An undated pencil drawing by John Buscema, the first artist of Marvel’s 1977 Tarzan series. © 2007 ERB. Courtesy of Heritage Auctions.
John Buscema’s pencil rough for the cover of Marvel’s Tarzan #14 (July 1978). © 2007 ERB. Courtesy of Tom Ziuko. DC had high hopes for its Kubert Tarzan. Carmine Infantino, then-publisher of DC (see the Infantino Q & Ape in Chapter 3), presumed Tarzan’s worldwide popularity would make the title a bestseller. When “Warner Bros. had that amusement park in New Jersey, one of the Six Flags, I think, we put two books in there,” Infantino recalls. “I thought Tarzan would be a natural… and Superman. Superman outsold Tarzan, can you believe it?!” After its exciting start, DC’s Tarzan eventually lost its energy once Kubert’s busy schedule divorced him from the art chores— first he did layouts over which Rudy Florese and Frank Reyes provided finishes, then he bowed out of the title and it briefly limped along, sometimes running Kubert reprints from earlier issues, until being canceled with #258 in 1977. “It didn’t do well,” Infantino laments. “We didn’t have luck with that character.” Marvel snatched up the property for a 29-issue run beginning with a first issue—not a renumbering of the old series— cover-dated June 1977. Writer/editor Roy Thomas adapted Burroughs stories with John Buscema as Tarzan’s penciler. Readers were treated to Buscema’s inks over his own pencils in the first two issues, with Tony DeZuniga (and later, other inkers) embellishing his work beginning with the third issue. Especially when inking himself, Buscema’s Tarzan was raw and vigorous, and his apes were frenetic and often frightening.
Born To Be Wild!
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