by Duane Spurlock
Tarzan—The Joe Kubert Years vol. 1 (Milwaukie, Oregon: Dark Horse Books. 2005)
Dark Horse has done Edgar Rice Burroughs’ fans and Joe Kubert’s fans a great service by collecting these stories from the beginning of National Periodicals’ (DC Comics) run of Tarzan comics (issues 207 through 214, published in 1972). (A trip to the comic shop turns up volume 2 as recently published.) Russ Manning was a wonderful comic book artist, but Kubert’s storytelling and artwork elevated the character from the kiddie-safe presentation of Dell/Gold Key comics to better reflect the raw savagery and iconic grandeur of ERB’s most famous creation.
I had never actively sought out Tarzan comics until I saw the ads for Kubert’s version start appearing in DC magazines. I knew right off that this presentation would more closely reflect the sort of Tarzan I saw with my mind’s eye when I read a Burroughs novel. An artist like Kubert couldn't draw a war-weary but unsurrendering Sgt. Rock for years only to present a diluted version of the mighty jungle king. Sure enough, Kubert’s retelling of the first Tarzan novel — Tarzan of the Apes — across his first four issues sticks with me to this day as the best comic-book adaptation of a Tarzan story I’ve read. The joy these issues brought me as a youngster lead me to write and mail my very first letter of comment to a comic book — and I’d read lots of comics by the time DC had picked up the publishing rights to ERB's characters. Kubert or DC or whoever made the decision further delighted me by reprinting as a backup to the main story the Tarzan newspaper strips adapted by Hal Foster — work by Foster I’d never seen before. It was easy to see Foster’s influence on Kubert, who recounts in an introduction his own boyhood excitement at reading those Foster strips in the Sunday newspapers.
Kubert seemed a natural for the Tarzan job. His rugged Sgt. Rock work might give an inkling to his ability to handle the Ape Man, but his work in the quite-different super-hero genre — specifically on the character Hawkman, which melded SF and superhero tropes — was almost an Ur-version of his Tarzan work: Hawkman, ruggedly handsome policeman from an alien world, is an outsider on our planet; he fights monsters and otherworldly foes; he uses ancient weapons in his battles, despite his ability to race across the stars with advanced technology. The ruggedness, the savagery Kubert depicted in the Hawkman stories flew in the face of the superhero genre, usually noted for its sleek, clean lines and stylized storytelling.
This volume of Kubert’s Tarzan work also collects his fine retellings of the short stories from ERB’s Jungle Tales of Tarzan, which are quite remarkable pieces on their own. Dark Horse deserves a round of applause for this project — also, for using this upscale production format instead of the digest-sized formatting they earlier used on the reprints of Russ Manning’s Tarzan work. It’s too bad DH has given up producing new Tarzan comics, but repackaging the best of the past is a good substitute.
Links:
You can purchase Tarzan—The Joe Kubert Years vol. 1 from Amazon. Click here for more info.
There are many editions of Edgar Rice Burroughs' novel, Tarzan of the Apes -- check out Amazon for one that suits your fancy by clicking here.
Believe it or not, there are many editions of ERB's story collection, Jungle Tales of Tarzan -- visit Amazon and see if one snags your interest. Click here.
For more info about Tarzan, ERB, and all aspects of Burroughs' work and life, visit Bill Hillman's great ERBzine site: http://www.erbzine.com/mag/.
Posted by ds at February 1, 2007 07:58 AM
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