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Sunday, May 19, 2013

Number 1369: Tarzan the spider-man

Last time we saw Tarzan he was helping Queen La take over a lost city of cavemen (Pappy's #1333). Today we have another Dell Tarzan story featuring another queen, another lost city, and a really big spider.

After you read the story, read our favorite œconomist, Daniel, and his explanation for why spiders cannot get this big, from a comment to the blog, Four Color Shadows.

“The Webs of Arrack” was written by Gaylord DuBois and drawn by Jesse Marsh. From Tarzan #25 (1951):

























More Tarzan stories. Just click the pics.

Happy 100th birthday, Tarzan:


















Jungle Déjà Vu:
















 Tarzan boy:

2 comments:

Daniel [oeconomist.com] said...

I'm unsurprisingly reminded of the giant spiders of Fletcher Hanks.

The scent of spider is very distinctive and very strong to me (and I found the odor quite repulsive long before I knew that it was theirs). Perhaps the smell of a giant spider would be very different, but I think that Tarzan should have recognized it.

I note that 8:5 seems to borrow a particular element from Haggard's She. In Haggard's book, Bilali (who has taken a fondness to Holly) instructs Holly to emulate him in kneeling and crawling to meet She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed. (Holly refuses to do so, less from Tarzanian egoism than from a sense that an Englishman ought not to behave thus.)

Marsh seems to have used a Minoan woman as his model for Mataha, and to have flirted with the idea of drawing her with her breasts covered only by her hair.

Pappy said...

Daniel, I never got close enough to a live spider to smell it. They are usually squashed on the bottom of my shoe or rolled-up newspaper. But then, even if I put my snoot right on a spider I might not smell it, having a damaged smeller to go along with my dimming eyeballs and hearing disability.