Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan #3
Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan #3 (Dell, May–June 1948) carries a double first-appearance distinction that makes it one of the most narratively significant early issues in the entire Dell run: it marks the comic-book series debut of Jane Porter Clayton, Tarzan's wife, and of their adopted son Jack Clayton (known throughout the series as Boy). These two characters were central to the domestic, family-oriented tone that distinguished the Dell Tarzan from every prior comic-strip or pulp incarnation of the character. By bringing the full Clayton family unit together in just the third issue, writer Gaylord DuBois and artist Jesse Marsh signaled that their Tarzan would be as much a story about fatherhood and household as about jungle adventure, a tonal choice that shaped the series for its entire 131-issue Dell run.
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The issue was scripted by Gaylord DuBois—who, beginning with issue #2, would write virtually all of the Dell Tarzan stories across more than two decades—and drawn and covered by Jesse Marsh, a former Walt Disney Studios animator who had left Disney in 1947 to work for Western Publishing full time. Marsh's collaboration with DuBois, launched in the previous issue, would run nearly nineteen years before Marsh's failing health caused him to hand the series to Russ Manning in 1965. The Dell series itself had grown out of two earlier Four Color Comics tryout issues (#134 and #161, both 1947), and by issue #3 the creative template—full-color, 36-page original stories supplemented by an ongoing Ape-English Dictionary feature—was firmly established. The issue's cover and interior art are entirely by Marsh, and the Ape-English Dictionary pages represent the third installment of that recurring educational feature.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Published May–June 1948 by Dell Publishing Co. Inc.; 36 pages, full color.
- Main story title: 'Tarzan and the Dwarfs of Didona' — Boy, chased by a leopard, is stranded on a fog-shrouded island where a tribe of white dwarves plans to sacrifice him.
- First comic-book series appearance of Jane Porter Clayton (Tarzan's wife), introduced as a supporting character in this issue.
- First comic-book series appearance of Jack Clayton, Tarzan's adopted son, known throughout the Dell run as 'Boy.'
- Script by Gaylord DuBois; art and cover by Jesse Marsh — the same creative team that would define the series for nearly two decades.
- Contains Part Three of Jesse Marsh's ongoing Ape-English Dictionary, a recurring educational feature that ran across the early issues of the series.
- Issues #1–12 of the Dell series (including this one) featured drawn covers by Marsh; later issues would shift to photo covers and then painted covers.
- Reprinted in Dark Horse's hardcover archive 'Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan: The Jesse Marsh Years, Volume 1' (2009), which collected Dell Four Color #134, #161, and Dell Tarzan #1–4.