Attack of the Clones: The Tarzan Clones!

Tarzan clones became a thing in 1926, when Bomba the Jungle Boy (by the house name, Roy Rockwood) began publishing the first close imitation of Tarzan. (You can make a case for Irving J. Crump’s Og, Son of Fire in 1922, but Og is a caveman not a jungle lord). Bomba was the first to say openly, Hey, I’m like Tarzan. In fiction, the floodgates opened with Jan of the Jungle by Otis Adelbert Kline in 1927, Morgyn the Mighty in The Rover in 1928, Kaspa the Lion Man by C. T. Stoneham, Irving J. Crump’s Sangroo the Sun-God and “Congo Jack” in The Triumph in 1931, Kwa of the Jungle by Paul Regard (Peerly Poore Sheehan) in 1932, Sorak by Harvey D. Richards in 1934, Hawk of the Wilderness by William L. Chester and Miota in Wild Cat by H. M. E. Clamp in 1935, Ka-Zar by Bob Byrd, Bantan by Maurice B. Gardner and “Strang the Terrible” in Adventure in 1936, Jaragu of the Jungle by Rex Beach in 1937 and Ki-Gor by John Peter Drummond (house name) in 1938. These would not be the last.

In the comics, it took a little longer with the first actual Tarzan comic strip being drawn by Hal Foster in 1929. Comic imitators started with Sheena Queen of the Jungle (Jumbo Comics) and Morgyn the Mighty (The Rover) in 1938. These were followed by Jungleman (Champion Comics), “Kaanga”, “Wambi”, “Tabu”, “Camilla”, “Fantomah”, and “White Panther” (Jungle Comics), “The Jungle Twins” (Nickel Comics), “Jag” (Cyclone Comics), “Blanda” (Miracle Comics), “Zara” (Mystic Comics), “Marga” (Science Comics) and “Samar” (Feature Comics) all in 1940. What a year for jungle lords and ladies.

What did Edgar Rice Burroughs think of all this? He took a reasonable approach. As long as the “Tarzan” name wasn’t used it was all good promotion for his work. There was a suggestion that he and Otis Adelbert Kline feuded, but there is no evidence this is true.

The next great explosion of Tarzan clones didn’t come out of America. Yes, Gold Key was successful with Turok and other titles while the superhero-mongers tried with Ka-Zar and Shanna the She-Devil but none of these US comics really held. Joe Kubert would do Tarzan for a few years at DC but even that didn’t last. The real jungle lord explosion was in Europe.

Unlike the monthly comics of America, Europe developed a love of hardback comics collections and graphic novels much earlier. Rather than the juvenile market that Marvel and DC pursued, adults as well as children enjoyed the adventures of Asterix and Obelisk, Thorgal, Lucky Luke, Lt. Blueberry, Valerian and many, many more. Jungle lords had their place among them. The Tarzan of Russ Manning was one of these.

The most popular of the clones include:

Tarou (1949-1952) was written and drawn by Robert Dansler as Bob Dan. Unlike Tarzan Tarou lives in Asia. At first he looked like Tarzan in a red loincloth but later takes on more civilized clothing.

Akim (1950-1991) by Roberto Renzi and artist, Augusto Pedrazza. Pedrazza’s art is cribbed from Burne Hogarth’s Tarzan work at first. As the comic goes on, he develops his own style.

Pango (1953-1956) was a British comic reprinted from French comics. Writer and artist info is scarce.

Tibor (1959-1963) by Hansrudi Wascher was one of the small-sized comics but later went to full size.

Zembla (1963-1979) by Marcel Navarro had art by Augusto Pedrazza again. Visually Zembla looks just like Akim with longer hair. Zembla, unlike most jungle lords, has two human sidekicks. The magician Rasmus, who looks like Mandrake, and African teenager who wears an MP helmet and an alarm clock, named Yeye.

Kali (1966-1981) was a long-running version of a Mowgli-like jungle lord. Again, really hard to find out who produced these comics.

Rahan (1969-1998) was a little different in that he is a prehistoric guy, but he often did Tarzan-like stuff. He traveled the prehistoric world like TV’s The Fugitive or The Littlest Hobo, helping different people each episode. The comic was written by Roger Lecureux with art by André Chéret. This character has remained so popular he received an animated TV show in 1986 and a film in 2008.

Waki (1974-1975) was created by Marcel Navarro again. Art was by Luciano Bernasconi. Franco Frescura wrote the scripts including plenty of Science Fiction elements in Waki’s prehistoric world.

These were by no means all of the European Tarzan clones. Robert Renzi created Zarawa years after Akim. The cowboy comic Nevada had a back-up feature about Tanka who was the son of another jungle lord, Tamar. In recent years, Jean-Marc Lofficier revived the character for Hexagon Comics.