Info on Ka-Zar Orgin

[hugh45]

I always thought that Jack Kirby create Ka-Zar,but found out he didn't. I've been trying to find more info on Ka-Zar and why JKK choose him. Since y guys are good here about 'ol school comics........


http://www.philsp.com/mags/adventure_g-m.html

http://www.philsp.com/data/images/k/...3610_v1_n1.jpg

[Cei-U!]

I always thought that Jack Kirby create Ka-Zar,but found out he didn't. I've been trying to find more info on Ka-Zar and why JKK choose him. Since y guys are good here about 'ol school comics........

Jack Kirby (and Stan Lee, of course) did create the contemporary Ka-Zar, just as they created the FF's Human Torch. The Golden Age original, who started as a pulp character before appearing in early issues of Marvel Mystery Comics, differed from the familiar version in being set in Africa and his companion being a lion named Zar.

Cei-U!
I summon the straight skinny!

[emb021]

Adding to that.

What many comic book collectors don't know (or are oblivious to) is that most comic book companies were actually part of a larger publisher, most of whom also published books, magazines of several sorts, including pulp magazines. Some operated under the same name (ex: Dell, Street & Smith, etc), while others hide this with a variety of publisher names for their comics and magazines (sometimes using multiple names at the same time to separate their pulp mags from their slicks from their more adult fare). This was done sometimes to avoid any financial issues between the lines, or to keep any fallout from their adult lines from affecting the rest.

Martin Goodman, who established what is now known as Marvel, did this. Comics where just one thing he did. He had a variety of pulp magazine lines and separate adult magazine line. (bet a lot of comic book collectors have no idea about his adult mags...)

What also happened is that sometimes characters from one line crossed over to another. Usually pulps to comics. Comics to pulps is VERY rare.

Street & Smith had all their pulp magazine characters appear in their comic line. Not just the more well known Doc Savage and Shadow, but also The Avenger, Whisperer, Nick Carter, Pete Rice, Bill Barnes, etc.

Other publishers this wasn't always the case, as with the Thrilling line which did use their popular Phantom Detective for some stories, and Black Bat under a different name, but not much else. The pulp Captain Future was totally different from the comic book Captain Future, for instance.

There wasn't much crossover with Goodman, probably because his line didn't create much in the way of 'pulp heroes'. There is Ka-Zar, Angel Detective, and I think that's about it.

[hugh45]

WoW!! Nice to learn new things. I never knew Ka-Zar started in the 30's and when people talk about old MU characters,his name is never mention. Gotta love the classic thread

[CromagnonMan]

WoW!! Nice to learn new things. I never knew Ka-Zar started in the 30's and when people talk about old MU characters,his name is never mention. Gotta love the classic thread

thats because he's not the same character that appeared in the 1930's, the Ka-Zar we know nowadays first appeared in the 1960's so he's really not that old. It's probably OK to mention that the original Ka-zar was pretty much ripped off from Edgar Rice Burrough's Tarzan (who originated the white-man-in-the-jungle premise i believe in the early 1900's?) even down to the similar sounding name.

[An Ear In The Fireplace]

Of course, the feral child is probably a much older story type (myths are riddled with these--Romulus and Remus were raised by a she-wolf). Mowgli (a feral child in India, published 1893), Tarzan (a feral child in Africa, published 1912), and Rima (a feral child in South America, published 1904) are the three well-known versions that pulp and comics publishers cloned in some form. There doesn't seem to be a publisher that didn't have at least one jungle hero in their stable.

[emb021]

If you want to read the original pulp Ka-Zar stories, Atlus Press (www.altuspress.com) has reprinted them in one volume entitle "King of Fang & Claw".

Probably the most popular Tarzan 'clone' is the pulp character Ki-Gor, which appeared in nearly 60 novels in the 40s and 50s. Atlus Press is doing a reprint series of the original ones (2 volumes out so far with about 5-6 stories each). And since he's in the public domain, others have created new Ki-Gor stories. Wildcat Books had done 2 volumes of new Ki-Gor stories. This allows authors to basically write "Tarzan" stories without getting in trouble with ERBinc. :)

Other Tarzan clones from pulp and comics include Kaanga, Matalaa, and Sheena.