Tarzan: The Complete Russ Manning Newspaper Strips, Vol. 3: 1971-1974 Preview

8/12/2019 Tarzan: The Complete Russ Manning Newspaper Strips, Vol. 3: 1971-1974 Preview

1/12

RUSS MANNING VOLUME THREE: 1971-1974


2/12


3/12

IDW PUBLISHINGSan Diego

TARZANEDGAR RICE BURROUGHS

VOLUME THREE: 1971-1974


4/12

THE LIBRARY OF A MERICAN COMICSEDITED AND DESIGNED BY Dean Mullaney ASSOCIATE EDITOR Bruce Canwell

ART DIRECTOR AND SUNDAY PAGE RESTORATION Lorraine TurnerCONTRIBUTING EDITOR Henry G. Franke III MARKETING DIRECTOR Beau Smith

IDW Publishing, a Division of Idea and Design Works, LLC5080 Santa Fe Street, San Diego, CA 92109 www.idwpublishing.com LibraryofAmericanComics.com

Ted Adams, Chief Executive Officer/Publisher Greg Goldstein, Chief Operating Officer/PresidentRobbie Robbins, EVP/Sr. Graphic Artist Chris Ryall, Chief Creative Officer/Editor-in-Chief Matthew Ruzicka, CPA, Chief Financial Officer

Alan Payne, VP of Sales Dirk Wood, VP of Marketing Lorelei Bunjes, VP of Digital Services

Distributed by Diamond Book Distributors 1-410-560-7100

ISBN: 978-1-61377-982-8 First Printing, June 2014

Special thanks to Thomas Yeates (of the Apes) for his encouragement, enthusiasm, and friendship; Jim Sullos and Cathy Wilbanks at ERB, Inc.for making this possible; Tyler Wilbanks at ERB, Inc. for his dedication in locating and scanning the best possible copies of the strips in the

ERB archives; Bill Stout for his insights and use of the photo on page 11; Mike Royer for his insights and use of the photo on page 11; Jackie Estrada for providing the dustjacket photograph of Russ Manning from the 1976 San Diego Comic-Con; Jennifer Bawcum for the

photo on page 11; Rick Norwood for his always expert advice; Ken Webber, Mike Conran, and Dennis Wilcutt for their research;and to Melissa Manning for supplying the photos on pages 6, 7, and 17.

OTHER BOOKS IN THELIBRARY OF A MERICAN COMICS

Edgar Rice Burroughs and Tarzan owned by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. and used by permission. 2014 Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. All Rights Reserved.The Library of American Comics is a trademark of The Library of American Comics LLC. All rights reserved. Introduction 2014 Henry G. Franke III. With the

exception of artwork used for review purposes, none of the comic strips in this publication may be reprinted without the permission of ERB, Inc. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information and retrieval system, withoutpermission in writing from ERB, Inc. Printed in Korea.


5/12

5

In the 1968 annual poll of the Academy of Comic-Book Fans andCollectors,Tarzan came in second for best newspaper adventure strip, behindonly Dick Tracy but ahead of The Phantom and Steve Canyon. It was a gratifying acknowledgment for both Russ Manning and Edgar RiceBurroughs, Inc. that Manning had successfully resuscitated the series just a year earlier. The mainstream popularity of traditional newspaper adventurecomic strips and comic books, however, was on the decline.

The 1970s opened with major social and economic turmoil in the UnitedStates. The Vietnam War framed public unrest and cultural changes in thecountry. Adventure comics were steadily becoming a victim of changing tastes.Television had also clearly eclipsed comics as the leading purveyor of serialfiction. Both Manning and ERB, Inc. were concerned that United FeaturesSyndicate was not adequately promoting theTarzan daily and Sunday strips,nor actively pursuing more U.S. newspapers to subscribe to it.

Manning had a good relationship with Robert M. (Bob) Hodes, ERBsgeneral manager and vice-president, who had made the decision in 1967 tohire Manning to replace artist John Celardo. Manning wrote Hodes inSeptember 1971 about a family road trip to Corpus Christi, Texas, stopping all along the way to get copies of local newspapers. Not once, on the entiretrip, did we find a newspaper withTarzan in it. While on this vacation the

cartoonist even tried to approach the owner of the newspaper in San Angelo,Texas, with the idea of influencing several Texas papers under his managementto pick up the strip. He had no luck reaching the owner/publisher, butironically the paper asked Manning for an interview.

