Tarzan

Well, it's been a couple of days since I posted anything. It seems that when I start typing I tend to get carried away, due to that I've got three unfinished posts that went wild and turned into six-thousand word essays. I'll try to keep this one shorter.

The name Tarzan inspires images of Johnny Weissmuller, Gordon Scott or Lex Barker grunting “Me Tarzan you Jane”, and brings to mind one of the most recognizable calls/yells ever recorded on film. While these images may be the archetypal representation of Tarzan they aren't much like Burroughs original ape-man. The closest any film has gotten to Burroughs original depiction of Tarzan was Christopher Lambert's performance in Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, while Lambert's depiction of Tarzan is closer to Burrough's vision the writers of the film took some liberties with the original story. It's been quite a few years since I saw Greystoke, but from what I remember a rather large portion of the film deals with Tarzan/Lord Greystoke attempting to acclimate to living outside of the jungle. I believe he fails to adjust to “modern” society and returns to the jungle. Like I said, it's been awhile since I saw the movie, close to ten years, so this is probably not quite what happens. Regardless of the inaccuracies in the Legend of Greystoke, the writers managed to depict a Tarzan that could speak in more than broken, cavemanesque, pidgin-English. By depicting Tarzan as an intelligent man, capable of learning and adapting, the writers of Greystoke presented a Tarzan that was closer to Burroughs vision than most have managed. This is also the Tarzan that imprinted on me the hardest.

I was exposed to Tarzan at an early age, mainly through the children's books of the 60s/70s and Johnny Weissmuller films of the 30s and Lex Barker and Gordon Scott films of the 50s. This was the Tarzan that I knew until, at around the age of 8, I saw Christopher Lambert's performance in Greystoke. There was something about Lambert's version of Tarzan that just seemed right, something about the violent, animalistic Tarzan that called to my 8 year old psyche and screamed “this is Tarzan, this is the real Tarzan”. Greystoke is the reason that I depict Tarzan the way I do, scarred, grizzled and always on the edge of violence; to me this is the real Tarzan.

About four years ago I picked up a copy of Tarzan of the Apes, I'm a huge Burroughs fan, but it had been years since I had owned, or read, any Tarzan books and I thought it was time I fixed that. The version of Tarzan presented above was inspired by Burroughs description, my insane need to research even the tiniest piece of clothing and the vision of Tarzan that I had developed from Greystoke. The majority of Tarzan of the Apes is set in the Congo and has Tarzan wearing clothing, and using weapons, stolen from the local tribes. The loincloth and jewelry that I have depicted here are copied after pieces from a mix of tribes from the Congo region. I've done other versions of Tarzan, this one however, comes closest to the picture in my head. This piece has yet to be finished, it's odd for me to want to add color to one of my drawings, but I felt that this one deserved some deep red to better portray the blood dripping from his hand. This may get finished, or it may get redone, I'm not sure, I like it but the more I look at it the more I want to change.

Of the female characters in the Tarzan stories, I believe La of Opar is probably my favorite. She allows a certain amount of artistic freedom that I enjoy. La was from an ancient race similar to the Atlantis, so it allowed me to mix some various styles to achieve the level of opulence and degradation that I felt was appropriate for the Oparians.

This, like the Tarzan pics above, is not finished. I am considering finishing this piece, but I think I'll have to spend more time looking at it before I decide.

After reading Tarzan of the Apes a few years back, I got into a Tarzan kick and wanted to read more. I wound up scouring Amazon until I found The Great Book of Tarzan. I have mixed feelings about this book, while it contains every Tarzan story written by Burroughs and was amazingly cheap, it was like $15. I don't suggest this book to anyone, the binding is the worst I've ever seen, the editing is bad and the layout is so bad that it's difficult to tell where the chapters or books end. I got about halfway through the book before I gave it up, the book was just too difficult to read. If you're interested in reading the Tarzan novels I suggest downloading them for free from Project Gutenberg , they don't seem to have all of the books, but they have most of them and they're well edited and easy to read.