Tarzan Annual [1975]

[1974] Annual. Original price 95p.
80 pages. Full colour and tone contents.
Brown Watson Ltd.

Painted cover by UNKNOWN (uncredited).

Contents:

 3 Tarzan Annual title page; [Tarzan and the jungle animals] illustrated by UNKNOWN (uncredited).

 4 The Waters of the Underworld text story by UNKNOWN (uncredited); illustrated by UNKNOWN (uncredited).

10 African Animals Quiz illustrated by UNKNOWN (uncredited).

12 The Iron Warriors text story by UNKNOWN (uncredited); illustrated by UNKNOWN (uncredited).

17 City of Gold w: UNKNOWN (uncredited); a: John Celardo.

r: newspaper strip.

65 Africa fact feature by UNKNOWN (uncredited); illustrated by UNKNOWN (uncredited).

66 The Fires of Kimjaro text story by UNKNOWN (uncredited); illustrated by UNKNOWN (uncredited).

72 Did You Know? fact feature by UNKNOWN (uncredited); illustrated by UNKNOWN (uncredited).

74 The Serpent's Sting text story by UNKNOWN (uncredited); illustrated by UNKNOWN (uncredited).

A far more accomplished cover painting adorns the cover of this edition, though maintaining a link with what has gone before, by utilising another green background, creates a sense of continuity in the series. Even the most devoted of fans are likely to view the hero's celebratory pose - upon killing a gorilla - to be in slightly poor taste, and so the trend for tone-deaf packaging continues. One could suppose, as mere idle speculation, that someone at Brown Watson didn't care for the character, and were deliberately sabotaging the odds of this series success...

Reprinting (the complete?) City of Gold strip from the newspaper run is a step towards the kind of prestige presentation which the character deserves, but the accompanying text stories are predictable, dull, and essentially irrelevant. While there are certainly attractive pieces of art throughout the title, they do not add up to a cohesive or entirely entertaining whole.

It does, however, carry a feature on non-fiction feature on Africa, which is a little nudge towards the kind of treatment I would expect to see.

1974

Tarzan Annual

1976