of which, the last time I was at the bookstore I saw a B&N HC edition of the first three Tarzan novels for eight bucks.
Joe Kubert’s entire Tarzan run has been collected by Dark Horse in three archival editions, and as of today, IDW has released the second of two Artist’s editions collecting his adaptations of the first two books.
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My intro to Tarzan was similar to yours - the movies first then the novels. In the early Seventies the series had one of its periodic reissues with new cover art, I believe the cover artist on this go round was Robert Powers. My first Tarzan novel was Tarzan at the Earth's Core and I was quite surprised at the difference in approach compared to the movies. One of my buddies was a big ERB fan who seemed to buy every Burroughs book he could lay hands on. Between the books I purchased and those borrowed from my friend, I read at least a third of the Tarzan novels before losing interest. The comic book adaptions never interested me at the time, however in recent years I have experienced a renewal of interest in all things ERB and have picked up volumes from his various series mainly through used book stores. Being a fan of Joe Kubert, I may need to look into those reprint books as well.
I have heard that hardcore ERB fans are really down on the Weismuller movies. Apparently they object to the “me Tarzan, you Jane” speech pattern, when in the novel he was multi-lingual and erudite. I don’t really buy into this objection. Using my own experience as an example, although it was the Kubert comics which led me directly to the novels, the movies were my gateway to the character. Those paperbacks were everywhere in the ‘70s, weren’t they? Every bookstore and newsstand had a wide variety of Tarzan paperbacks (and Doc Savage as well). I never felt a real sense of urgency to buy them because they were always there, and I assumed they always would be. Years later I had to track them down in used book stores and on the internet.
The old man had tons of Tarzan, Doc Savage and G-8 novels. I wish I'd thought to grab them after he kicked.
Borroughs' tried to push James Pierce, who talked like that, as Tarzan, so he was probably okay with the idea (although of Pierce was married to his daughter so he might have just been trying to make her happy.) Buster Crabbe barely spoke at all when he played the part.
They're rereprinting the Doc Savages, leaving in the original artwork and using the original covers. Apparently those 70s books (I have a couple dozen or so) were sometimes heavily edited, and they've promised they've restored what was cut out.
I've always enjoyed both the movie interpretation of Tarzan as well as the book version. As the movie series continued the producers seemed to focus on appealing more and more to a kiddie audience. Then in the late Fifties, Gordon Scott starred in a couple Tarzan films in which he portrayed a more articulate Ape Man who was a lone adventurer - no more Jane or Boy.
Somehow I have managed to hang on to my copies of Tarzan of the Apes and Return of Tarzan. I remember Return as being one the better entries in the series.
From Tarzan at the Earth's Core
"Did not Amundson and Ellsworth in the Norge expedition definitely disprove the theory of a north polar opening in the earth's crust, and have not airplane flights been made over a considerable portion of the hitherto unexplored regions near the pole?" demanded the ape-man."
Try to imagine Weissmuller saying that!
"Tarzan hear story of hole in ground at top of world not true" wouldn't have had the same ring to it.
I was interested at how Tarzan had kept in touch with modern ideas and discoveries, spending his time in the jungle. Were people regularly visiting him and telling him what was in the news?
Also liked how Tarzan mocked the idea of an inner world at first until he heard proof it existed, then suddenly he couldn't wait to explore it.
In his novel The Eternal Savage aka The Eternal Lover, ERB had Lord and Lady Greystoke hosting a group of adventurers/explorers at their African estate. The implication being that Tarzan had regular contact with the outside world.
Ron M. said:
I had much the same experience as others here. Tarzan movies on Saturday afternoons led to me picking up the novels, which were conveniently being reprinted when I was a boy. (Bantam? I've forgotten.) The novels were definitely more interesting than the movies, so I switched to them entirely. I did plow through them all, even though the last six or so were realllly redundant. (Tarzan discovers hidden land with weird inhabitants. Jane is kidnapped. Tarzan races back to save Jane, who has escaped and is going to where Tarzan used to be. The pair criss-cross several times without meeting before tearful reunion at end.) That was in the late '60s, or maybe early '70s, about the time that the Conan books were coming out in paperback, which I was also reading.
I missed the Dell comics, but I was on board from the start of the Kubert's adaptations at DC. Since I knew the story, I was anxious for some original stuff. Art was nice, though.
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