The Burroughsian Roast

Hello there, fellow sincere pulp fiction fans, let’s admit that there are no true adaptations of the Tarzan brand canon mythos, partly because the ERB Universe is in fact a South Asian Soap Opera style Multiverse way too crazy to be considered conventionally adaptable. Instead it inspires so many malleable variants that most people, even today, can’t help but only let academic peeps comprehend the true Evangelion like mind screw that is Edgar Rice Burroughs’ own Tarzan canon. 

Just look at the malleability of the non-canon Tarzan stuff for a very good reason; it’s that so many people around the world prefer more evenly balanced and realistically proportioned Tarzans over the gothic mind screwy nightmare fuel known as the Edgar Rice Burroughs Universe canon Tarzan. 

The king of the jungle swingers’ actual absurdity ain’t expected in the long run, but a lot of us public domain book geeks shall know that the Tarzan brand’s rights holder and owner has a pretty good reason to keep its in-canon Tarzan from the much more loved gentle compromises (mundanity and prettiness mixed together) of many other Tarzans. That’s because it now has the power to compete with both Neon Genesis Evangelion and many of the worst shows in modern South Asian history, on a regular basis this time around. 

Hemant Birje, Bo Derek, Frank Zane, Miles O’Keeffe and Kimi Katkar have all sneakily made the ERB Universe Canon designation possible. Then again, it’s pretty telling when even Jules Verne, Karl May and Emilio Salgari’s works make up with somewhat grounded characters adapted from and based rather loosely upon real life, but although they’re still pulpy fiction, they’re just not as much of a brain frying mind-screw as the ERB Universe canon. 

Well, the in-canon Tarzan books have gotten some surprising respect from a few Dragon Ball, Baki, Evangelion and One Piece fans of all things, since the tons of adventure and romance tropes in them still remain with us even today, and it’s also thanks to the mind frying fan service and flingers of both Jane Porter and La of Opar known to fanservice shills and sea-lioning beancounters worldwide. Anyways, those Tarzan books still have more in common with the tons of already 'gone horribly right' soap operas in South Asian tv stations, which is partly due to 9/11 and its global long term impact on the human psyche. That’s right, it’s got a lot in common with the corporate AF soapies which have scared off even this decade’s (otherwise regionally diverse) South Asian standards shitless. 

Not only is that still finally happening throughout this decade, many former readers have long exited and will still exit from reading the Tarzan part of what’s now called the ERB universe, due to how mind frying and mind screwy it will become in the long run. However, it’s just more likely that, as ERB himself was roasted and deprecated by countless readers on an international scale from the years before even WW2 had happened, the few consistently professional reviewers, which the brand does have, are still more affable to its dimension-building significance alone. No wonder why it’s so mind screwy it’s been boggling our minds since before ERB himself passed away.  

But on the other hand.. the ERBU canon’s still in a Gainaxing league of its own and will generally, but not always, stay away from what most people have long known about the many different Tarzans with the same names attached. And by making that not so fun factoid too clear, the in-canon Tarzan looks like an orc, which doesn’t amuse us as much at the least, but still sadly fits because in fairness, ERB was a masterful poop-addled flinger on merchandise overload mind screw mode. 

It’s a good reason why the canonical world of Tarzan is like that, because ERB wanted to but simply couldn’t move out of fantasy pulp fiction for the rest of his life. Still, it doesn’t help much that most generations of both young and old people do not know Edgar Rice Burroughs’ own mad marketing mastery at all. From the 1930s to the 60s, Tarzan of the Apes was shamelessly marketed in what’s now the style of Sanrio’s Hello Kitty, which in turn had its company’s marketing lessons taken from Tarzan himself via Snoopy from Peanuts. Albeit that caveat came with loads of more questionable merch, from spears and pith helmets to petrol and the more innocuous ice cream. 

Even after ERB passed away, the shilling trash heap of pre-mid 1960s Tarzan merch preceded the current, longer term invasion of Garfield, TMNT, My Melody and Prince of Tennis merch in the world’s urban stores. It’s one of the reasons why the studying of his works shall be known as Burroughsology, in a similar way to the studying of Jin Yong’s perennial wuxia works being known as Jinology to attract university goers.  

Since the whole Tarzan series debuted on what’s now called Argosy, it’s a rather more mind screwing spiritual prototype for Evangelion, albeit covered in tons of unassuming, sci-fi action and adventure fantasy paints. Keep in mind that Canuck Burroughs scholar (or should I say Burroughsologist) Den Valdron does note that it’s also filled with hellish mangani realms and creature breeding, tech driven dystopias.

The insanely messed up canonical life of ERBU Korak is practically why most (non-canonical) versions of him are preferred over the actual dude himself, as comic artists and writers would try their best not to traumatise a huge majority of current Korak fans as much as possible. Tellingly, this means that Meriem is actually somewhat luckier in comparison, because she has more resilience and the pluck to do something big and dirty, even in spite of also having a tortured life. 

Also, ERB Universe Tarzan is more of a proto Hulk deity character (a lordly adventurer and an apeman raised by apemen) than a hero who rescues both animals and humans, being such an unintentionally neglectful parent that neither Korak nor even Korak’s canonically short lived son Jackie will see him much for a long time. Just as neglectful of a parent as Tarzan, is his masculine looking wife Jane Porter as well. In fairness, it’s partly because many places in the canonical Tarzan books are so full of cartoonishly evil creeps worthy enough to compete with real life history’s own nuttiest villains, maybe that’s why they’re all separated frequently.

It’s probably for the best that the original ERB Universe is still so nuts it’s largely unadapted, indicating that most of its current writers turn out to be more thoughtfully consistent yet much more frank than creator ERB himself. Then again, since masterful poop-addled flinger ERB had to churn the brainrot out in droves, he viewed his works like brain-rotting crap, which remain a good indicator that he couldn’t reread the stories themselves. That being said, the partly deliberate enshittification of his otherwise entertaining works was likely a poignant lesson in how a new canon writer may as well be an improvement over the original author in so many ways. It’s also thanks to the internet’s explosive rise that it’s an unbuilt kind of madness best visualised by Roy Thomas’ in-canon webcomic Tarzan of the Apes (named for the first book but covering the whole life of Tarzan).