Edgar Rice Burroughs Podcast: Episode #41: Tarzan the Terrible, Part 2

Edgar Rice Burroughs Podcast: Episode #41: Tarzan the Terrible, Part 2:   Tim, Jess and Scott finish their discussion of the 1921 novel. Click HERE for the audio version. email us (and send the answer to the tri...

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Tarzan: "All Presumed Dead" 10/11/51

Tarzan is asked to investigate a plane crash in the jungle. All who were on board are presumed to be dead, but this might not be the case.

Click HERE to listen or download.

Edgar Rice Burroughs Podcast: Mini-Podcast #13: Tarzan of the Apes, Chapter 5--"...

Edgar Rice Burroughs Podcast: Mini-Podcast #13: Tarzan of the Apes, Chapter 5--"...:   A discussion of the fifth chapter of the 1912 novel Tarzan of the Apes, in which the young Tarzan begins his life among his adopted family...

Edgar Rice Burroughs Podcast: Mini-Podcast #12--Tarzan of the Apes--"The Apes"

Edgar Rice Burroughs Podcast: Mini-Podcast #12--Tarzan of the Apes--"The Apes":   We're up to Chapter 4 in our discussion of the 1912 novel "Tarzan of the Apes," in which we meet the apes of Kerchak and the...

Edgar Rice Burroughs Podcast: Mini-Podcast #11--Tarzan of the Apes Chapter 3--"L...

Edgar Rice Burroughs Podcast: Mini-Podcast #11--Tarzan of the Apes Chapter 3--"L...: A discussion of this chapter of the first Tarzan novel, which cover the brief and ultimately tragic life the Greystokes live while stranded ...

Mini-Podcast #10: Tarzan of the Apes, Chapter 2--"The Savage Home"

Tim DeForest discusses the second chapter of the 1912 novel "Tarzan of the Apes," in which Lord and Lady Greystoke find themselves stranded in the African jungle.

You can listen or download HERE. 

And here's the video version:

Edgar Rice Burroughs Mini-Podcast #9: Tarzan of the Apes, Chapter 1

Tim DeForest discusses and analyzes the first chapter of the 1912 novel Tarzan of the Apes.

Click HERE to listen or download to the auido version.

And here's the video version:

Edgar Rice Burroughs Mini-Podcast #8: Tarzan the Polyglot

Tim DeForest discusses Tarzan's amazing ability to learn new languages quickly.

Click HERE to listen or download 

And here's the video version:

Edgar Rice Burroughs Podcast #11--Video Version

Also, here's the video version of the latest mini-podcast. The audio version can be found HERE.

Edgar Rice Burroughs Podcast: Episode #11

Tim, Jess and Scott listen to an episode of the 1950-51 Tarzan radio series and comment on it. This episode--"Tarzan and the Arena of Death"--borrows elements from ERB's 1932 novel Tarzan and the City of Gold, incorporating those elements into a self-contained story.

You can listen or download the episode HERE.

Cover Cavalcade

An effective and atmopheric John Buscema cover from 1977.

Tarzan's Son Needs a Good Spanking, by Golly!

 Attentive readers of my blog may have noticed that I've reviewed a number of Jesse Marsh-illustrated Tarzan comics by Dell recently. The reason for this is simple. A short time ago, the digital edition of a 700-page omnibus of these comics was on sale for just 3 bucks. Though my ideal for comics is physical copies rather than digital, the explosion of e-comics does allow me to acquire and read comics I never otherwise would have experienced. It's a more than fair trade-off.

So as I read through the omnibus, I keep running into particularly cool stories on which I want to comment. The team of Marsh and writer Gaylord Du Bois were coming up with a pretty high percentage of winners. Thus--a lot of Tarzan reviews in a relatively short time span.  If you are reading this in the far future because you are compiling a biography of me as the savior of our culture, please make note of this.

I want to write about "The Beasts in Armor" (Tarzan #16, cover dated July/August 1950) for several reasons.

First, it reminds us that Tarzan's Africa is stock full of dinosaurs. In fact, in this issue we learn that the dinosaur-infested Valley of Monsters (first encountered a few issues earlier) is within reasonable travelling distance of the dinosaur-infested land of Pal-ul-don.

To be frank, this annoys me. I've been to Africa a half-dozen times. Granted I'm in a war zone and largely confined to a guarded compound, but all the same you'd think I'd at least occasionally see a dinosaur. They're apparently all over the place. But, no. Not a single dinosaur sighting so far. It's very upsetting.

