Tarzan: The Jesse Marsh Years Omnibus Volume 1

by Gaylord DuBois, Jesse Marsh (Illustrator), Edgar Rice Burroughs (Creator)

The legendary Tarzan work of artist Jesse Marsh remains an enduring, singular vision, captivating generations of comics readers and earning the acclaim of artists from Russ Manning to Alex Toth to Los Bros Hernandez. Marsh's nineteen-year collaboration with writer Gaylord DuBois defined Edgar Rice Burroughs' jungle lord, and these iconic adventures live again in the pages of Tarzan: The Jesse Marsh Years Omnibus, meticulously restored and value priced.

"(Marsh) is in that group of the finest storytellers comics has ever produced." -Gilbert Hernandez (Love & Rockets)

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Classics

720 pages, Paperback

Published March 7, 2017

About the author

Gaylord McIlvaine Du Bois (as it appears on his baptism certificate), or DuBois (He signed it both ways: as two words, both capitalized; and as one word with a capital "B") (August 24, 1899 Winthrop, Massachusetts – October 20, 1993 Orange City, Florida) In his lifetime he wrote well over 3000 comic book stories and comic strips as well as Big Little Books and juvenile adventure novels.

An avid outdoorsman, Du Bois had a real affinity for writing stories with natural settings. His forte was in Westerns, as well as jungle comics and animal reality comics. He created many original second features for Western Publishing (e.g., "Captain Venture: Beneath the Sea", "Leopard Girl", "Two Against the Jungle", etc.), but most of his work for the company was in writing stories with licensed characters. Perhaps most notably, Gaylord Du Bois wrote Tarzan for Dell Comics and Gold Key Comics from 1946 until 1971.

Reviews

[Louie the Mustache Matos · Rating 5 out of 5]

First and foremost, I have been enjoying my choices for my 2024 goal of books in the TPB (trade paperback format). So many of these are anthology collections of classic work that would otherwise prove cost prohibitive. This collection of the 1947 Dell Comics, Tarzan magazines was gathered by Dark Horse Comics into a gorgeous paperback edition that I highly recommend to any and every Tarzan enthusiast.

Obviously, there is deliberate acknowledgment that Edgar Rice Burroughs was the creator of Tarzan and that all of these stories have roots in the established canon, but there is also an attempt to make the magazine universe its own thing. Gaylord Dubois gets writing credit on the cover for the edition, where other writers have contributed, their work is also credited. Jesse Marsh is the main artist, but other artists helped when dealing with deadlines. The illustrated work is antiquated but stellar IMHO.

Included in the volume are characters from the Tarzan ethos: Paul Darnot, Muviro, La, Boy, and Jane. Places like Opar, and Tohr are rendered beautifully, and a bunch of Tarzan ape-English vocabulary is interspersed throughout like pages from a dictionary. There is also a page with Tarzan's animal friends like Tantor the elephant, Pacco the zebra, Mangani the ape, Manu the monkey, and Bolgani the gorilla.

I loved it and have enjoyed the ERB fanboy lovefest. I hope to continue to gush.

[Quentin Wallace · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a little better than most Golden Age comics I've read (other than EC, anyway.) These were published in the late 40s and there were the very first Tarzan comics appearances. There had been a newspaper strip, but this would have been the first original comic book stories. This includes the first two appearances that were in Dell Four Color before he got his own series, and the first sixteen issues of that series is here as well.

The art was good but the strength was more in the stories as they weren't overwritten like a lot of comics were at the time, and while the stories weren't what you'd call sophisticated they were stronger than I expected. It looks like the stories followed the continuity of the books as things pick up right away and things are mentioned that you wouldn't know about only from reading the comics.

If you're a Tarzan fan and/or a Golden Age comic fan this is worth a read.

[Michael · Rating 2 out of 5]

I couldn't finish it. I expect to struggle through a certain amount of racism in old Tarzan stories, but it is SO prevalent in these tales and often coming directly out of Tarzan's mouth.

Marsh's linework is quite good though, so there's some enjoyment to be had just flipping through the drawings.

[Stephen Theaker · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't expect to enjoy this so much. Funny that such an old comic should be so perfect for reading on modern mobile devices, thanks to its small rectangular panels.