{"id":31060,"date":"2024-12-10T09:00:09","date_gmt":"2024-12-10T09:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=31060"},"modified":"2024-12-09T17:44:10","modified_gmt":"2024-12-09T17:44:10","slug":"edgar-rice-burroughs-tarzan-the-jesse-marsh-years-omnibus-volume-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2024\/12\/10\/edgar-rice-burroughs-tarzan-the-jesse-marsh-years-omnibus-volume-two\/","title":{"rendered":"Edgar Rice Burroughs\u2019 Tarzan: The Jesse Marsh Years Omnibus volume two"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"
\nBy Gaylord DuBois<\/strong> & Jesse Marsh<\/strong> (Dark Horse Books)
\nISBN: 978-1-59582-294-9 (HB)<\/p>\n

Win\u2019s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Dynamic Days-Gone-By Derring Do \u2026 8\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n

This book includes Discriminatory Content<\/strong> produced in less enlightened times.<\/em><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know an awful lot about Jesse Marsh, other than that he was born on 27th<\/sup> July 1907 and died far too young: on April 28th<\/sup> 1966 from diabetic complications at the height of a TV Tarzan<\/strong> revival he was in large part responsible for. What I do know, however, is that to my unformed, pre-fanboy, kid\u2019s mentality, his drawings were somehow better than most of the other artists and that every other kid who read comics in my school disagreed with me.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a phrase we used to use at 2000 AD<\/strong> that summed it up: \u201cArtist\u2019s artist\u201d, which usually meant someone whose fan-mail divided equally into fanatical raves and bile-filled hate-mail. It seems there are some makers of comic strips that many readers simply don\u2019t get.<\/p>\n

It isn\u2019t about the basic principles or artistic quality or even anything tangible – although you\u2019ll hear some cracking justifications: \u201cI don\u2019t like his feet\u201d (presumably the way he draws them) and \u201cit just creeps me out\u201d being my two favourites. Never forget in the 1980s DC were told by the Comics Code Authority that Kevin O\u2019Neill\u2019s entire style and manner of Drawing was unacceptable to American readers!<\/p>\n

I got<\/em><\/strong> Jesse Marsh.<\/p>\n

Like many Western Publishing stalwarts Jesse Mace Marsh originally worked for Disney Studios (1939-1948) as an animator on projects including Pinocchio<\/strong> and Fantasia<\/strong>. His first comics work appeared in 1945, and he continued as a staff artist until his death in 1966. In addition to his Tarzan contributions, he illustrated Gene Autry<\/strong>, Daniel Boone<\/strong>, Davy Crockett<\/strong> and more, as well as John Carter of Mars<\/strong>: three 4-Color series issues. In this second compilation, hyper-prolific Gaylord McIlvaine Du Bois (August 24th<\/sup> 1899 – October 20th<\/sup> 1993) is scripter as – nourished by a burgeoning movie franchise, radio, newspaper and new novels – the comic book Ape-Man phenomenon grew and steadied for the long haul. The editor\/scripter (for ALL the Tarzan<\/strong> titles and spin-offs, Lone Ranger<\/strong>, Lost in Space<\/strong>, Turok, Son of Stone<\/strong>, Brothers of the Spear<\/strong>, Lassie<\/strong>, Andy Panda<\/strong>, Red Ryder<\/strong>, Tom and Jerry<\/strong>, Bonanza<\/strong> and so many more) would be Marsh\u2019s creative collaborator for the next 19 years.<\/p>\n

Situated on the West Coast, Western\u2019s Dell\/Gold Key imprints rivalled DC and Marvel at the height of their powers, and the licensee famously never capitulated to the wave of anti-comics hysteria that resulted in the crippling self-censorship of the 1950s. No Dell Comics ever displayed a Comics Code Authority symbol on the cover – they never needed to…<\/p>\n

