A few years ago, before I read Harry Potter and decided I wanted to write childrens books, I was drawing comic books and thinking of going back to school to become an animator. Hand-drawn Disney movies like Mulan, Beauty and the Beast, and especially Tarzan, were a major influence on my art and I thought it would be fun to eventually draw for the mouse. At one point I decided to write and pencil a ten page Disney-styled Tarzan comic book sample as part of a submission package to Dark Horse comics (they had the license to create Disney comics at the time). I put several days into the work below, but unfortunately the pages were accidentally destroyed before I could finish them. Here they are, unfinished, with a description of what's taking place on each page. First, the premise of the story:
(Backstory -Tarzan and Jane have married and are the proud parents of a baby boy.) Tarzan has been kidnapped, taken to London and imprisoned in a secret room in the attic of the British Museum of Natural History. Jane does not realize that her husband is no longer in Africa and she hunts for Tarzan in the jungle, her newborn son in tow. She ventures into a cursed place, a place where evil gorillas are sent when banished, a mammoth cave system that cuts directly through the Verunga mountain range.
Inside the cave Jane finds a troupe of banished gorillas, now being led by Tarzan’s father, who was not killed as Nala, Tarzan’s gorilla mother, first thought. When Tarzan’s father regained consciousness after the leopard attack and found his wife dead and his son missing, he went mad and pursued the leopard into the jungle. He came upon the cave and entered. The last twenty years of his life remain a mystery, even to him. Now he has taken on the role of leader to the banished gorillas and upon meeting his grandson for the first time, through his madness, he mistakes the boy for the infant he lost all of those years ago. He sees Jane as the leopard taken human form, and orders his gorilla subjects to kill her and bring the baby to him.
Page 1). The museum currator meets a reknowned anthropologist and they enter the museum which has been closed for maintenance. Since the real museum is filled with taxidermied animals, I decided to fill this one with stuffed Disney animals in hopes of amusing the submission editor. In this page you can see Tantor the elephant. The museum workers to the bottom left are carrying a glass case which I was going to fill with Disney rodents: Mickey, Minnie, the Rescuers, Basil, etc. The area at the upper right is blank because that's where I was going to draw a "flying" Dumbo hanging from a wire.
Page 2). In the first panel of page two, the two men ascend to the upper floors of the museum. Below them we see taxidermied Jungle Book characters Bagheera (Panther) and Baloo (Bear) staged in mortal combat. In the next panel the men walk down a long hallway, past a display where Rifiki is holding baby Simba in the air on Pride Rock. In the third panel they pass a grown Bambi and his mate Faline. I didn't finish the bottom half of the page. In it the museum currator opens a secret door and ushers the other man inside.
Page 3). In this pages two panels, the anthropologist is shocked to find Tarzan being held captive inside of a thick, glass cage. Tarzan is obviously terrified by his situation. The information plaque below the cage claims that he is a missing link between man and ape.
(Backstory -Tarzan and Jane have married and are the proud parents of a baby boy.) Tarzan has been kidnapped, taken to London and imprisoned in a secret room in the attic of the British Museum of Natural History. Jane does not realize that her husband is no longer in Africa and she hunts for Tarzan in the jungle, her newborn son in tow. She ventures into a cursed place, a place where evil gorillas are sent when banished, a mammoth cave system that cuts directly through the Verunga mountain range.
Inside the cave Jane finds a troupe of banished gorillas, now being led by Tarzan’s father, who was not killed as Nala, Tarzan’s gorilla mother, first thought. When Tarzan’s father regained consciousness after the leopard attack and found his wife dead and his son missing, he went mad and pursued the leopard into the jungle. He came upon the cave and entered. The last twenty years of his life remain a mystery, even to him. Now he has taken on the role of leader to the banished gorillas and upon meeting his grandson for the first time, through his madness, he mistakes the boy for the infant he lost all of those years ago. He sees Jane as the leopard taken human form, and orders his gorilla subjects to kill her and bring the baby to him.
