Gold Key vs. Dark Horse

Why the color change?

Steve Allsup

First Appeared on ERB-LIST

I have been having a conversation with one of our list members the past couple of days about the Russ Manning reprint books that Dark Horse published about eight years ago, and she brought it to my attention that the recoloring was very poor, much worse than I realized. The story in question was in Tarzan the Terrible, which had some very important errors in it. I sat down this evening and did a detailed comparison of the changes that Dark Horse made to the coloring of the Manning Tarzan adaptations and the results are here. Dark Horse completely recolored each story from scratch, possibly without reference to the Gold Key color scheme (the artist may have been given B&W art without instructions). Each change that Dark Horse makes tha I list is continued throughout the series, so I don't repeat the same thing for each book:

Tarzan of the Apes (recolored by Jason Hvam):

lady Greystoke's dress is changed from maroon to light green
The apes are changed from brown to dark blue-gray
Many of Manning's exotic colored plants, like red, are changed to green.
Kulonga's loincloth (and thus Tarzan's) is changed from dark crimson to cow patty color
Jane's dress is changed from pink to light green
Williiam Clayton's hair is changed from yellow blond to dull grayish brown
Tarzan's skin is darkened to a dusky tan
Return of Tarzan (Jason Hvam):
Tarzan's red native bow and quiver are both changed to cow patty brown
The background colors of each panel are almost never the same as in the Gold Key
Opar is changed from cold stone blue in the moonlight to earthen brown
Queen La's hair is changed from blue-black to reddish brown
The emeralds in her jewelry are changed to all rubies
Lord Tennington's hair is changed from blond to brown

Beasts of Tarzan (Jason Hvam):

Mugambi's canoe is changed from red to brown (virtually any and every use that Manning makes of red is eliminated)

Son of Tarzan (Jason Hvam):

Moore's hair is changed from brown to gray
Korak's hair is changed from brown to black
Meriem's hair is changed from dark brown to blue-black
The plantation estate is changed from white to blue
Meriem's red dress is changed to purple
Morison's hair is changed from yellow blond to blue-gray

Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar (colors by Keith Wood):

Werper's hair is changed from yellow blond to dark red
Werper's two tone safari suit color scheme of blue and yellow is changed to all light blue, even his helmet
La's skin is changed to a very dark dusty tan
Jane's pink blouse is changed to blue
Achmet Zek's hair changes from white-gray to dark brown
The Belgian soldier's uniforms change from khaki to dark blue

Tarzan the Untamed (Jason Hvam):

Tarzan's pet lion is changed from black-maned to brown
Tarzan's "red-hot" machine gun barrel is changed from red-hot to dark gray
Bertha Kircher's hair is changed from golden blond to dark brown
Harold Smith-Oldwick's uniform changes from khaki to blue
The Xujans skin changes from white to brown
Smith-Oldwick's hair changes from yellow blond to dark grayish brown

Tarzan the Terrible:

(This is the story with the most significant changes which Tavia brought to my attention):

The "leopard-lion" is changed from Tiger orange to leopard yellow
The Ho-dons are a dark dusky tan, not white
The gryfs without color, just blue-gray all over
Om-at the Waz-don is changed from blue-black fur to light brown, and his yellow leopard loincloth is changed to dark brown with spots
The Jato is changed from tiger orange to tan (in one scene Tarzan, