Tarzan - The Lost Adventure!

Raymond Verdaguer

The way I understand it, the story behind Tarzan - The Lost Adventure is that they discovered an unfinished Tarzan manuscript by ERB himself tucked away in a vault. After decades of wrangling it was decided to finish this untold Tarzan tale and make it part of the official canon. At the time Dark Horse had the Tarzan license and so they got the privilege of bringing forth this "new" Tarzan. Not everyone was happy with it, but then that was never in the cards.

Dean Williams

Joe R. Lansdale, a writer mostly famous for his quirky horror stories, including the tale which inspired the movie Bubba Ho-tep (go here for more on this seriously awesome flick), was tagged to finish the saga which ERB had begun so many decades before. Admittedly I find Lansdale an odd choice, but not necessarily an unworthy one. Anyone given this task would have found it a thankless one. 

Before being published in both hardback and paperback, the story was serialized (a nice traditional way to originally present the story) in four parts. The covers for each of these four installments was done by Arthur Suydam and the interior illustrations were done partially by Tom Yeates, the same artist who had made his Tarzan mark on the earlier "The Beckoning" from Malibu. Gary Gianni, Charles Vess, and Mike Kaluta also contributed.

As I recollect these four books, which I have tumbling around here somewhere, featured not only the "new" Tarzan story, but also showcased some vintage John Carter of Mars newspaper comic strips by ERB's son John Coleman Burroughs.

I later bought the distinctive Del Rey paperback, which sported an oddly attractive woodcut-like cover. It's been many years since read this one. It might be time to dig it out again.

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