Martinex1: They have been hanging out there on our BitBA The Brave Or The Bold banner all of this time, and we have not yet compared Tarzan and Conan (until today).
Who do you prefer - Tarzan, king of the jungle or Conan the barbarian king? They are not very similar and yet they have some common appeal. Robert E. Howard or Edgar Rice Burroughs? Apes and lions or lizards and wizards? Jane or Belit? Sword and sorcery or lord and savagery?
Who would you rather read about or watch in a theater? How about the comic books? Buscema? Kubert? Or some other artist or creator?
Have these characters lost their attraction in the modern age? If so, why? Is there any room for characters like these in the 21st century? How about back in the Bronze Age, did you find them fantastic or lacking? What worked and what did not? What were your favorite storylines? Make some recommendations and share your thoughts about these characters and their impact on your collecting habits and fictional influences.
There is a lot of room for discussion today so pick your favorite and let us know why. Cheers!
33 comments:
It's gonna be Conan for me, although I have a solid appreciation for Tarzan, certainly. Conan's always had more "layers", in my mind, since he's not always been a straight-arrow character. And Tarzan, even as a kid, made me a touch uncomfortable with this subtle assumption that a white European man of noble lineage had innate qualities that would allow him to hold sway on the "dark" continent, simply because he was. . . what he was. Kind of a product of the era, I suppose.
HB
That is a really interesting question, and one that I wish I could answer fron a position of knowledge. But I know nothing of Tanzan beyond a couple of black and white movies watched as a child.
But from an arm's length Conan has always been edgy, a 'nature red in tooth a claw' character subverting all our notions of civilisation. On the other hand, Tarzan - going by what HB says above - is akin to the 'noble savage.'
So is it fair to say that both Conan and Tarzan are romantic figures but in very different ways?
Incidentally, how do the Tarzan books, films and comics all relate? Are they consistent with each other? One thing you can say about Conan is that he has mostly been handled with respect across books and comics at least.
Definitely Conan. I've never read any of the original Tarzan stories and I don't want to. Tarzan as written by Edgar Rice Burroughs is an English aristocrat and that is enough to raise my hackles. If you'd actually seen any English aristocrats you'd realize that the very idea of one of those privileged ninnies being a square-jawed jungle lord is laughably absurd. And apparently Edgar Rice Burroughs was a ghastly snob who pretended to have connections to the British aristocracy. However I do love the Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan films but that was a completely different Tarzan who wasn't Lord Greystoke. By contrast I've always loved the Conan stories of Robert E. Howard both in the original versions and the Marvel versions. But I'm still waiting for a decent Conan film - Schwarzeneggar was miscast in my opinion and I had high hopes for the 2011 Conan movie but it was dreadful.
Going to agree with HB here. The colonial aspects of Tarzan have been a bit of a put off for me, although I did enjoy the movies and TV series. Conan, on the other hand, has the advantage of being rooted in a fantasy setting (although that Hyborean Age world certainly carries metaphors for today's world).
As to the comics, both characters had the good fortune to be illustrated by John Buscema. Conan began with the beautiful artwork of Barry Windsor Smith; it would have been interesting to see his take on Tarzan. And likewise, Tarzan is often associated with the stupendous work of Joe Kubert. Did Kubert ever do a Conan story? I'd gladly pay to see that...
From a "reality" point of view...
I'll break from the pack a put in a vote for Tarzan.
Regarding the world we live in... My friends and I felt like we could be Tarzan (just as we could be James Bond). So, when I was a kid growing up in the sand dunes of Gary, IN, along the shores of Lake Michigan, we often played Tarzan. Climbing trees, swinging on ropes, some poor kid would have to be a monkey, etc. Conan did not exist in comic / movie format in the 60s so we did not play Conan.
Regarding comic art... two of comics supreme artists (Hal Foster and Burne Hogarth) drew Tarazn. I don't know if anyone of that caliber ever touched Conan? One of my most cherished books comes from the UK - A gorgeous hardback of Tarzan's origin by Hogarth. Been in our family for 45 years.
Regarding comic stories... well sure, Tarzan is "stuck" in real world Africa whereas Conan does benefit from the imagination of sword and sorcery so there is more variety, in a sense.