Second, "The Beasts in Armor" is simply a great story. Du Bois and Marsh were drawing elements from both the Tarzan movies and the original novels to craft their own version of Tarzan's universe. As in the novels, Tarzan has learned to fly airplanes. As in the movies, he has a young son called Boy (as opposed to his adult son Korak from the novels). These elements come together when Tarzan does a fly-over of the Valley of Monsters, checking on a friendly tribe that lives near the valley and had helped him in the past. Tarzan doesn't know that Boy has stowed away on board.

 In the ERB universe, it is rarely a good idea to fly over a dinosaur-infested territory. An encounter with a pterodactyl is pretty much inevitable.

Tarzan's plane is lightly damaged and he manages to come in for a safe landing. He heads for the friendly village for help, which allows Boy to crawl out from the cargo space and go fishing. He catches several large spiny fish, which will be a plot point later on.

A couple of baby T-Rexes show up and eat the fish, then chase Boy up a tree. When the Daddy T-Rex puts in an appearance, Boy is in real trouble.

That panel above is magnificent, Jesse Marsh's figure work is always a little lacking in my opinion, but panels like this are a true strength and one of the reasons he was such a great storyteller despite his weaknesses.

Anyway, a native of Pal-ul-don (and a friend of Tarzan) shows up on a gryf, which dispatches Daddy T-Rex. A gryf, by the way, is a almost-domesticated triceratops used by the natives of Pal-ul-don as riding beasts.

The story structure here is interesting, essentially dividing events into two entirely different plots. The encounter with the T-Rexes is pretty much just a prologue to have Tarzan meet his friends from Pal-ul-don, tossing them into another, unrelated adventure.

Tarzan learns that a half-dozen thugs armed with Tommy guns have flown into Pal-ul-don, taken the prince of the city of A-Lur captive and are ruling as dictators. 

I really enjoy the way the prince is portrayed, maintaining a stoic dignity even while the thugs mock him. The comic book version of Pal-ul-don natives were more human-looking than those in the novels, with cat-like ears, but no tails. I don't know if this was intended, but the result of this is a story written in 1950 that shows a dark-skinned clearly-human man remaining dignified and unbroken while being abused by white men. Quite a remarkable statement for the time.

I also enjoy the visual variety among the thugs. The story never gets around to giving them individual personalities in terms of their dialogue or actions, but the top panel above kind of does this for us. Among the six, we have, for instance, a hairy-armed big bully and a dapper con artist type. The visuals alone gives each of them a degree of individuality.

Tarzan arrives to attack the thugs. A nifty action sequence follows, which includes Tarzan tossing the sub-machine guns out a window and forcing the thugs to run for it. They recover the guns and try to get to their airplanes, but natives riding nigh-invulnerable gryfs attack. The thugs' plane is damaged when it tries to take off and the thugs all die in the ensuing crash.

Boy has been stashed out of the way during this part of the adventure. When Tarzan re-unites with him later, he reminds the snotty little brat that his stowing away on the plane has probably left Jane sick with worry. Add to this the fact that his shenanigans also nearly got him and his dad eaten by dinosaurs and... well, Tarzan lets him off with a stern talking to. But, boy-o-boy, did Boy ever deserve a good spanking. Kids gotta learn right from wrong, Lord Greystoke. Sparing the rod is probably why Boy is a broken and forgotten figure today.

They get back to their own plane and discover that the young T-Rexes have died of indigestion after eating the spiny fish that Boy had caught early in the story, which ties up that plot thread. The good guys all get happy endings, though I hope that Boy at least got a time-out when he and Tarzan got home.

Let's end this review with one more example of Jesse Marsh's magnificent art. I do tend to be critical of his figure work, but he was indeed a great artist:

You can read this story in its entirety HERE.

Next week, we'll visit with Ben Grimm again as he again time travels back to World War II.

Two Men and a Lion

cover art by Morris Gollub

 Dell Comics' Tarzan #11 (Sept-Oct 1949) lifts ideas from one of the original Tarzan novels and from the legend of Robin Hood, then uses this to tell an original story.

Written by Gaylord Du Bois and drawn by Jesse Marsh, "Tarzan and the Sable Lion" begins with the Ape Man encountering, unsurprisingly, a sable lion.

Tarzan encounters a lot of lions throughout his career, but he's particularly impressed with this feline's size and ferocity. So, after leading it on a merry chase for a time and saving a native warrior from ending up in the lion's belly, Tarzan sets to work establishing his dominance. Soon, the lion is his not-quite-tame pet.

