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Other Jungle Heroes

The popularity of Tarzan and Burroughs' novels has led to the concept of the "jungle man" as being a character type. The jungle settings for such heroes can vary from modern day to prehistoric, or an alternate "lost world" of another realm. In some cases the hero is a caveman, yet just as cunning and swift as the modern day jungle heroes. The caveman idea is merely another way to justify the existence of a hero who lives in the wild battling beasts and struggling to survive. All such jungle characters have at some point "borrowed" ideas from Tarzan, as Burroughs' character is where all others find their true origin. The only exception to this being Rudyard Kipling's Mowgli of "The Jungle Book". Although the character is a jungle boy rather than a man, I've included him and others as they represent this genre of hero.

Burroughs Advenures in the Stone Age

In addition to Tarzan, Edgar Rice Burroughs also wrote books about caveman jungle heroes. The Eternal Savage (seen below) was written in 1914, only two years after the first Tarzan book, and features a guest appearance by Tarzan. The other book, Back to the Stone Age, has a copyright date of 1937. I'm guessing both of these copies of the books were published in the 1960s or 70s.

The Jungle Book

The jungle boy Mowgli was featured in Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book, a story first published in 1894. This means that little Mowgli was 18 years old before Edgar Rice Burroughs published the first Tarzan adventure. Of course the characters are entirely different, but there are some similarities in the stories...Mowgli is a baby left in the jungle, as is Tarzan, and both are adopted and raised by jungle animals. These facts certainly beg the question: How popular was Rudyard Kipling's jungle story two decades later in 1912 when Tarzan of the Apes was first published, and did it influence the creation of Tarzan?

Here is an amazing publication of The Jungle Book with Illustrations by Robert Ingpen. This large hardcover book is the complete version with all seven original stories. It was published by Blue Heron Books, Vancouver, in 2004. This is a beautifully written book, and Robert Ingpen's illustrations suit Kipling's style perfectly. The ISBN number is: 1-897035-36-5 Anyone would be doing themselves and their children a favour by reading the original version, rather than the Disney storybooks which have been so watered down that they have none of the character of the original book.

The Walt Disney film of The Jungle Book was produced in the mid 1960s, and was the last film that Walt Disney worked on. Shown here is the cover of a children's book that I've had since I was quite young. It was published in 1980 by Harmony Books, New York, and has over sixty pages, each with large pictures from the film.

On the topic of The Jungle Book, one of my favourite paintings is Cub by artist Marcel Stary of Piedmont, Quebec. This amazing work of art was created for the Boy Scouts of Canada, which has a Wolf Cub program based on Kipling's famous story.

Bomba the Jungle Boy

One of the earliest heroes to mimic Tarzan was Bomba the Jungle Boy, created by Roy Rockwood. The books shown here (below) were published by Clover Books and have a copyright date of 1926, only 14 years after Tarzan's first appearance. There are nine books about the character. It seems that the first publication of Bomba the Jungle Boy took place in 1926, as that is the date in the first book. Of course, its possible that the character appeared elsewhere before these books were published but for now it seems that Bomba does not pre-date Tarzan. Bomba remained in print for quite some time and later gained a great deal of popularity in the 1960s with a live action TV show, which lead to a short series of comic books.

Here is a list of the original books in the series:
1 Bomba the Jungle Boy
2 Moving Mountain
3 The Giant Cataract
4 Jaguar Island (not shown)
5 The Abandoned City
6 Terror Trail
7 The Swamp of Death (not shown)
8 Among the Slaves
9 The Underground River (not shown, but the cover shows him fighting a giant squid!)

Another publisher, Cupples & Leon Company, later produced the above nine books in 1937 and continued the series with the following titles, all of which begin with Bomba the Jungle Boy...

10 And the Lost Explorers
11 In a Strange Land
12 Among the Pygmies
13 and the Cannibals
14 And the Painted Hunters
15 And the River Demons
16 And the Hostile Chieftain
17 Trappedby the Cyclone
18 In the Land of Burning Lava
19 In the Perilous Kingdom

This final image of Bomba is from a series of books published in 1978 by Grosset & Dunlap. If I have my facts correct, Grosset & Dunlap is the original publisher of the very first Tarzan books!

Anthro

This is Anthro No.1 from Aug 1968. I've rarely seen this character or the comics anywhere, and suspect that it was a short lived series. Here, the main character is a caveman.

Rahan

A very popular and successful comic book character from France, the Rahan series of comics feature the adventures of a caveman who fights dinosaurs and other wild creatures. Consistently amazing artwork is likely the key element to this long running comic book's success. Various Rahan collectables have also been produced, such as action figures, glasses, games, Rahan's "tooth necklace," and a toy knife. The height of the character's popularity occurred during the 1970s, during which an animated TV show was produced. There has been some recent buzz about adapting Rahan into a live action film, which I hope they do!

Ka-Zar

Most likely created to compete with DC comics Tarzan series, Marvel Comics featured their own jungle man, Ka-Zar, a cave man hero who, like Rahan, has long blond hair. The comic below left is from Astonishing Tales Dec. 1971 (Vol.1, No.9), while on the right is Ka-Zar Aug. 1975 (Vol.1, No.10). The character was quite popular in North America and has returned in at least three different comic series. These two covers were chosen to show the similarities of the sabre tooth tiger's pose...Ka-Zar's head is also in the same place on both covers!

Ka-Zar next appeared in Ka-Zar the Savage which oddly later became simply Ka-Zar mid way through the series. The comic below left was published May 1981 (Vol.1 No.2) and the comic on the right is from May 1982 (Vol.1 No.14).

Ka-Zar's final appearance, at least that I know of, was ten years ago in (can you guess?) Ka-Zar published in 1997. The issue shown below is from June 1997 (Vol.2, No. 2) and presents a very different version of the character. His hair is much shorter and he's no longer a cave man type of character. Instead he is more like a barbarian or medieval warrior.

Kamandi the Last Boy on Earth

As funny as the concept and title may seem Kamandi the Last Boy on Earth was actually a very successful and long running comic book series from DC Comics. Below left is an example of an earlier comic published in March 1973 (Vol.2, No.4), next to this is a comic from Dec. 1975 (Vol.4, No.36). As you can see, DC Comics had Kamandi swinging on ropes and fighting crocodiles so the Tarzan/jungle hero theme is present, only in this case the animals can talk and take on human form. Again, our hero has long blond hair, which seems to have been popular amongst jungle heroes of the 70s! It's also interesting to note that the cover for the Dec. 1975 issue is by Joe Kubert who also did DC's Tarzan series! (See the Sept. 1972 Tarzan comic on the previous page)

Next is a comic from Aug. 1976 (Vol.5, No.44) and last a cross-over issue featuring Karate Kid from Aug. 1978 (Vol.7, No.58). The artwork changed considerably over the years.

The Jungle Twins

This is a very campy take on the jungle hero concept from Gold Key, issue No.16 from Sept 1975. Tono and Kono are identical twin brothers and the only way to identify them is that Kono wears a necklace. I've included a panel from the comic to show how the characters are drawn...check out the funny hair-do!

Tragg and the Sky Gods

Tragg is another 1970s caveman character with typical golden locks. This is a reprint (in very rough shape) from Whitman in 1982, No.9, however the copyright is from 1975.

Many more to come!

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