Lastly - The UK gave us Tarzan and Homes and Bond and Dennis the Menace and... who are fictional yet plausible. Humans at the edge of humanity: superior intellect, superior strength, superior cunning. Is there something in the UK culture that would deliver us such cherished characters?
(My family is going nuts waiting for me to find time to start watching the latest Sherlock season on Netflix as a family!)
Cheers!
I'm not much into the 'jungle kings', other than T'Challa and perhaps some early Kazar.
Whaaaat, no love for Shanna..?
I collected the whole half-dozen Shanna title, great Tuska/Colletta art there. Like I've done with collecting the first dozen issues of Luke Cage, I'd like to get the first 12 of Conan with the early Smith art, just for review and collecting.
Early Bronze is my favorite era of Marvel, for both the creative explosion plus the zealous letters pages and Bullpen Bulletins. I actually conveyed that to my missus last night, when she saw I just received a beautiful copy of Captain Mar-Vell ish 1 (1968) and inquired as to what I loved about collecting old comics.
Boy, did she get an excited 10-minute education. :)
Hm, Charlie - while the character himself is British, Tarzan is in fact a wholly American creation...
Anyway, if I had been asked this question back in the Bronze Age, I would have said Tarzan without hesitation - and that was based mainly on Marvel's Tarzan comics, which got me interested in the books, of which I then read about the first 16 or so before losing interest.
Now, my answer is Conan. I share some of the objections to Tarzan as a concept (the noble white savage in deepest, darkest Africa) noted by others above, but another thing is that I can still go back and occasionally read the Conan stories by Howard, while I have little interest in re-reading the Tarzan books - what made me lose interest in them was that as I was working my way through the series as a preteen and then early teenager, I found myself really turned off by Burroughs' writing in them (and the last few Tarzan novels I had read were really repetitive, i.e., the plots were totally recycled). I think Burroughs did much better work in the Martian novels.
As for on-screen versions, without having (yet) seen last year's Tarzan movie, I have to say that neither character has been well-served in this department. While they have their charm, I'm not really a big fan of the old black & white Tarzan films, and the TV series was Ron Ely may have been goofy fun, but it wasn't really Tarzan. As for Conan, I agree that Schwarzenegger was miscast (and those movies are so somber, in contrast to the swashbuckling mood of Howard's original stories and Conan himself in them).
In the comics, my definitive artist for both Conan and Tarzan is John Buscema - sorry Charlie, but to me his version of the jungle lord beats out even the 'classic' artists that everyone prefers, like Foster, Hogarth, Manning, etc.
Oh, and Martinex, to your question of "Jane or Belit?" - I'd say Belit, mainly because I think Tarzan should have went for La of Opar.
Neither, its Ka-Zar for me!!! He and Zabu are some of my favorite Bronze memories. Tarzan bored me and Conan was a simpleton. Man-apes, Klaw, occasional X-men or Avengers run ins, all were magical for me as a kid. I suppose he's a better version of both characters to me.
Tarzan was first love for me in this case because of the late 70's cartoon, one of my favorites. But I never did read the comic books, in fact I'm very intrigued now to go back and pick up the Marvel series.
But Conan overall wins out for me, I just like the fantasy element much more than the jungle action. Barry Windsor-Smith's art is some of my favorite for sure. Along similar lines, loved Kull the Conqueror too (actually slightly prefer to Conan).
Ewan, totally agreed on the late '70s cartoon by Filmation, and I can't believe I forgot to mention it myself. Definitely better than any of the live-action versions of Tarzan made up to that point.
I'm with Edo all the way on this one and for all the reasons he cites. As for Jane or Belit ... neither! (Even though I did just acquire the first appearance of Belit in Giant Size Conan #1) For me it's Red Sonja every day and twice on Sunday.
I think that Conan definitely has more appeal to a modern audience than Tarzan. Movies like "Lord of the Rings" have helped the Sword and Sorcery genre become "cool" over the last decade or so. Not sure how relevant it still is, but it is definitely more marketable than the Jungle Adventure genre.
That said they have really only ever made one good big-budget movie featuring either character, and that was the original "Conan The Barbarian" with Arnold Schwarzenegger. All the other Conan movies (including the most recent) have pretty much blown.