Marsh jobbed around adapted movie properties – mostly westerns – until 1948 when Dell introduced the first all-new Tarzan<\/strong> comic book. The newspaper strip had been running since January 1929 and all previous collections and funnybook releases had featured expurgated and modified reprints of those exploits. Everything changed with Dell Four Color Comic<\/strong> #134 (February 1947) which offered a lengthy, captivating tale of the Ape-Man, scripted by Robert P. Thompson. He had also written both the Tarzan <\/strong>radio show and the aforementioned syndicated strip. link to Tarzan and the Adventurers<\/strong> please.<\/p>\n

\u2018Tarzan and the Devil Ogre\u2019<\/em> was very much in the Burroughs tradition: John Clayton<\/em>, Lord Greystoke<\/em> and his friend Paul D\u2019Arnot<\/em> aid a young woman in rescuing her lost father from a hidden tribe ruled over by a monster. The engrossing yarn was made magical by the simple, underplayed magic of a heavy brush line and absolutely unmatched design sense. Marsh was unique in the way he positioned characters in space, employing primitivist forms and hidden shapes to augment his backgrounds. He was a fanatical researcher: his trees, rocks, and constructions were 100% accurate. His animals and natives, especially children and women, were all distinct and recognisable; not the badly-shaded stock figures in grass skirts that even the greatest artists so often resorted to.<\/p>\n

Marsh also knew when to draw big and draw small: the internal dynamism of his work is spellbinding. His Africa became mine, and as the try-out comic book was an instant hit he stuck around for decades. Dell never messed with something that was already working. Marsh and Thompson\u2019s Tarzan returned with two tales in Dell Four Color Comic<\/strong> #161, cover-dated August 1947. That was remarkable: Four Colour<\/strong> was a catch-all title showcasing literally hundreds of different licensed properties in rotation, often as many as ten separate and stunningly diverse issues per month. So rapid a return engagement meant pretty solid sales figures\u2026<\/p>\n

Following a gracious and wondering Foreword by Gilbert Hernandez discussing the sheer ubiquity of Tarzan comics in households – particularly Latino ones – we return to distant days of rampaging fantasy, garnished by yet another warning from me. In past reviews I\u2019ve described how this character comes with lots of inbuilt colonial baggage and an unhealthy side-order of appalling white supremacy for those readers pre-sensitised pro or con. What I haven\u2019t addressed is the sheerly shocking death toll of animals, killed for food, for sport or because someone needs an action scene proving how cruel villains are or how mighty the hero is. This is not a book for vegans or animal activists, okay?<\/p>\n

Volume Two gathers the pertinent material from Edgar Rice Burroughs\u2019<\/strong> Tarzan<\/strong> #5-10, spanning September\/October 1948 through July\/August 1949) and includes (line art) covers and back covers by eventual painter\/illustrator Morris Gollub. Most issues also include two colour frontispieces and endpieces offering lessons in \u2018Tarzan\u2019s Ape-English Dictionary\u2019<\/em>, prompting millions of kids everywhere to shout \u201cKreegah! Bundolo!\u201d and \u201cTantor, ho!\u201d in the playground and look like complete loons trying to talk to baboons and monkeys every time we visited a zoo…<\/p>\n

The dramas resume with Tarzan<\/strong> #5 (September\/October 1948) with harsh morality play \u2018Tarzan and the Men of Greed\u2019<\/em>. Here, wife Jane<\/em> and son Boy<\/em> (latterly \u201cKorak<\/em>\u201d) are kidnapped by American gangsters and a bandit sheikh as a means of forcing Tarzan to bring them and their army of African bandits to the lost treasure vaults of Opar. After an arduous trek, and terrifying ascent of an ancient escarpment, the thieves learn to their eternal cost why it’s not healthy to antagonise the legendary Ape-Man…<\/p>\n