This can't help but remind any self-respecting Tarzan fan of the 1922 novel Tarzan and the Golden Lion, in which the Ape Man trains a lion and makes it his not-quite-tame pet. The parallel is far from exact. The lion from the novel was found as an orphaned cub and the training process was much longer. But the parallel is there, nonetheless.

The Tarzan comics at the time existed in their own continuity--for instance, Tarzan and Jane have a young son they call Boy, much like in the movies but not at all like the books. But it is obvious from the common use of supporting characters taken from the books and a few other elements that Du Bois was familiar with the original novels and often drew on them for ideas. It's just a guess, of course, but I'd bet 25 cents that Du Bois was deliberately lifting an idea from the novels in this instance.

Then, he lifts an idea that must have been consciously taken from the Robin Hood stories. The parallel here is too exact to be anything but deliberate. Tarzan encounters a large warrior named Buto, who is an expert in throwing his knob stick and demands that Tarzan fight him before he'll allow the Ape Man to cross a river. They fight on a log bridge.

Gee whiz, it's only the lack of quarterstaves that keep this scene from mirroring the Robin Hood vs. Little John fight from legend.

I don't intend any criticism, by the way. Du Bois isn't plagiarizing. Rather, he's mixing familiar elements together in a new way to tell an entertaining and original story.

Tarzan defeats Buto, which turns out to be the best way to make friends with the big guy. (once again mirroring Robin and Little John). Buto leads Tarzan and the lion back to his village, only to find that it had been raided by slavers and the people captured. Tarzan, examining the tracks, realizes that Jane and Boy had been in the village and must also be prisoners.

The two humans and the lion track the slavers to their city. The ensuing adventure is entertaining, but flawed. The main problem is Tarzan and his friends effect the ensuing rescue too easily. With Buto knocking out guards and the lion threatening to eat anyone Tarzan will let him eat, the good guys free the slaves almost effortlessly.

Making their way to the sheik's home, they capture him, making him cough up gold as reparations for the village he destroyed.

They make a getaway with a large part of the sheik's wealth and everyone is saved.

It really does wrap up too easily and with an absence of tension. Du Bois was an great writer, but was off his usually excellent game this time. During the rescue, something should have gone wrong to make the adventure more challenging for Tarzan.

But, despite this, I like the story. Marsh will never be my favorite Tarzan artist, but he knew how to tell a story well and some of his panels are downright beautiful. But even more than that, the Tarzan/Buto/lion team was awesome--the inherent coolness of the three is such that it brings us into the story and allows us to enjoy it despite its flaws.

That's it for this time. Next week, Ben Grimm hops back a few decades to once again fight in World War II.

From Prose to Radio to Comics

Tarzan first appeared in the pulp magazines in 1912, but his enormous popularity soon had him spilling off the page into film and radio. In 1934 and again in 1936, there were two 39-part syndicated radio serials produced that were nothing less than superb, telling excellent stories and capturing the Ape Man's personality perfectly. 

{For more detailed information on these serials, check out the chapter about Tarzan in my book Radio by the Book or read this article I wrote a few years ago.}

The 1936 serial was Tarzan and the Fires of Tohr. And, since Tarzan's wanderlust is insatiable, he soon wandered off the airways and onto the pages of Dell Comics' Four Color, bringing the Fires of Tohr with him. 

Four Color #161 (writer unknown, cover and interior art by Jesse Marsh) is a 30-page streamlined version of the radio serial. The story is greatly simplified, with several characters and sub-plots dropped, but what is left is a strong, entertaining and exciting Tarzan adventure. 

Tarzan and his friend Paul D'Arnot are travelling through the jungle when they find two people--a scientist and his daughter--lost after having been abandoned by their safari. Tarzan agrees to help them, which soon means protecting them from some hostile natives.

Jesse Marsh has never been my favorite Tarzan artists--I don't think his figure work is as strong
as Kubert or Manning--but he was an excellent visual storyteller all the same, with strong compositions and some beautiful-looking jungles and backgrounds. So his art quickly draws us into the story and carries us along quite nicely.

The escape from the natives via canoe eventually takes them through a cavern and into completely unknown territory. And.... well, Tarzan can't run out to the corner store to buy a newspaper without stumbling across a lost civilization. So it should be no surprise to anyone that he finds a lost civilization here. The natives are claw-footed and, for reasons we are never told, speak English.

To be fair, the justification given in the original radio serial was pretty weak, so this is a flaw in an otherwise strong story that has simply carried over from the source material.