And for some reason, Hollywood just can't seem to make a decent Tarzan movie to save their lives. I don't know why. It pretty much seems like it would be a no-brainer, but they always manage to screw it up big time. The worst example being the horrendous Bo Derek movie back in the 80's. The most recent Tarzan movie was probably the best one so far, but it was still pretty disappointing, and not nearly as good as it could have been.
Tough one! Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle (from the late 70's) is perhaps my all0time favorite cartoon, an I have read the first Edgar Rice Burroughs Tarzan novel, which I found entertaining. Part of the appeal to me is my love of wildlife, and I've always wished I coule communicate with wild animals like Tarzan. However, when it comes to comics and movies, I'm more familiar with, and very fond of, the Conan stuff, and I do love the sword and sorcere genre, as well.
I do agree that Conan has more modern appeal than Tarzan, though I'm waffling a bit as to which on I prefer.
Not a big fan of either, but if we're talking comic books, I'll go with Conan. He's based more in fantasy than Tarzan, descended from Atlanteans, fighting monsters and supernatural foes.
I'd say my favorite incarnation of Tarzan was the Filmation cartoon.
Edo - great thought about La. Others may feel the same way as well.
Luther and Ewan - I actually thought about throwing Ka-Zar and Kull into the mix so good call. I don't know enough about Kull but have always felt Ka-Zar should have been more important in the Marvel world. There are some decent stories there and would have liked to see him in a Namor-like role for the Hidden Land.
Comments on those and other like characters are welcome. I'd like to hear more about Kull as I always assumed he was a Conan knockoff of some sort.
Should have said Savage Land instead of Hidden Land.
Points to CH47 for the Foster-then-Hogarth comic strip mention. That was Hal Foster, PRE-Prince Valiant-(!). Both artists were stunning on that golden-age newspaper strip.
For folks looking for reprints of the Barry Smith run on Conan, Dark Horse has had collections available for quite some time, and I'm sure they could be found readily and cheaply on Amazon and such. There's been some criticism of the digitally-enhanced coloring-- but I honestly love them. One knock, IIRC, is that they don't include the Elric or Red Sonja issues (probably due to license entanglements, would be my guess).
Hey, and I'll go on record as saying that Joe Kubert absolutely should be held in as much esteem in this conversation as Windsor-Smith or Buscema. His version of Tarzan is probably the one I like the best across all genres for the character-- I bought four consecutive issues of the book at one point simply because of the cover-made-me-buy-this-book factor!
HB
Hmmm, well, if we're talking about the original stories, I like both; if pressed, I might lean slightly toward Tarzan, if only because of my love for all things ape. In the comics, definitely Conan, though I haven't read the whole run (yet!).
Like most fans, I'm STILL waiting for really good movie adaptations for both characters.
Martinex, Robert E. Howard created both Conan and Kull, and actually, Kull came first (the first Conan story was a re-write of an unused Kull story)!
After Marvel launched the Conan the Barbarian series, Kull the Conqueror came less than a year later. I haven't read them in a long time, but in many ways a similar character if I recall correctly. A bit more of a thinker and chivalrous than Conan, but a similar mold.
I was just looking up some information on the Kull comic and didn't realize that Ross Andru penciled the first issue, with Wally Wood inks! I have a reprint I'm going to pull out tonight and take a look at. Marie and John Severin did most of the rest of the early run.
Well, regarding other jungle types...
I really enjoyed the reprints of 1940s and 1950s jungle stories in Skywald Comics (I think this is Bronze Age, 1973ish, no?)
Kazar, Kull, Sheena, Red Sonja... just never caught my interest. E.g., when I bought Astonishing Tales 7, it wasn't for Kazar, it was for Doctor Doom-Panther story. Spidey's trip to Kazar Land in ASM issues 103 and 104 was all about Spidey and Kraven to my young mind. (Also my first exposure to GK and I had trouble digesting drawings of the underside of people's noses. Loved Gwen Stacy in a swimsuit, though!)
Kubert's Tarzan, Smith's Conan - quite good indeed!
But Foster and Hogarth... probably always be my fav Tarzan artists. Magisterial work buy those two!
Give me Russ Manning on Tarzan....just beautiful stuff.
