Ka-Zar
Entry updated 11 December 2023. Tagged: Character, Publication.
US Pulp Magazine. Three issues, October 1936, January 1937 and June 1937, published by Manvis Publications; edited anonymously by Charles Goodman. Each issue featured a "complete novel" about the title character plus non-genre short adventure fiction; the last issue was titled Ka-Zar the Great.
Ka-Zar begins as a small boy, the sole survivor of a plane crash in Africa that kills his parents. He is raised by lions and becomes a character along the lines of Rudyard Kipling's Mowgli or Edgar Rice Burroughs's Tarzan in his introductory adventure "King of Fang and Claw" (October 1936) by Bob Byrd (whom see), issued in book form as Ka-Zar, King of Fang and Claw (1937). Subsequent "complete novels" of Ka-Zar by Byrd were "Roar of the Jungle" (January 1937) and "The Lost Empire" (June 1937). The October 1936 launch issue of the magazine was reprinted as a facsimile book with additional essays, Ka-Zar: Adventures of Ka-Zar the Great (anth 1975).
The character was resuscitated by Marvel Comics in the 1960s, featuring in their Strange Tales series. [FHP/MJE/DRL]
further reading
- Ka-Zar: Adventures of Ka-Zar the Great (Greenwood, Massachusetts: Odyssey Publications, 1976) [anth: facsimile of Ka-Zar (October 1936) with additional essays: pb/J W Scott]
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