Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle Comic Strips
Dust jacket from A.C. McClurg & Co's version of Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle

Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle was first published by A.C. McClurg & Co in September, 1928. The image to the left shows the dust jacket from that book.

Metropolitan Newspaper Feature Service, Inc., a subdivision of Metropolitan Books, published an illustrated condensed newspaper comic-strip version of the story, illustrated by Rex Maxon. The story doesn't seem to have appeared simultaneously in all newspapers carrying it. The Worcester Evening Post carried the series from about August 1931 to December of the same year. The strips appeared in the paper six days a week, from Monday to Saturday.

These comic strips were collected by Roland N. Anderson (1916-1982) while working as a paperboy, delivering both the Worcester Evening Post and the Worcester Evening Gazette. Both of these newspapers were published in Worcester, Massachusetts.

When Ballantine Books republished this book in paperback in 1963, it summarized it on the back cover as follows: "Cruel slave traders had invaded the jungle of Tarzan of the Apes. Now they were headed toward a fabled empire of riches which no outsider had ever seen, intent on looting. And toward the same legendary land was stumbling the lost James Blake, an American whom Tarzan had vowed to rescue. Following their spoors, the ape-man came upon the lost Valley of the Sepulcher, where Knights Templar still fought to resume their Holy Crusade to free Jerusalem. Soon Tarzan, true Lord of the their ancient mother-land, was armed with lance and shield, mixed into their jousting and ancient combat. It was then that the slavers struck! "

Inasmuch as the Tarzan series was more a series of illustrated short novels than a typical comic strip, the amount of text in each strip far exceeded the amount of text in other comic strips, and consequently of rather small size, about 10 points. In order to make the material more readable, the strips are presented here in halves at about 50% magnification.

One can jump right into the action at the first strip here. On the left side of each comic strip, next to the title, there is a number which indicates that particular strip's position in the series. Some browsers will display this number in the lower left hand corner of the window frame. If someone quits reading some segment of Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle before having read it all and then at some later date wishes to return to where he left off, this can be done by entering the number of that particular comic strip here.


[BACK]