The natives come from the city of Tohr, which is ruled by the evil queen Ahtea. Ahtea soon demonstrates her penchant for evil by sacrificing someone to the titular fires of Tohr.

So Tohr is not a healthy place to be. Ahtea, though, wants to make a deal. If Tarzan stays in Tohr as her mate, the others will be allowed to leave. Tarzan is willing to agree to this if it saves the others, but his companions refuse. Even if they were willing to agree to this deal themselves, they figure Ahtea would simply have them killed regardless.

They are likely correct about this, because Ahtea abruptly tosses Ruth Barton (the girl Tarzan had initially rescued) into an arena to be devoured by a hungry lion. Tarzan kills the lion and the incident allows them to befriend Ukah, a rebel leader.

The group, now joined by Ukah, is locked in a vast cavern that supposedly offers no escape. Tarzan, though, soon finds a way out, though it leads them through a chamber in which the Fires of Tohr originate. This sequence is especially riveting, as it involves Tarzan using his intelligence as well as his physical capabilities to bypass several dangers to get his friends back into the city.

But once in the city, they are recaptured. Ruth is about to be tossed into the Fires. Ukah manages to push Ruth to safety and it is Ahtea who falls to a horrible death.

It's a strong ending. Ukah was actually going to sacrifice himself to get Ahtea, but is dragged to safety by Tarzan in the nick of time. It was a nice touch to give the local rebel leader a chance to be proactive in the story rather than having all the action fall solely on Tarzan's shoulder.

For all my complaints about Marsh's figure work, much of this story looks magnificent, especially the sequence set in the caverns below Tohr. The story, though simplified from the original serial, is still a strong one. So both the radio version and the comic book version of The Fires of Tohr have their value.

Next week, we'll return to the Old West to ride again with the Pony Express.

Edgar Rice Burroughs Podcast #7: Video Version

Edgar Rice Burroughs Podcast: Episode 7

In the latest episode of the Edgar Rice Burroughs podcast, we talk about the 1966 film Tarzan and the Valley of Gold, as well as the novelization of the movie written by Fritz Leiber.

You can listen or download it HERE:

Tarzan vs. James Bond--sort of.

Tarzan's Greatest Adventure (1959) is the fifth of six Tarzan films starring Gordon Scott and the first produced by Sy Weintraub, who would go on to produce six more Tarzan films during the 1960s as well as the Ron Ely TV series.

Weintraub dropped Jane from his version of Tarzan's mythos, but in many ways steered the franchise back towards the ape man's roots in the original novels. Greatest Adventure may not literally be the Jungle Lord's greatest adventure, but it is a superior adventure story, with Gordon Scott playing a more realistic Tarzan than we'd often seen in the films. Like the "real" Tarzan from the novels, he's well-spoken and obviously intelligent, but still a savage at heart.

We certainly see that in this film. A gang of men led by a brutal killer named Slade have killed two men while stealing some explosives. They now head up a river in a boat, heading for a diamond mine Slade had stumbled across. The explosives are needed to clear the entrance to the mine.

But their murders have put Tarzan on their trail. Slade and Tarzan have an unpleasant history and it is soon apparent that either of them would happily kill the other should the opportunity present itself.

Tarzan's pursuit of the killers, though, might be easier if he weren't saddled with a companion--a mildly stuck-up lady named Angie that the Ape Man rescued after her plane crashed.

There's a lot to like about this film. I was struck by how the villains are all given their own distinct personalities--a combination of good writing and good acting. Anthony Quayle gives a very strong performance as Slade--a ruthless man whose obsession with killing (in particular killing Tarzan) slowly overwhelms his desire to get the diamonds.

One of his henchmen is O'Bannion, a brutal thug who's not anywhere near as smart as he thinks he is. O'Bannion is played by Sean Connery, just three years shy of becoming James Bond. This gives us a meta reason for enjoying this movie. At one point, Tarzan is about to ambush O'Bannion, but then is force to stay perfectly still as a tarantula crawls over him. In Connery's first Bond Film (Dr. No), he is at one point forced to stay perfectly still while a tarantula crawls over him.

These villains are perhaps the most thuggish bunch that Tarzan has ever gone up against in any of his adventures. They have joined together in a venture for their mutual profit, but its pretty clear that they would (and in fact do) start back-stabbing each other at the earliest opportunity. And that is exactly the sort of bad guys this particular story needs, adding to the suspense and the ambiance of the movie.

The byplay between Tarzan and Angie is quite good as well (with their eventual attraction to each other proving that Jane does not exist in this particular universe). Angie gets believable character growth, becoming more self-reliant and more compassionate towards those around her as she treks through the jungle with Tarzan.

