Tarzanesque (inFrench:Tarzanide) is a term created by FrenchmanFrancis Lacassin[1] used to describe characters incomic books inspired byTarzan.[2] A tarzanesque character resembles Tarzan in his physical resourcefulness, within a line of action that includes an adventurous life in thejungle, the gift of understanding and being understood by animals, contact withlost civilizations and courage combined with the ability to deal with nature. The creation of such characters may have been propitiated by the success that Tarzan had achieved since his appearance in literature in 1912,[3] culminating with the release ofdaily comic strips in 1929, which paved the way for a genre that combined the allure of the unknown environment, the need for thearchetypal characteristics of thehero and the popularity of access.
The Tarzanesque follows the same line of action as Tarzan, but including diversified heroes, female or male, adapted to adventures set in a set of elements that make up the jungle stereotype in the popular imagination, which includes, besides theAfrican jungles, theAmazon jungle and even strange jungles inpolar regions.[4]
The term "Tarzanide" was created by French literary criticFrancis Lacassin, author of three books on theMan-Ape: "Tarzan:mythe triomphant, mythe humilié"[1] (1963), "Tarzan" ou "le Chevalier crispé" (1971)[5] and "La Legendé de Tarzan" (2000).[1] Like Tarzan, aTarzanide is generally considered "the king of the forest" or "the king of the jungle." He can talk to animals and even lead them[6] and is respected by most of the neighboring tribes and often finds lost civilizations.[7][3] The spelling "Tarzanidi" is also applicable,[8] as is thePortuguese variant "Tarzânico".[9]
While the terms "Tarzanide" and "Tarzanidi" are adopted for characters originating inFranco-Belgian[10] andItalian[2] comic book publications, for North American publications the term Tarzanesque is widely used.[11] According toWiktionary, the wordTarzanesque suggests a savage jungle life.
The success of theTarzancomic strips that appeared in 1928[12][3] boosted the creation of multiple "kings" and "jungle girls"[13][14][15] (also called "jungle women").[16][17] Some of these manifestations were independent - in 1931, writerJerry Siegel, who would eventually become one of the creators ofSuperman but at the time was still in high school, created a Tarzan parody forGlenville High School's student newspaper The Torch[18] - while others were crafted for professional purposes. In 1933, Filipinos Francisco Reyes (cartoonist) and Pedrito Reyes (comic book writer), created one of the first Tarzan copies,Kulafu.[19] In 1934,Alex Raymond created the comic stripsFlash Gordon andJungle Jim to compete, respectively, withBuck Rogers andTarzan.[20] Jim, however, was not a "King of the Jungle", but a hunter[21] who had adventures in Asian jungles.[22] At the beginning of the series, there was the character Zobi, the jungle boy.[23]
In 1936,Timely Comics (nowMarvel Comics) published the first issue of thepulp magazine "Ka-Zar", starring the title character, a young man named David Rand who had been raised in theBelgian Congo alongside the lion Zar.[7] In addition, William L. Chester released the character Kioga from the book series, who lives his adventures in theBering Strait,[24] and in 1938, Kioga was given the seriesHawk of the Wilderness, played byHerman Brix,[25] who had also played Tarzan in the film serialThe New Adventures of Tarzan released in 1935.[26] In the fifth issue ofNew Comics (June 1936), Homer Fleming's character Sandor was introduced, who had adventures in NortheastIndia.[27]
In 1937,Will Eisner andJerry Iger createdSheena, Queen of the Jungle, one of the best known "jungle girls". Although well known,[28][29] the character was not the first to fit this archetype: in 1904 "Rima the Jungle Girl" had appeared as a character from the bookGreen Mansions: A Romance of the Tropical Forest, written byW. H. Hudson[30][4] - eight years before Tarzan.[31]
