Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875-1950) was the creator and author of the twenty five Tarzan books first published in 1912. Tarzan immediately becomes a famous and successful hero who is very popular in America and the rest of the world. In 1923 he founded Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc., which still belongs to the family today, registers the Tarzan brand for the management of rights and who have historically exploited the brand in various types of merchandising (toys, food, clothing, fuel, etc ...).
Burroughs and his creature Tarzan inaugurate a new trend and a new narrative model before the great epic of super heroes (Superman, Captain America, etc.), Walt Disney and the blockbusters (King Kong) born in the thirties. The book becomes the content generator adaptable to other mass media. Cinema, comics and then radio and television immediately appropriated the maximum dissemination of Tarzan starting to depopulate since silent cinema (1918) forward with a series of legendary films that will remain in the history of cinema: in addition to majors interesting to note that even Andy Warhol in 1964 came out with the film “Tarzan and Jane Regained… Sort of”.
But the best way to tell the fantastic tales of the Monkey King was the comic strip (1929). The diffusion and storytelling ability of comics has built the myth and legend of Tarzan and other characters for many generations. The cartoonists (Hal Foster, Burne Hogarth) have contributed without fail to create a more glamorous and more seductive style. Thus the cartoon Tarzan becomes the archetype which will affect all super heroes born after that.
More than a hundred years after Tarzan's birth, Burroughs must be considered unpioneer and innovatgold undisputed of a new style of communication, a new language and a way of doing business, licensing, which set the trend and which is still widely used today.
If Tarzan was featured all over the mass media and ushered in a new era of the entertainment industry, it could also be argued that he was among the founding fathers of collecting including comics over time between new art forms for its powerful force to create new languages. Subsequently, the comic also becomes a work of art with the contributions of pop art (Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, Mr. Brainwash) who, most likely, were avid readers of Tarzan's novels when they were young. In addition, there have been many exhibitions and a lot of literature on the subject, also to acclaim other comics such as Micky Mouse as art.
"The weak and fools are often very skilled in enchanting the fairer sex, while warriors capable of facing a thousand dangers without any fear hide in the shadows like frightened children."Edgar Rice Burroughs
All the Best!