The writer is Les Crutchfield, who's credits include being one of the important writers for both the radio and television versions of Gunsmoke. So its not surprising that Tarzan's Greatest Adventure gives us a strong story with strong characters.

Cover Cavalcade

One of a number of excellent Tarzan covers by Neal Adams.

Tarzan Returns to Pal-ul-don: Part 2

When we left the Lord of the Jungle last week, we were about half-way through a magnificent story arc from the Sunday comic strip. Written and drawn by Russ Manning, this arc ran from February 1971 through April 1972. Jane had escorted two women photographers to the outskirts of Pal-ul-don, the dinosaur-infested Lost World that exists somewhere in Africa. As is typical in any story set in Edgar Rice Burroughs' never-a-dull-moment universe, the women end up deep inside Pal-ul-don.

Tarzan and Joiper (a tiny visitor from the valley of the Ant Men) enter Pal-ul-don to find and rescue the ladies. After a series of fast-paced adventures, Tarzan has rescued the lady photographers (Samie and Carli) but hasn't yet found Jane. What he has found is one of the Waz-don who inhabit Pal-ul-don getting pushed into a pack of hyeanodons by some of his fellow tribesmen.

Tarzan rescues this guy, but he's forced to separate from the girls, who promptly get to themselves get kidnapped by the Waz-don. Trying to keep more than one of his friends un-kidnapped at any one time is sometimes a Sisyphean task for poor Lord Greystoke.

Anyway, the Waz-don he rescued is the high priest at the Waz-don cliff city. The priest had somehow ticked off the chief and been given a death sentence. Tarzan ends up in the city and it soon involved in political shenanigans, which in turn leads him to fight (and win, of course) a duel that makes him chief.

Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown. Pretty much the moment Tarzan takes over, the Ho-don (the light-furred natives who are perpetually fighting the Waz-don) attack. So Tarzan is soon in the midst of a battle involving soldiers mounted atop several different species of prehistoric beasts.

Manning's art work has never been better--the above panels represent the sort of image I can stare at pretty much forever in rapturous awe--and his story has not just been exciting, but also quite sophisticated as we are quickly introduced to new characters and complicated political situations. The exposition never slows up the story and we never lose track of what is going on. 

During the battle, Tarzan spots Jane apparently leading the Ho-don's in battle. But Jane does not acknowledge him when he calls out to her. She does, though, order the Ho-don forces to retreat.

At this point, the action moves away from the Ape Man to let us know what has been going on with Jane all these months. In fact, Manning is going to emulate one of the Burroughs' most common storytelling techniques. He breaks away from Tarzan at the cliffhanger moment. He'll catch us up on Jane's story, then break away from her at a cliffhanger moment. Then he'll flash back to Tarzan, showing us what he has been up to since we last so him. Then he'll intersect these two stories at a key moment.

Jane, by the way, is also up to her neck in complex political intrigue. I'm not going to try to summarize the details. The important point is that she's being blackmailed into pretending to be a sun goddess by an evil high priestess.

When she attempts to get the upper hand over the priestess, she ends up getting tossed into an arena to be eaten by saber-tooth tigers. She looks a tad worried in the above panel, doesn't she? But for Jane, a situation like this is usually called "Tuesday."

That's the point we break away from her story and return to Tarzan, recounted his adventure in sneaking into the Ho-don city and ending up in just the right place to launch a last minute rescue of his wife. For Tarzan, this sort of thing is also called "Tuesday."

I'm pretty sure that if you look up the word "awesome" in the dictionary, it shows you the above panel as the definition.

Jane, despite having a broken arm, gets her licks in on the priestess, then she and Tarzan escape from the city, finding a place to rest and heal from their respective wounds.

But what about the two girls? What about Joiper the Ant Man? (And if I was going to criticize this story arc at all, it's that Joiper didn't get much to do during this last half.)

Well, it turns out that Tarzan and Jane are destined for most adventures in Pal-ul-don before they get home. But Manning made his readers wait for that. The next five months of strips would focus on Tarzan's son Korak. The strip would return to Tarzan and Jane in September of 1972 and give us another full years' worth of adventure in Pal-ul-don. I won't promise when, but we'll take a look at those strips eventually.

Next week, though, we'll return to the Wild West for the second of the four adventures featuring the Yankee Lee Hunter and the ex-Confederate Reb Stuart.