Sheena was the first "jungle girl" to wear a leopard-skin bikini, which would soon become acliché,[32][33] and was also the first heroine to get her own comic book, published byFiction House between 1942 and 1953.[4][32] Rima would only have her first comic book version in 1952, in issue #90 ofClassics Illustrated, drawn byAlex Blum,[34] and a regular series in 1974, byDC Comics, and even appeared in three episodes of the cartoonSuper Friends.[30]
In 1939, Ka-Zar makes his comic book debut inMarvel Comics #1, the publisher's first publication of its kind and the first written by Ben Thompson. It was adapted from Bob Byrd's short story "King of Fang and Claw", initially published in the hero'spulp magazine. Besides the Belgian Congo, Ka-Zar would live adventures inSomaliland (a region ofSomalia),Ethiopia,Kenya,England and theUnited States and face the most varied villains: hunters,smugglers,fascists,Nazis, among others. In 1941, the hero participated in a story by theandroidHuman Torch. Ka-Zar was published by the company until 1942.[35]
In 1940,Fiction House started publishing the stories of "Kaanga, Jungle King"[3] andSheena, Queen of the Jungle[36] Besides Kaanga and Sheena, Fiction House had already published, in the pulp magazineJungle Stories, the character "Ki-Gor".[15] Also published by Fiction House were "Camilla, Queen of the Lost Empire", created by C. A. Winter and "Tabu, the Jungle Wizard", created byFletcher Hanks.[16][37]
In 1941,Republic Pictures released the film serialJungle Girl, about youngNyoka Meredith (Frances Gifford), raised inAfrica by her father. The studio used a title froma novel byEdgar Rice Burroughs, however, the story and character were created by the studio. The following year it released a new sitcom,Perils of Nyoka, this time, Nyoka had her last name changed to Gordon and was playedKay Aldridge.[25] In the same year, she got comic books published byFawcett Comics[38][16] and in 1944,Linda Stirling stars in another studio serial,The Tiger Woman, this time set inSouth America.[39]
The HaitianAndre LeBlanc creates the Brazilian jungle girlMorena Flor,[40] published in daily comic strips and in the comic book of Capitão Atlas, a kind of Brazilian hunter similar toJungle Jim created for a radio show.[41] LeBlanc wasSy Barry's assistant on another jungle hero:The Phantom, created byLee Falk.[42]
In 1949, actorSteve Reeves starred in thepilot episode of the TV series Kimbar of the Jungle, however, the project was not approved.[43]
In the 1950s, two artists who drew Tarzanesque heroes from Fiction House would work on Tarzan comic strips:John Celardo (who illustrated stories starring Kaanga)[44] andBob Lubbers (who illustrated stories featuring Camilla).[45]
In 1947, disturbed by the wayblack people were portrayed in comic books (especially in hero stories set in Africa),[46] the African-American journalistOrrin C. Evans created the comic bookAll-Negro Comics, produced and directed to the black audience (something like the so-calledrace films[25][nt 1] between the 1910s and 1950s and theBlaxploitation movies in the 1970s).[47] In this comic book Orrin's brother, George J. Evans Jr., created the hero Lion Man, an African-American scientist in the service of theUN, which when sent to theGold Coast inAfrica, comes across auranium mine and, fearing that the mine fell into the wrong hands, he decides to protect it and becomes a kind of black Tarzanesque. Despite the efforts, the comic book lasted only one issue.[48] This was not the first attempt at a black Tarzanesque; the also African-AmericanMatt Baker[34] created Voodah[49] in 1945, for the third issue of Golfing/McCombs Publisher's Crown Comics.[50] On the cover of the fifth issue, Voodah appears as aCaucasian (although he was still black on the inside pages), and in the next issue, Voodah became white on the inside pages as well.[51]