While the strip was not a major seller to newspapers in the U.S., it didvery well outside the country. ManningsTarzan strips received high praisearound the world. His style was popular in overseas markets, notably Europeand Latin America. ERBs income from these overseas licenses more thanoffset the stagnant subscriber list at home.

Of concern to Manning was that growing inflation during the Nixon Administration meant that the cost of living and the expense to create thestrip could quickly outstrip his income. The cartoonist was an independentcontractor hired by ERB, Inc. Through the years Manning would refer to a September 14, 1967 letter with ERB, Inc., laying out the conditions of his

work, as his official contract. He maintained regular correspondence withERB, Inc. and would visit their offices in Tarzana, seventy miles from hishome and studio in Orange County.

THE D AY THE T ARZAN D AILIES ENDEDby HENRY G. FRANKE III


6/12

Left: Russ Manning receives the Inkpo t Award at the 1974 San Diego Comic-Con.

Oppo site left: The c artoonist on vacation in Punta Banda withhis new Zodiac bo at and Evinrude motor, Octo ber 1971.

Opposite right: Russ and his mother, Opal, on the road withhis truck, c amper, and the always-inflated Zo diac boat. He took that thing everywhere, recalls daughter Melissa.

(photos courtesy Melissa Manning)

He made it clear that his was a battle of balancing creativity and quality of the strips against the cost to produce them, which meant that he had to decidehow much time he could invest in the strips. As an independent contractor healso had no health insurance, workmans compensation, or pension. The workloadand constant deadlines led Manning to hire assistants, but this came out of hispaycheck, not from ERB, Inc. or UFS, so he had to be judicious in bringing onhelp. In 1969 Mike Royerafter working with Manning for four years, including the first two years of the newspaper stripsleft for better paying work. To keepthings running smoothly ERB, Inc. gave Manning the raise he requested in late1969 to hire another assistant.

In an early version of product placement the cartoonist figured out a way

he might benefit from his Tarzan work beyond the standard paycheck for thestrips. Manning always loved the water, boating, and fishing, and in July 1971phoned both Evinrude Motors and Zodiac of North America, following up withboth through formal correspondence. He told them that he was beginning a new storyline in the daily strip starting on August 23rd of that year, to run for at leasttwelve weeksKorak, the son of Tarzan, would accompany a film crew traveling on expedition upriver in Africa in inflatable boats powered by outboard motors.The boats and motors would be featured in nearly every scene, he explained.They would be illustrated accurately and realistically, using actual models if supplied. Trademarks and emblems would be shown, if possible. There would beno failures in boat or engine; all units would be portrayed as reliable and withoutfault. He reminded both companies that the strip was syndicated worldwide, withapproximately thirty million readers.

He asked Evinrude for a 25-horsepower motor to use as a model in theproduction of the strip, and for my personal use thereafter, in return for thedisplay and promotion. Late in July he told Zodiac, manufacturer of inflatableboats, that he would feature their Mark II and Mark V models in the strip. He

asked that a Mark II be sent to him for photographic purposes, and to be keptfor his private use after its usefulness in the comics strip is complete. He receivedthe inflatable boat at his home on July 26th, assembled it, and had already beguntaking photos of it that same day. His contact with Evinrude and Zodiac was nosecret to ERB, Inc. He furnished copies of all of his correspondence to ERB, Inc.,and even referred both companies to ERB, Inc. in case they wished to negotiatefor the use of these particular strips in public relations or sales campaigns.

Mannings success in acquiring the Zodiac boat is a favorite story of hisdaughter, Melissa, who fondly recalls her father taking photos of wife Dodiein the boat, up on blocks in their front yard, as she modeled for images to beincluded in the Korak storyline. Family vacations centered for many years on

Punta Banda (on the coast of Baja California, Mexico), and the Zodiac boat andits outboard engine were mainstays all those years. The storyline Korak and the

6


7/12

White Water Runner in this volume shows Manning was true to his word to Zodiacand Evinrude (see pages 28-29).

Despite the travails of income and changing markets for theTarzan strips in theU.S., the early 1970s were good years for Tarzan worldwide and Bob Hodes continued

with his business strategy begun in the late 1960s. Part of that strategy concerned theTarzan comic book. Graphic Story World , edited by Richard Kyle, reported in its July 1971 edition that Gold Key would publish its last issue ofTarzan of the Apes with theDecember 1971 issue. ERB, Inc. decided to change publishers because they had beendissatisfied with the series once Manning had left. ERB, Inc. was now aiming for a more mature audience and a publisher faithfully portraying ERBs characters andbackgrounds. (The license would eventually go to DC Comics.) To offer those matureaudiences another graphical interpretation of the ape-man, Hodes had edited anillustrated adaptation of Burroughss originalTarzan of the Apes , blending the noveland ERBs words with new art by Burne Hogarth, eventually published as a hardcoverbook by Watson-Guptill in 1972. Kyle also reported an upsurge in Mannings

newspaper strip overseas, noting that a writer in Japan would novelize some of Mannings storylines.

