Tarzan: The Complete Russ Manning Newspaper Strips Volume 4 by Russ ManningMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Tarzan: The Complete Russ Manning Newspaper Strips Volume 4 concludes the collections of Tarzan newspaper strips with all the color Sunday strips from 1974 to 1979.
The foreword is a little depressing. Were any of these guys appreciated while they were alive? The aborted line of European ERB comics headed by Manning was so much wasted potential. I wonder if any Alex Toth pages from the project still exist.
Anyway, Russ Manning is king of the comics jungle. In this volume, Tarzan and/or Korak take on squid cultists, visit Pellucidar, visit Pal Ul Don, fight warriors riding giant insects, fight various dinosaurs and mammoths, and generally have fantastic adventures in an Africa that never was. Manning was such a great artist that flying a dirigible into the vast cavern in the center of the earth actually looked cool rather than ridiculous.
It's sad that the strip eventually became unprofitable but I guess it's better than hiring cheap artists or beating the dead horse into hamburger like most long running strips. They definitely don't make them like this anymore.
Tarzan: The Complete Russ Manning Newspaper Strips Volume 4 was a sad farewell but a fitting sendoff for both kings of the jungle, Tarzan and Russ Manning. Four out of five stars.
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