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Fiction House released a few characters of Indian origin like Wambi the Jungle Boy, released inJungle Comics #1 in January 1940). Co-created byHenry Kiefer, Wambi lived in a jungle that mixed elements of African and Indian jungles, and in addition to Jungle Comics, Wambi was published in his own comic book .[52] As female examples, there is Taj of the Elephants, an anonymously created character released in Jungle Comics #57 (1944)[53][54][55] and Jan of the Jungle, co-created by Enrico Bagnoli and released in Rangers Comics #42 (August 1948).[56] In Buster Brown Comics #11 (1948), the character Ghanga was released, later spelled Gunga.[57] In addition, the Indian-American actorSabu Dastagir played two characters created byRudyard Kipling:Toomai inElephant Boy (1937) and Mowgli inJungle Book (1942),[58] as well as becoming a comic book character inspired by these roles: Sabu, Elephant Boy, published in Red Circle Comics #4 (April 1945)[59] and a two-issue comic book of his own with stories illustrated byWally Wood and published byFox Feature Syndicate.[60] In 1946, in the pages of the French comic book Fillette, the heroine Durga Râni appeared, written by René Thévenin and illustrated byRené Pellos.[61]
In 1950,Akim appeared in the Italian wallet-sized format comic bookAlbo Gioello created by the comic book writerRoberto Renzi and the cartoonist Augusto Pedrazza. The character, who was published until 1991, didn't live adventures only in the jungles, but also fought common criminals in the so-called "civilized world", and for this he even wore common clothes used in bigmetropolises.[4]
In 1952,Frank Frazetta createdThun'da, King of Congo forMagazine Enterprises, which even had a series in the same year calledKing of the Congo starringBuster Crabbe[62] (actor who had already played Tarzan in the 1933 seriesTarzan the Fearless).[63] Thun'da (whose real name is Robert Drum) is anAmerican Air Force aviator who gets lost in theCongo and who, in the comics, faceddinosaurs and prehistoric beings,[nt 2] but due to budget cuts, these elements were not present in the series.[64] In the 1960s, Frazetta illustrated covers ofpaperback versions of Tarzan's stories published byAce Books.[65]
In 1953,Joe Kubert releasedTor,[66] which differed from Tarzan by setting its stories inprehistoric times (more precisely in the year 1 million BC, corresponding to theQuaternary Period, which is considered by paleontologists to be the time when the first humans appeared;[67] despite this, the author used poetic license and included dinosaurs in Tor's stories).[68] Years later Kubert would also draw the Tarzan comics.[69] In the same yearAtlas Comics (the name used byMarvel during the 1950s) launchedLorna the Jungle Queen, a comic book starring a blonde jungle girl.[32] Between 1954 and 1955, it published two comic book s that had the jungles as a setting:Jungle Action[70] andJungle Tales.[14] Jungle Action published two characters typically inspired by Tarzan: Lo-Zar (the character had his name changed to Tharn and had his hair color changed from blond to red in republished in the 1970s so as not to be confused with Ka-Zar)[35] and Jungle Boy.[71] The jungle girl, Jann of the Jungle also appeared in Jungle Action #1, and from issue 8 on, the comic book was renamed Jann of the Jungle,[nt 3][70] lasting for 9 more issues. In another comic book, Jungle Tales #1, was published the story Waku, Prince of the Bantu, a new attempt of a black hero set in the African jungles, created by unknown authors. The story featured an African prince[48] whose character anticipated some of the concepts that would be present inBlack Panther (another Marvel character, created byStan Lee andJack Kirby inFantastic Four #52, July 1966).[72] In 1972, already as Marvel Comics, the publishing house launched a new comic book called Jungle Action, whose first four issues featured reruns of Tharn, Jann and Lorna's[73][74] stories published in the original comic book . The fifth issue, published in 1973, featured stories by the Black Panther.[75][47] Also in 1955, Republic Pictures released the TV seriesPanther Girl of the Kongo, which resembled Jungle Girl, and even used scenes from Jungle Girl's archives.[76][77] In Japan the filmBrooba is released, clearly inspired by the films starringJohnny Weissmuller.[78]