Sales on the newspaper strip, however, remained flat. In a letter to ERB, Inc. inMay 1972, Manning wrote that Tarzan is the most popular adventure strip in papersit runs in. Ive been told repeatedly, and am convinced that the excitement, interest,and story-telling of myTarzan strip is the equal of any in the newspapersyet it is nocrashing success. The best that can be hoped for is that hanging in there, trying every combination of story, art, and character, will suddenly be in sync with time andcycle.

Manning explained to Hodes that he had again reached the point where heneeded to hire competent help and that inflation had wiped out the benefit of theraise he had previously received in 1969. He also recognized that there might not beenough income from the strips to warrant the requested raise, but Manning remindedHodes that he was the only person writing and drawing an adventure comic strip atthe time without help. The president of UFS confirmed to the cartoonist that foreignsales sustained the strips, which prompted Manning, ever the professional, to ask Hodes if he should emphasize tales that appeal most to those areasand whatdoes appeal there?

7


8/12

The requested raise did not materialize, but Bob Hodes had a differentproposition for the writer/artist. Hodes had toyed with the idea of ERB, Inc.publishing its own comic books in the U.S., but decided to license Tarzan to DCComics. He had more ambitious plans for the illustrated Tarzan overseas. Reprintsof the Tarzan and Korak comic books, in addition to original stories created by local

writers and artists, sold well abroad and had been doing so for many years. Untapped,Hodes told Manning, was another comic-based mediumthe longer-form dubbed thegraphic album. The term applied to a variety of publication formats, but in generalthey were different from standard comic books in that they usually ran forty to sixty pages or more, often with a single extended storyline or linked set of shorter stories,printed slightly larger than regular comic-book dimensions on high-quality paperstock, often in hardcover. Belgian artist HergsTintin in the Land of the Soviets ,published in 1930, is the most prominent early example of the graphic album. By theearly 1970s Hugo Pratts epicCorto Maltese series set the standard in Europe for alladult adventure comics of the decade.

This format was virtually unknown in the U.S. at the time. ERB, Inc. envisionedhigher incomes with a new outlet for Tarzan stories that would be co-produced

through their regular licensees in Europe, Latin America, and elsewhere. Hodes wasalso instituting his plan to reduce ERB, Inc.s reliance on middlemen. The company

would directly take on production of these albums. Manning was a critical part of theplan, as he would create extended forty-six-page stories in their entiretyscripting,layout, penciling, inking, lettering, coloring, and post-productionby himself or withhired help. Eventually the understanding was that an album meant forty-six pages of story, a title page, and the covers, as well as endpapers.

This represented an exciting creative challenge for Manning. He originally signedup to create six albums, with the expectation of a quarterly or better productionschedule. In a 1975 interview with Shel Dorf he remarked that one of the joys of thenewspaper strip was the chance to wing it as you go, increasing the possibility of

unexpected tension and accidents. But the 46-page Tarzan albums are a whole notherbucket of worms. Ive just finished number four, and Ive had to do some pioneering inthis format, since these Tarzan books are among the very first of a new breed. 46 pagesis long much too long to handle like a 15- to 20-page comic book story, andcertainly not like a meandering comic strip.

He enthusiastically continued, A good album must be carefully crafted, withdefinite pacing of storyline, information, density, characterizations, and, wherepossible, even color. Im still learning about this format, of course, but the way Imhandling them seems to have evolved into something closer to movie-making than toany of the usual methods of comic book/strip creation. I block out a rather completeplot and page breakdown, then begin writing and illustrating anywhere I feel like it

Above and op po site: Always o n deadline , Manning at his drawing board. (photos by C lay Miller)

8


9/12

throughout the 46 pages. If, in writing and illustrating a certain sequence, I feel it needsemphasis, it gets more pages than shown on the storyboardrealizing, of course, thatthere must be a corresponding reduction elsewhere. Then, as completion nears, and evenafter completion, it becomes necessary to edit. And I must admit, there have been out-takeson the studio floorpanels, pages, that didnt fit or were too irrelevant. Wasteful,perhaps, but this method allows the maximum freedom to create. These albums are very exciting to do. They are a real challenge, trying to realize the potential inherent in this,the next logical step for first-class graphic stories.