Page 1). The museum currator meets a reknowned anthropologist and they enter the museum which has been closed for maintenance. Since the real museum is filled with taxidermied animals, I decided to fill this one with stuffed Disney animals in hopes of amusing the submission editor. In this page you can see Tantor the elephant. The museum workers to the bottom left are carrying a glass case which I was going to fill with Disney rodents: Mickey, Minnie, the Rescuers, Basil, etc. The area at the upper right is blank because that's where I was going to draw a "flying" Dumbo hanging from a wire.
Page 2). In the first panel of page two, the two men ascend to the upper floors of the museum. Below them we see taxidermied Jungle Book characters Bagheera (Panther) and Baloo (Bear) staged in mortal combat. In the next panel the men walk down a long hallway, past a display where Rifiki is holding baby Simba in the air on Pride Rock. In the third panel they pass a grown Bambi and his mate Faline. I didn't finish the bottom half of the page. In it the museum currator opens a secret door and ushers the other man inside.
Page 3). In this pages two panels, the anthropologist is shocked to find Tarzan being held captive inside of a thick, glass cage. Tarzan is obviously terrified by his situation. The information plaque below the cage claims that he is a missing link between man and ape.
Page 4). We cut to the African jungle at night. The first panel is an establishing shot. The jungle is alive with nocturnal animals, including a monkey who is courting another with the gift of a giant nut. In the next panel, partially lit by the moon, we find Jane in a tree. Her son is riding inside of a pack strapped to her back. In the years since the Disney movie, Jane has adapted quickly to jungle life. She is a strong, agile, confident woman now (and admittedly has more cleavage than I probably should have bestowed upon her). In the third panel, Jane (silhouetted on the right) has finally found the gorilla-faced cave where rumor has it that an evil spirit dwells. Jane believes this evil spirit has taken her husband and she is determined to save him.
Pages 5-6). Jane enters the cave, which turns out to be a massive geode. There she finds a troop of banished, menacing gorillas. She is confronted by a silverback named Mogon. Jane does not back down and Mogon is amused. Jane demands to be taken to the "evil spirit". Mogon finds this humorous.
Page 7). Mogon leads Jane to a throne room. The throne has been carved out of the geode. Sitting upon it is Lord John Greystoke, Tarzan's father. When he reveals his identity to Jane, she refuses to believe him until...
Page 8). He opens a rusty pocket watch to reveal a tattered photo of himself, his wife Alice and their son, baby Tarzan. Baby Tarzan looks exactly like her son. John Greystoke has gone mad. He believes she is the leopard that killed his wife and that the infant on her back is actually his "stolen" son, baby Tarzan. In the next several panels (and pages), Greystoke, in a flashback, explains what happened on that fateful day when the leopard attacked his family's treehouse. After regaining consciousness and lifting a piece of the roof off of himself, he found Alice killed by the leopard. He then checks the bassonet to find it empty.
Page 9). Flashback continues (We seen present Greystoke's pained facial expressions in circle overlays as he tells the story). Determined to find his missing son, Greystoke leaves the treehouse and heads into the jungle, following the leopards tracks. In the bottom three panels it is pouring out. The jungle is pitch black except for the occasional bolt of lightning. Greystoke follows the leopard's tracks to a crack in the mountain (another entrace to the gorilla-faced cave.) He enters. There are two panels on this page that I was never able to start.
Page 10). He has no recollection of what took place inside the cave, but when he emerged months later he finds the leopard attacking a mother gorilla and her infant. He shoots and kills the leopard. This is how Lord Greystoke wins the loyalty of the banished gorilla troop.
Obviously I still had a couple days worth of work to do before completing the pages. Maybe someday I'll print my digital copies, trace them onto comic book boards and finish what I started. But most likely, these pages are the last of my comic book efforts. Currently I'm working hard on my third book, tentatively titled Frenzy (which I'll talk about in future blogs). I'll always be a fan of the classic Disney style of animation and I'm grateful for the influence it's had on my storytelling craft, both as an artist and a writer.
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