In 1962, Brazilian actor Wilson Vianna starred in two films of the Mexican tarzanesqueBarú:Barú,el hombre de la selva andEl mundo salvaje de Barú.[79][80] On Brazilian TV, Vianna played Capitão Atlas.[81]
In the mid 60's, taking advantage of the success of the genre, other Brazilian publishers created their own tarzanesques. One of them was Targo (later renamed Taika) from Editora Outubro created by Heli Otávio de Moura Lacerda.[82] Targo was an orphan who survived a plane crash in theAmazon rainforest (more precisely in the border of the state ofAmazonas withPeru, although he also had stories set in theBrazilian Plateau[83]) and was raised byindigenous peoples. The character had stories produced by artists such as Helena Fonseca,Jayme Cortez,Gedeone Malagola,Nico Rosso,Rodolfo Zalla, Moacir Rodrigues Soares,[32][83] and like Tarzan and Thun'da, Targo also lived withprehistoric creatures considered extinct. The idea of an Amazon inhabited by prehistoric beings had already been portrayed in the bookThe Lost World byArthur Conan Doyle, published in 1912.[84] Like Tarzan, Targo also had his own family, consisting of his wife Arimá, her brother Aurici, and ajaguar.[83] Under Jayme Cortez's guidance, the character was a joint creation of editors and cartoonists from Editora Outubro, and it was up to Gedeone Malagola to name the hero. According to him, the name came from a policeman friend who had the surname "Targa" and he used to joke with the name of his friend comparing it to the Tarzan.[85] Coincidentally, Targa was also the name used in a French tarzanesque[10] published in the 1940s.[86] Gedeone himself had also created another Tarzan-inspired character, "Tambu"[87] and madeTor stories byJoe Kubert for Gráfica Novo Mundo.[88] Another example was Tarun byPaulo Fukue, released in EDREL'sMagia Verde comic book .[89][32] Like Thun'da, Tarun was a man trying to return to civilization, not fitting in the wild child/good savage archetypes, and like Targo, Tarun lived adventures in a lost region of the Amazon, the "Fantastic Region".[32] For the Mexican origin publisher Editormex,[90] the comics artist Edmundo Rodrigues drew a story of Antar (an anagram of Tarzan),[91] which was a magazine ofphoto comics ofTarzan movies,Jungle Jim, among others.[92]
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In 1963, created by Marcel Navarro to compete with Akim, the French character Zembla appeared in the comic book Spécial Kiwi, which even had stories drawn by Akim's co-creator Augusto Pedraza. However, Zembla's stories were closer to parodies, since he was raised by lions and wore a leopard skin strip, and had as allies a lion, a wildcat, a kangaroo, a pygmy, and a magician (clearly inspired byLee Falk'sMandrake).[93] The character was published until 1994[4] in France, and both Akim and Zembla were published indigest size.[94] Another French creation was Yataca, born in the Amazon Jungle, living his adventures in the Americas for twenty issues, and after that, inexplicably, his stories moved to Africa.[4]
Between 1967 and 1968,DC Comics publishedBomba, the Jungle Boy[95] whose main character had appeared in a series of books beginning in 1926 and ending in 1938. Like Tarzan, Bomba was also adapted for the movies between 1949 and 1955, with his stories set in the jungles ofSouth America.[96] The character was played byJohnny Sheffield who had played Boy, Tarzan and Jane's adopted son in the 1939[97] filmTarzan Finds a Son!. In the series of Bomba films, Boy replacedKorak, Tarzan's legitimate son in the book series,[98] and South America was swapped for Africa, with scenes reused from the 1930[25] documentaryAfrica Speaks! His stories would be republished by the publisher in the 1970s in comic book s starring Tarzan and produced byJoe Kubert. To avoid copyright infringement, Bomba was renamed Simba.[99]