In early 1972, when Manning and Hodes negotiated the terms to create the Tarzanalbums, a critical aspect of their agreement was for a payment in advance of the start of each album, followed by payments in installments, so that Manning could hirecompetent assistance. Manning could also use these assistants to help on the Sunday strips, as his studio would be the hub to produce both projects. He was allowed to keepthe original artwork for the albums, which he couldnt for the newspaper strips.

To maintain a quarterly production of the albums Manning planned to interweave work on these with the Sunday pages. He would concentrate on the Sundays for several weeks in order to get ahead of the UFS deadlines, then devote two months to an album.

The victim in this scheme was theTarzan daily. The continuous deadlines for thesix-days-a-week daily could not be reasonably accommodated when he started creating the albums. In a 1972 issue of Graphic Story World , Manning commented: Itsimpossible for a single person to write and draw an adventure strip, daily and Sundays,over several years. The workload becomes too great. His expected income for thealbums would also exceed what he earned for the daily.

Manning had not planned for the daily to end forever in 1972. To fulfill newspapersubscriptions when Manning closed out his last daily strip, UFS had scheduled six

months of reprints, beginning with the 1947 Burne Hogarth/Dan Barry daily stripadaptation of ERBs original novel,Tarzan at the Earths Core .

On July 3, 1972 Manning reported to Hodes that he would deliver the last daily Tarzan strips to UFS the next week. By August 1st he planned to start work on the firstTarzan quarterly. He noted that advances and time payments would speed up productionand allow him to hire high-quality assistance that will be necessary to stay on schedule.In fact, Manning delivered the first three pages for the premiere album on July 21st. Theproject was on its way.

Meeting timelines quickly became a challenge. Confusion over productionstandards, increasing fees for production materials, and many revisions to the artwork led to significant delays and mounting costs. Originally the plan was to have six albums

9


10/12

completed before the publication of the first one. The long-range vision of Bob Hodes was a series of albums published in hardcover that would havean enduring availability for purchaseto be on sale forever. Instead, it took Manning eight months to complete the first album, Tarzan in the Land That Time Forgot . Coloring was completed on March 31, 1973, with some post-production work still necessary. The final version of the album was deliveredto ERB, Inc. on April 11th. Mannings original tale brought Tarzan intoanother one of ERBs unique lost lands, the prehistoric island of Caspak.

The graphic albums required a higher standard of ar twork and coloring because they were printed on quality paper instead of newsprint. RussManning was one of the first in the United States to adopt the European-style coloring method to ensure better color. Bill Stout, who was assisting Manning at the time on the daily and Sunday Tarzan strips, colored the firsttwo graphic albums. In this method, each page of original black-and-whiteart was photographed to create a film negative. The image was then printed

in black on a sheet of clear acetate, as well as in pale blue ink on whitecardstock paper. This blueline was then colored by hand with markersand gouache. To check the results of coloring, the black-and-white acetate

was taped over the painted blueline so that they would be in register witheach other. The color separations would be shot from the blueline paintings.The acetate provided the solid black separation, which made the black printcrisp and clean.

Based on his research of European formats, Manning had assumeddimensions for the first album closer to regular European comic book production, but he miscalculated. Eventually the precious original artwork

would have to be shipped overseas to the publishers to help them work outformats. In the beginning Manning also created artwork at a levelcommensurate with printing on lower quality paper. As the first album wasclose to completion, Bob Hodes confirmed with Manning that the aim wasto produce quality albums, not comic books. Manning thus put even more

10


11/12

Oppo site: For the European graphic albums, after a page of the o riginal black-and-white art was photographed, the image was printed on a sheet of acetate (left) and colored on a blueline (center). The acetate and the colo red blueline were then com bined for the final printed art.(images courtesy Bill Stout)

Below: Manning with his assistant Dave Stevens (center) and San Diego Comic-Con co-founder Shel Dorf (far right). (photo courtes y Jennifer Bawcum)

Right top: Mike Royer working on twoTarzan Sunday pages#2260 (June 30, 1974) on the drawing board, and #2259 (June 23, 1974) to his left, both from the story line, Return toCastra Sanguinarius. (photo courtesy Mike Royer)

Right bottom: Bill Stout and Royer outside Mannings studio. (photo courtesy Bill Stout)

11


12/12

12

Documents

Tarzan: The Complete Russ Manning Newspaper Strips, Vol. 3: 1971-1974 Preview