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 awhile back, I thought I’d take a cartoony swing at him in my sketchbook :
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 kind of liked Kubert’s take and Buscema’s, 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!!!