First and Only Weekly Online Fanzine Devoted to the Life and Works of Edgar Rice Burroughs Since 1996 ~ Over 10,000 Webpages in Archive

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TARZAN AND THE ATOM MYSTERY

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These are magazine illustrations from the Hebrew orginal Tarzan story, TARZAN VETAALUMAT AATOM (TARZAN AND THE ATOM MYSTERY). The story was written by well-known Israeli writer, Pinchas Sadeh, under pen name: Yariv Amazya. The story appeared originally in the children's magazine, HARETZ SHELANU, in 1960. The illustrations were by woman artist and regular comics artist of that magazine, Elisheva Nadal.

The story is about Tarzan's fight against a conspiracy of  a millionaire to rule the world with radioactive materials which will make the human race servile slaves of the millionaire. At the end of the story Tarzan falls in love with a woman (not Jane) and prepares to marry her. The magazine version includes an introduction chapter in imitation of Burroughs' style in which the writer tells how he heard the whole story. This chapter was deleted in the book version.

Interestingly, in the same issues of HARETZ SHELANU in which this story appeared in serialized form, there also appeared another original continuing comics story about Tarzan by artist Dani Plant.  Obviously Tarzan was at the height of his popularity in Israel in 1960.

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These are pictures from the book version of  TARZAN VETALUMAT AATOM (TARZAN AND THE ATOM MYSTERY) published by Amichy at 1962. The artist is unnamed and the cover seems to be by a diffrent artist.

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PINCHAS SADEH Pinchas Sadeh, who had become a cult writer in Israel as a result of his philoshopic and autobiographical works ("LIFE AS A FABLE" etc.), said years later in an interview that he regretted  having written that Tarzan book, explaining that he had written it simply because he had to survive, and Tarzan was never "his" hero. He had always preferred detectives.  On the other hand, he asked the readers for forgiveness if they felt that it was not up to  the standards of the "regular " Tarzan stories.

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Visit Eli's other ERBzin-e features: Tarzan in the Holy Land I ERBzine 0990 Tarzan in the Holy Land II ERBzine 0991 Tarzan in the Holy Land III ERBzine 0992 Tarzan in the Holy Land IV ERBzine 0874 Tarzan in the Holy Land V ERBzine 0854 Tarzan in the Holy Land VI ERBzine 0855

Eli Eshed Keren Aysod 3 Givat Samuel 54051 Israel elieshe@zahav.net.il