Tarzan Returns to Pal-ul-don: Part 1

J. Allen St. John

The land of Pal-ul-Don first appeared in Edgar Rice Burroughs' 1921 novel Tarzan the Terrible. Located in an almost inaccesible area of Africa, it ranks up there with ERB's best Lost Worlds--not just because it has dinosaurs in it, but also because of the sophisticated world-building Burroughs did in creating the world, which allowed him to craft one of his most engrossing and action-packed stories.

As I've mentioned before, the writers of the Dell and Gold Key comics featuring Tarzan and Korak took the Greystokes back to Pal-ul-don on a number of occasions. The commercial value of this is obvious--an excuse for including dinosaurs on a comic book cover and in the story itself always helps a book stand out on the spinner rack. But it was also a good idea in terms of storytelling. Pal-ul-don is a rich world in which a lot of adventures can take place.

Inevitably, other writers started adding to Pal-ul-don to open up yet more storytelling possibilities. The comic books added several purely human cultures to the mix. But I believe that it was Russ Manning's Sunday strip that added several very important additions and ideas to that world.

One of my favorite story arcs from the Sunday strip ran from February 1971 to April 1972. It is a breathlessly fast-moving adventure--especially when read as reprints without a chance to catch your breath between entries. 

Manning adds several more items to the increasingly complex Pal-ul-don mix. In a story arc from the daily strips in 1969, he had introduced Wieroos--the brutal race of wingmen who normally lived in another of ERB's lost worlds--to Pal-ul-don. 

Actually, I should add a caveat to that. As far as I know, the first appearance of Wieroos in Pal-ul-don is in those 1969 strips. There may have been an earlier comic book or comic strip appearance that I'm not aware of. I checked with Jess Terrell, one of my co-hosts for the ERB podcast, but he wasn't sure either. 

Manning also introduces the idea that Pal-ul-don exists in a different time than the rest of the world--the paths that lead there literally take you back in time. For purely personal ideas, I don't care for this. As far as I'm concerned, Pal-ul-don, Caspak, Pellucidar, Skull Island, the Valley of Gwangi, Challenger's plateau, Dinosaur Island and the Savage Land all exist in the here-and-now and I'll be able to take a dinosaur-themed vacation one day. A world were this isn't true is simpy an intolerable idea. But we can look at the comic strips and comic books--excellent as they are--as an alternate continuity and, personal feelings aside, placing Pal-ul-don in a different space-time location is a perfectly viable idea.

Let's dive into the story arc we are concerned today, Tarzan is recovering from wounds at a remote oasis. Jane, back home at the Greystoke African estate, is asked by two women photographers--Samie and Carli--to be a guide and take them to Pal-ul-don. Jane agrees, but only if they stop at the outskirts, take a few pictures of some Eohippus, then go home. That way, the journey should be safe enough. Nothing should go wrong.

It is beyond me how anyone living in the Edgar Rice Burroughs universe would think this plan would work. Of course, things go wrong. Samie disappears and Carli thinks she sees Jane get scarfed down by a T-Rex before she flees back into the desert.

Tarzan, meanwhile, has healed up and gotten home. An Ant Man warrior named Joiper lets Tarzan know where Jane has gotten off to.

I have always enjoyed the way Manning weaves places and characters from various Tarzan novels into his stories. Joiper, who will accompany Tarzan to Pal-ul-don, is a great character. Though he has his own distinct personality, he reminds me quite a bit of Reepicheep from the Narnia novels--small but brave, noble and skilled with a sword. He's a tad more head-strong than Reep was, but there are a lot of parallels.

What follows is a wonderful, non-stop action set-piece that runs for several months, with Tarzan, Joiper and Carli dodging dinosaurs; Tarzan using his tracking skills to determine Jane is alive; Carli getting captured by Wieroo and discovering that Sammie is already a prisoner in their city; then Tarzan and Joiper pulling off a daring rescue. Manning's kinetic and breathtaking art highlights the fast-paced writing, making this one of the most purely entertaining Tarzan stories I've ever read.

To quote one member of the "For the Love of All Things Edgar Rice Burroughs" Facebook group:

When you consider Manning's beautiful art and his writing skills, he has probably done more than anyone else in portraying the real Burroughs feeling.

They get out of the Weiroo city and back to the surface of Pal-ul-don, with Tarzan determined to stick around until he finds Jane. The August 22, 1971 strip ends with them all encountering a group of natives shoving someone off a cliff into a pack of carnivores.

The story shifts gears somewhat at this point, with Tarzan getting involved in a civil war. So we'll pause here and finish up the story next week.