The United States Postal Service will issue a postage stamp on world famous Cartoon Character Tarzan, the ape man in 2012. The design of the stamp has already been finalized. The stamp will become hot favorite of stamp collectors all over the world.
Tarzan is a fictional character, an archetypal feral child raised in the African jungles by the Mangani "great apes"; he later returns to civilization only to largely reject it and return to the wild as a heroic adventurer. Created by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan first appeared in the novel Tarzan of the Apes (magazine publication 1912, book publication 1914), and then in twenty-five sequels, three authorized books by other authors, and innumerable works in other media.
The U.S. Postal Service joins with fans around the world in celebrating the centennial of a cultural phenomenon.
This stamp shows Tarzan, Edgar Rice Burroughs’ most famous literary creation, clinging to a tree by a vine in his left hand and wielding a weapon in his right. Burroughs appears in profile in the background. Hulbert Burroughs, the author’s son, took the 1934 photograph that served as the basis for the stamp portrait of Burroughs. The depiction of Tarzan is artist Sterling Hundley’s own interpretation of the character.
In the past century, Burroughs’ Tarzan stories have been published in magazines, syndicated in newspapers, and republished in more than 24 books, while the Tarzan character has grown into a phenomenon beyond the printed word. In 1918, the silent film Tarzan of the Apes became the first of more than 50 Tarzan movies. Tarzan also became the subject of a comic strip beginning in 1929, radio series in the 1930s and the 1950s, and several television series in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. Today, Tarzan is a ubiquitous part of American popular culture.
Burroughs is also remembered for writing historical fiction and several popular series of science fiction tales, especially the 11 books in his famous “John Carter of Mars” series. A new film adaptation of Burroughs’ Mars series is scheduled for release in 2012.
The Tarzan character
Tarzan is the son of a British Lord and Lady who were marooned on the West coast of Africa by mutineers. When Tarzan was a year old, his mother died of natural causes, and his father was killed by Kerchak, leader of the ape tribe into which Tarzan was adopted. Tarzan's tribe of apes is known as the Mangani, Great Apes of a species unknown to science. Kala is his ape mother. Tarzan (White-skin) is his ape name; his English name is John Clayton, Lord Greystoke In fact, Burroughs's narrator in Tarzan of the Apes, describes both Clayton and Greystoke as fictitious names – implying that, within the fictional world that Tarzan inhabits, he may have a different real name.
As a young adult, Tarzan meets a young American woman, Jane Porter, who along with her father and others of their party is marooned at exactly the same spot on the African coast where Tarzan's parents were twenty years earlier. When she returns to America, he leaves the jungle in search of her, his one true love. In later books, Tarzan and Jane marry and he lives with her for a time in England. They have one son, Jack, who takes the ape name Korak ("the Killer"). Tarzan is contemptuous of the hypocrisy of civilization, and he and Jane return to Africa, making their home on an extensive estate that becomes a base for Tarzan's later adventures.
In Tarzan, Burroughs created an extreme example of a hero figure largely unalloyed with character flaws or faults. He is described as being Caucasian, extremely athletic, tall, handsome, and tanned, with grey eyes and black hair. Emotionally, he is courageous, loyal and steadfast. He is intelligent and learns new languages easily. He is presented as behaving ethically in most situations, except when seeking vengeance under the motivation of grief, as when his ape mother Kala is killed in Tarzan of the Apes, or when he believes Jane has been murdered in Tarzan the Untamed. He is deeply in love with his wife and totally devoted to her; in numerous situations where other women express their attraction to him, Tarzan politely but firmly declines their attentions. When presented with a situation where a weaker individual or party is being preyed upon by a stronger foe, Tarzan invariably takes the side of the weaker party. In dealing with other men Tarzan is firm and forceful. With male friends he is reserved but deeply loyal and generous. As a host, he is likewise generous and gracious. As a leader, he commands devoted loyalty.
In keeping with these noble characteristics, Tarzan's philosophy embraces an extreme form of "return to nature". Although he is able to pass within society as a civilized individual, he prefers to "strip off the thin veneer of civilization", as Burroughs often puts it. His preferred dress is a knife and a loincloth of animal hide, his preferred abode is any convenient tree branch when he desires to sleep, and his favored food is raw meat, killed by himself; even better if he is able to bury it a week so that putrefaction has had a chance to tenderize it a bit.
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