During his run in Italy (1950-1967), he was exported to France for 700+ issues, Germany for 500+ issues, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, and Greece (where he was renamed Tarzan). Hundreds of issues appeared through the 1960s and 1970s, with ironic "new adventures" in the 1990s.
Amazon.fr has them for sale for between 5 and 10 euros.
Some of the rarest appeared in this single-strip per page format. Here Akim fights the Biblical muscleman Samson.
Count Frederick Rank, the British ambassador to Calcutta, is shipwrecked on the wild coast of Africa along with his wife and infant son, Jim. The parents soon die, leaving the toddler to be raised by gorillas.
In most adventures, they leave Rita back at the tree house and venture out as a pair, leaving all of the gay subtexts of the 1940s Tarzan movies starring Johnny Weissmuller and Johnny Sheffield.
Sometimes Jim goes out adventuring on his own, requiring Akim to rescue him from the usual jungle poachers, cannibals, and lost civilizations, as well as aliens, mad scientists, and dinosaurs.
Whether they're speaking French, German, Italian, or Dutch, the buddy-bonding is easy to spot.
This one looks like fun I love how Jim is drawn as All American jock type
ReplyDeleteAITA because I just don't see gay subtext between a man and a prepuberty boy? (Tarzan and Boy, I mean.) Like, I know Tom of Finland did a parody of Tarzan, and I have that parody (Boy is now a man in his 20s.), but if they can be read as father and son, I go there first. Mind, for more similar ages I'm all over that
ReplyDeleteAlso, damn the Burroughs estate was terrible at enforcing IP rights with all these pastiches.
I usually go with father-son if the boy is prepubescent or early teen. If the boy is late teen, say, high school junior or later, I usually do a gay-subtext reading. But it depends on how the characters treat each other; if the man is helping a 20 year old with his homework and telling him to be home by 11:00, it's still paternal
DeleteSometimes I wonder about older gay icons. Johnny Sheffield was like, 8 when Tarzan Finds a Son was released. Robin was canonically 8 in Detective Comics 38, and was mostly seen as dating Batman because of one man's homophobic ravings (and really, there is no excuse for ignoring the obvious fact of Superbat, or since the 80s, the various Teen Titans options).
DeleteI get the reason: The heterosexual age of consent was often 12 to 14 in those days (and child marriage still exists in this country), and the penalty for sex with another guy was the same regardless of age, for both of them. And boys experimented during puberty, oftentimes only ceasing at marriage. As I said, I get it, but for my generation, yeah.
I don't think that Johnny Sheffield was a gay icon at age 8. His article in "Cruising the Movies" is about the Bomba series, which appeared when he was in his 20s.
DeleteI meant Tarzan and Boy, which are gay icons
DeleteIt's the thing about the kid sidekick trope.
Now of course, if you can afford the cast, they can have friends, brothers, and cousins, especially part of a larger universe. It's specifically the father-son aspect I take issue with.
Personally I'm enjoying Archive of Our Own's meltdown over this issue and the assertion that one candidate for the board is a shill for the CCP.