Thursday, October 7, 2010

TARZAN COMICS IN TURKEY IN THE WARTIME ERA (AND BEYOND)



The serialization of Tarzan comics in b&w in Ülkü's children's weekly magazine Afacan, where comics of E.R.Burrough's jungle hero had made their Turkish debut in 1935, had ceased in 1939. Meanwhile, rival publisher Tahsin Demiray's Türkiye Yayınevi had began to publish the weekly 1001 Roman which allocated the majority of its pages to comics. With no. 78 (dated Dec. 30th, 1940), 'Tarzan' began to be serialized in color on the covers of this magazine, marking the color debut of Tarzan comics in Turkey. 1001 Roman started its run of Tarzan with an adventure where Tarzan encounters a Chinese colony which had been serialized as a Sunday newspaper continuity by Burne Hogarth in 1938-39 in the US. In addition, one issue of the monthly 'special issue' series of 1001 Roman also featured a Tarzan comics credited to the Turkish artist Ekrem Dülek (covered in the below post in this blog from Sept. 26). 'Tarzan' continued to be serialized on the covers of the weekly edition of 1001Roman without any breaks until the magazine folded in 1946.
Post-script - Brief overview of Tarzan comics in Turkey after the war:
In the post-war era, poorly traced Tarzan comics appeared in several Turkish magazines, an early example being 'Tarzan' serialized in Çocuk Alemi in 1948. The proper reprints of US Tarzan Sunday newspaper comics were ran in the supplement of Vatan newspaper in 1951.
The first Turkish comics magazine headlining Burrough's jungle hero would be the short-lived Tarzan published by Nihat Özcan in 1951. However, the longer-running Tarzan comics magazine from the late 1960s as well as its follow-up Süper Tarzan from the 1970s and 1980s would actually feature the Italian Tarzan-clone comics Akim! In similar vein, the 'Tarzan' photo-strip serialized in Yeni 1001 Roman in the late 1960s is actually Italian Tarzan clone photo-strip Antar. Meanwhile, the 'real' Tarzan comics would be serialized in children's magazines Doğan Kardeş with occasional breaks between 1967-77 and in Milliyet Çocuk in the 1980s.
It should also be noted that two parody-comics of Tarzan would be made in Turkey as well: 'Tarzan Eski Dünyalarda' [Tarzan In Ancient Worlds] scripted by Bülent Oran and illustrated by Suat Yalaz, serialized in satire/humour magazine Dolmuş in 1957 and the hugely popular 'Tarzan', later retitled as 'Tarzan ve Arap Kadri' [Tarzan and Kadri the Arab], serialized in Fırt from 1976 onwards.

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