British Update: 30th Century Goes Ape with Tarzan (1)
*Boys’ Adventure & War Comics: For Ape Week, we turn to the Lord Of The Jungle himself, including this week’s Free Gift Farrago! With the worldwide popularity of Tarzan, the ERB estate was, in the mid-197O’s, in the happy position of commissioning hundreds of pages of artwork and stories that initially saw print only in the European market – despite having been generated by American creators. UK publishers Byblos saw an opportunity to exploit this material by presenting it in English for the first time, and in 1977 launched Tarzan Weekly – followed, in fairly short order, by Tarzan Monthly. Details are sketchy, but evidently the Byblos experiment was over by 1980, as in 1981 another publisher, Atlantic, launched yet another UK-based Tarzan Monthly, exploiting still more the same inventory. There are some impressive names among the creators credited in these issues; Dan Spiegle, Marv Wolfman, Will Meugniot, Russ Manning, Pat Boyette, Mike Ploog, Rick Hoberg, Mark Evanier, and Dave Stevens. We have five of the first six issues of Tarzan Weekly, the first three of Byblos’ Tarzan Monthly, the 1980 Tarzan Winter Special, and an issue of the Atlantic Tarzan monthly new in. Tarzan Weekly #1 comes with the original free gift, a Jungle Sick-Bag – I’m sorry, Tarzan Survival Kit Bag – for your protection when wandering the wilds of the Dark Continent! Pictures of both the comic and free gift shown here. Please note: while you’ll find almost all of our Tarzan inventory in our Tarzan/ERB section, these larger format British comics are listed in our Boys’ Adventure & War section for easier storage.