Monday, November 05, 2007

Lord of the Jungle

Growing up back in the 70s, when I wasn't reading comic books, I read the original Tarzan novels. He's always been one of my favorite characters, so I thought I'd take a cartoony swing at him in my sketchbook tonight:
The "real" Tarzan was quite different from the Hollywood versions of him, of course. In Burroughs' books, you really got the feel that he was barely controlling the "animal" side of himself. I put the scar over his eye, since I seem to remember that from the books...the scar would appear whenever he'd go into an "animal rage". The closest Hollywood ever got to him, in my opinion, was "Greystoke" (parts of that were dead-on), and, strangely enough, Disney's Tarzan (minus all of the talking, SINGING animals).

In the comics, I never liked Kubert's take, nor Buscema's, really. But there was a series about ten years ago, that was drawn by Mark Wheatley (don't remember the writer), that had a lot of the true spirit of the ape man.

Oh yeah, and since I'm a child of the 70s, I remember faithfully watching both the reruns of the goldenboy Tarzan of Ron Ely, and the Filmation cartoons. The latter, looking back, were awful. But, I spent a lot of my childhood playing in the yard, reciting the opening, "I am Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle. This is my domain, and I protect those who come here. AHHHOOOAHHHHHH-ahhhh-uhhh-ahhh-ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"

Long live the King of the Jungle!!!

3 comments:

The Hurricane said...

Nice one!

Anonymous said...

Awesome picture, Keelan. I really need to practise muscles! Talking of Burroughs, have you read the John Carter books, they are very good!

Keelan Parham said...

Thanks, guys! Justin, I read Burroughs' lost world books, and, I think, the Pellucidar books. I MIGHT have read the first John Carter book, but I definitely read quite a few John Carter comic books. I liked that character as well. Thanks for reminding me!