As well as the epic 33 page saga and the opportunity to practise primate patois \u201cMangani to Paco\u201d<\/em> there\u2019s a stunning back cover pinup of the forest family before – cover dated November\/December 1948 – we dig deep into the novels\u2019 mythology for #6 as \u2018Tarzan and the Outlaws of Pal-ul-don\u2019<\/em> sees Jane abducted (again!). This time it\u2019s raiders from a primordial enclave first introduced in eighth novel Tarzan the Terrible<\/strong> (1921), necessitating man and boy chasing the perfidious primitives all the way back to their lost realm. This is a huge oasis of jungles, mountains, dinosaurs and evolutionary dead-ends at the centre of a vast desert and results in reunion with old Waz-don ally Om-At<\/em> and war with bandit nation Ho-Don, using Triceratops as tanks…<\/p>\n

Following another pin-up, Tarzan<\/strong> #7 (January\/February 1949) finds the family back home, and bored Tarzan making a hot air balloon. His efforts lead to more trouble when Boy and his Waziri friend Dombie<\/em> are accidentally caught when it breaks loose and transported to a land of terrors. \u2018Tarzan and the Valley of the Monsters\u2019<\/em> sees the Jungle Lord and his ally Muviro <\/em>(Dombie\u2019s dad) give chase in a plane until brought down by Pterodactyls. From there it\u2019s all fight and flight from giant lizard and volcanoes until the humans are reunited and heading home again.<\/p>\n

Morris Gollub takes over covers and pin-up duties with #8 (March\/April 1949) as the lost quartet continue the trek home. Traversing mountains and deserts, they almost fail until meeting a strange albino tribe in \u2018Tarzan and the White Pygmies\u2019<\/em>, and in return for aid when they need it most teach their benefactors modern warfare by introducing them to archery, and saving them from predation by legions of giant vultures…<\/p>\n

Cover-dated May\/June 1949, issue #9 returns to Pal-ul-don as \u2018Tarzan and the Men of A-lur\u2019<\/em> sees King Ja-Don<\/em> usurped by surly vassal Dak-Lot<\/em>, propelling Tarzan, Boy and even Jane into a full-scale civil war (with lots of comparatively shocking violence for a Golden Age comic book!) as humans, pre-men, cave bears, dinosaurs and modern elephants clash to decide the fate of the kingdom time forgot…<\/p>\n

This second time-wracked voyage to the past pauses with Tarzan<\/strong> #10 (July\/August 1949) as the epic page counts drop to allow side stories and a greater range of fun. Main event \u2018Tarzan and the Treasure of the Bolgani\u2019<\/em> is a pure sci fi romp as the Ape-man and his Waziri subjects are captured by intelligent gorillas who shrink them to half size so that they can mine gems for them. When the process goes awry, Tarzan becomes a hyper-dense (Must you? Really?) tiny titan who leads a revolt and ends a threat to all of Africa, after which DuBois and Marsh begin years of light-hearted backup tales as Boy tries to avoid his chores and learns to regret running off to become \u2018The Baboons\u2019 King\u2019<\/em>…<\/p>\n

Although these are tales from a far-off, simpler time they have lost none of their passion, inclusivity and charm, whilst the artistic virtuosity of Marsh looks better than ever. Perhaps this time a few more people will \u201cget\u201d him, especially if the rest of this series finally makes the jump to digital editions as Volume One has…
\nEdgar Rice Burroughs\u00ae Tarzan\u00ae: The Jesse Marsh Years Omnibus Volume Two \u00a9 1948, 1949, 2009, Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc. Tarzan \u00ae Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Gaylord DuBois & Jesse Marsh (Dark Horse Books) ISBN: 978-1-59582-294-9 (HB) Win\u2019s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Dynamic Days-Gone-By Derring Do \u2026 8\/10 This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times. I don\u2019t know an awful lot about Jesse Marsh, other than that he was born on 27th July 1907 and died far too … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Edgar Rice Burroughs\u2019 Tarzan: The Jesse Marsh Years Omnibus volume two”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[191,351,75,290,255,124,225,127,107,50,156],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adventure","category-apes-monkeys","category-crime-comics","category-dinosaurs","category-environmentalism","category-licensed-product","category-mystery","category-nostalgia","category-science-fiction","category-tarzan","category-world-classics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-84Y","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31060"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31060\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31066,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31060\/revisions\/31066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}