I probably preferred Tarzan, due to the character’s media exposure and I found the stories (first published by Gold Key) to be a bit more accessible as a kid. I was sort of befuddled as to why Marvel — a “superhero” publisher in my kid’s mind — was printing Conan in the 70s.
Another great artist on Tarzan in the newspapers was Burne Hogarth … a true master of the human form whose work was regularly referenced (and even “swiped”) by many artists to come (like Rich Buckler, RIP)
I grew to appreciate both characters as I grew older and understood the genre more … though I was never a huge fan of “sword and sorcery” as a genre in comics. (Then or now)
But I gotta mention Ka-Zar as well … I was big into dinosaurs as a kid and the Ka-Zar stories all tipped their hat to those beasts. I liked the various Ka-Zar series both in color and the black and white Savage Tales and the addition of Shanna to his myth really helped humanize him.
I remember enjoying the Ka-Zar the Savage direct only series and that was one of those runs I gave to a friend to read, and he relocated and never returned them… you guys know how that goes! Recently picked up the first trade collecting that series and it did not stand up as well in my mind but that was only the first ‘arc’… though we didn’t call the stories ‘arcs’ back then. I wonder if the rest of the series would hold up better…
Now I always enjoy whenever Ka-Zar and Shanna (and Zabu) turn up in the MU.
Heck, if we're throwing Ka-zar and Shanna into the mix, then I'll pick them as my favorites, based solely on how much I loved the revived Ka-zar series in the early '80s by Bruce Jones and Brent Anderson.
Somehow I feel like Prince Valiant should be in this discussion? He has the sword play like Conan and chronologically speaking was half way between Conan's and Tarzan's time, like around 700 AD? It's been described as "the most beautiful comic ever produced" as was by Hal Foster.
Hey - Conan fans! Is the cover to 1973's Conan King Size $.35 Special by Smith the best of all Conan covers? It is to me! It was the only Conan I ever bought. I was 12 at the time. It really, really grabbed (considering I was only a super-hero and Sad Sack comic buyer at that time)! It's a blue background, Conan in a pool of water, sword in one hand, axe in the other, a few dead bodies in the pool of water...
Charlie- yes, that Conan Annual cover is fantastic. It really shows off Barry's detailed likework. He did numerous great Conan covers, one of my favorites is issue 16 ("The Frost Giant's Daughter"). Though the book is a reprinting of a Savage Tales story, here it was presented in color for the first time. Incidentally, BWS is a very talented colorist, as well.
Say-- is THONGOR to this discussion as CAPT.SAVAGE AND HIS LEATHERNECK RAIDERS would be to a SGT FURY/SGT ROCK discussion? I know he existed, but have no inkling as to how his run in Creatures on the Loose is viewed. . .
HB
I have to admit that my favorite Conan cover is from What If when he came to the modern age. Otherwise I have some difficulty determining which issue is which - Conan fighting some creature, snake, or group of warriors and a damsel in distress. Check, check, and check.
I say Thongor, Tor, Ironjaw and all the rest are fair game for discussion.
While I loved the Johnny Weismuller films as a kid - they frequently played on TV, Conan for me, both in prose and comic books form. Tarzan is just too based in colonialist racist assumptions. Now, Conan is too, to some degree, but the "forgotten time and world" aspect mitigates that enough, plus what I really love about Howard's stories is his equivocating hatred of politics and especially religion.
I love Ka-Zar, despite being a Tarzan rip-off, because of dinosaurs and Zabu.
Also, no love for Thundarr? :)
Red - I just checked out Conan 16; never seen it before. Superlative! Definitely in the pantheon of all-time-best Conan covers!
As to covers, all of the ones mentioned above are quite good, but I think Smith really outdid himself with this one from the first Conan Treasury Edition. The back cover featured the full image.
And to clarify, my enjoyment of Shanna was the vintage Gerber series, not the more recent 'cheesiest-of-jungle-cheesecake' Frank Cho renderings...
"Hmmmm, wait -- Did someone mention cheesecake..?"
I have to go with the flow on this one - I prefer the sword and sorcery trappings of a good Conan tale, both in the original REH stories and in Marvel's comicbooks, rather than Burroughs's Tarzan, although I did enjoy John Buscema's and Kubert's renderings of our favourite jungle lord.
- Mike 'could never do a proper Tarzan yell' from Trinidad & Tobago.
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