A new version ofKa-Zar was made in 1965 byStan Lee andJack Kirby, inspired byTarzan andTor byJoe Kubert.[35] The new Ka-Zar appears as a secondary character in theUncanny X-Men comic book, where theBelgian Congo was swapped for the fictionalSavage Land (a tropical zone curiously located in theAntarctic Circle,[4] also inhabited by apparently extinct prehistoric beings, very similar toPellucidar, thehollow earth created by Burroughs),[24][100] the lion Zar for thesaber-toothed catZabu, and David Rand for Kevin Plunder.[7] Ka-Zar was the most successful tarzanesque; he had several comic book s of his own, mini-series and graphic novels.[101][102] In 1973,Marvel Comics released another jungle girl,Shanna, with her own comic book that only lasted five issues, but continued to have stories published in Ka-Zar's (whom she eventually married),[32]Daredevil's andHulk's comic books.[13]
In 2000,TV Globo launched the telenovelaUga-Uga by Carlos Lombardi, where the actorClaudio Heinrich played a young man raised byindigenous peoples[103] who looked likeTarzan.[104][105][106]
Several of the Tarzanesques created for the North American market are in thepublic domain in this country.[107] This is due to the fact that with the implementation of theComics Code Authority in the mid 1950s, several publishers were closed down[108][109] and did not renew the rights to their characters, as did the heirs ofEdgar Rice Burroughs and companies such asThe Walt Disney Company.[110]
Tarzan also entered the public domain in 2001,[111] but before that some authors were already using him in stories. From the mid-1990s to the early 2000s, the character participated in officialcrossovers published withBatman,[112]Superman,[113] andPredator.[114] In 1999, comic book writerWarren Ellis and cartoonistJohn Cassaday created several pulp-inspired characters for thePlanetary series. Kevin Sack, the Lord Blackstock (an allusion to the title Lord Greystone, which Tarzan inherited from his father[3]) is clearly inspired by Tarzan,[115][116][117] and in 2000,Alan Moore used a version of Tarzan in hisThe League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, without, however, having his name revealed in the series.[118]
In 2005,Shanna had a miniseries produced by comic book artistFrank Cho, who also created his own jungle girl named Jana released in the Jungle Girl miniseries published byDynamite Entertainment[119] (known for publishing numerous projects with characters in the public domain).[120] In 2006,Marvel Comics recognized the originalKa-Zar as an integral part of theMarvel Universe in the sixth issue ofAll-New Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A to Z,[35] the publisher's official guide.[121] However, the character did not appear in any new stories (as did the originalHuman Torch, for example).[122]
In 2007,Sheena, Queen of the Jungle had a five-issue miniseries published by Devil's Due Digital, scripted bySteven E. de Souza (a screenwriter best known for the screenplay of theBruce Willis filmDie Hard), drawings by Matt Merhoff, and covers designed byJoe Jusko,Nicola Scott,Khary Randolph, andTim Seeley.[28] In early 2010, Devil's Due Digital began distributingdigitized Sheena material.[123]
In 2008, comic book writer Alex Mir and illustrator Alex Genaro released theValkíria, that shows the title character in a post-apocalypticBrazil where prehistoric creatures have returned to live on Earth.[124][125]
In 2011,Dynamite Entertainment launched Lord of the Jungle comic book, and although it is in the public domain, the name Tarzan cannot be used in the titles without permission.[111] Later, the publisher announced that it would publish a new series of Thun'da, and in the first issue, the publisher chose to republish the origin of the character drawn by the creatorFrank Frazetta along with the new stories produced by Robert Place Napton (scripts), with Cliff Richards (drawings) and cover byJae Lee (cover).[126] In 2015, Dynamite announced a Tarzan and Sheena crossover,[127] released in 2016 under the title Lords of the Jungle. The company also announced a new Sheena series for 2017 by comic book writersMarguerite Bennett andChristina Trujillo and comic artistMoritat, set onAmazon instead ofAfrica.[128]
In July 2023,Antarctic Press announced the publication ofValkíria in their version ofJungle Comics.[129]