Tarzan the Untamed

Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan: Comics

by Gaylord DuBois, Russ Manning (Illustrator)

Edgar Rice Burroughs` legendary Tarzan stories continue with two of his greatest! In Tarzan the Untamed, Tarzan defends his jungle home from invaders during World War I and then must protect an Englishman and a German spy from a lost civilization of lion-men! And in Tarzan the Terrible, the lord of the apes embarks on a desperate search for his wife Jane, captured by Germans--and discovers a hidden land where strange dinosaurs and beast-men roam the earth! These classic stories are packaged in a handy, compact size and are completely re-colored using state-of-the-art digital techniques.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics, Fiction, Classics, Adventure

96 pages, Paperback

First published November 17, 1999

About the author

Gaylord McIlvaine Du Bois (as it appears on his baptism certificate), or DuBois (He signed it both ways: as two words, both capitalized; and as one word with a capital "B") (August 24, 1899 Winthrop, Massachusetts – October 20, 1993 Orange City, Florida) In his lifetime he wrote well over 3000 comic book stories and comic strips as well as Big Little Books and juvenile adventure novels.

An avid outdoorsman, Du Bois had a real affinity for writing stories with natural settings. His forte was in Westerns, as well as jungle comics and animal reality comics. He created many original second features for Western Publishing (e.g., "Captain Venture: Beneath the Sea", "Leopard Girl", "Two Against the Jungle", etc.), but most of his work for the company was in writing stories with licensed characters. Perhaps most notably, Gaylord Du Bois wrote Tarzan for Dell Comics and Gold Key Comics from 1946 until 1971.

Reviews

[Roman Stadtler · Rating 2 out of 5]

Manning was a decent enough artist, but the best thing about this volume is that beautiful Mark Schultz cover (less luridly colored on the edition I read)!! Manning's work is fine, nice composition within the panels, but it's not detailed or distinctive enough to really stand out in my mind. His Tarzan is tall, square-jawed, squeaky clean smooth and a pretty boring figure. I prefer Hogarth, Hal Foster, Joe Kubert, Lee Weeks, Thomas Yeates; all of whom drew a more wild, fluid jungle lord.
I liked the second story, Tarzan the Terrible, better than the first, because it's set in a lost city with dinosaurs and forgotten peoples! Tarzan amidst WWI action (Tarzan the Untamed)? Meh.

[Matthew J. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really like Russ Manning's art in this, but the comic is only OK. It's fairly typical Tarzan pastiche stuff. A bit of dinosaur, a bit of lost city, a bit of beast-men. Mostly just swinging from trees and grappling tigers or whatever.

[Komuniststar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tarzanu u goste dolazi prvi svjetski rat i tarzan u gostima u predpovjesnoj zemlji. Crtež čist, novinski, i dijalozi kruti povremeno naivni

[Jim Ordolis · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Russ Manning’s Tarzan, especially his newspaper comic strip run. Throughly enjoyed this collection of 2 of the Dell comics adaptations of Burroughs’ novels. More Russ Manning!

[The_Mad_Swede · Rating 4 out of 5]

A small 96 pages volume collecting Russ Manning's adaptations of Edgar Rice Burroughs' two Tarzan novels Tarzan the Untamed and Tarzan the Terrible.

The first one deals with WWI events in Africa and the hidden walled city of Xuja, which is guarded by lions. The second story is about Tarzan's visit to the pre-historic realm of Pal-Ul-Don, with its various tailed peoples, the Ho-Don, the Waz-Don and the Tor-O-Dons (the latter of which rides Gryfs, i.e. Triceratopses).

Manning's interpretations of Tarzan and his world is absolutely stunning and it is a crying shame that not all of his Tarzan adaptations are readily available (and preferrably in a larger format showing off the art properly).

[Tim Field · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best thing about Dark Horse’s Tarzan The Untamed was the art by Russ Manning. The adaptations of the two Edgar Rice Burroughs novels were way too rushed and condensed to truly enjoy the stories. The digest size of this reprint did no favors to Manning’s art which needs to be full sized to be truly appreciated.

[Caleb · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wasn't familiar with the specific stories that Russ Manning adapts here, and the adaptation is faithful enough that it refers to the events of other short stories pretty closely. That lost me a bit, but the main pleasure is and was Manning's art.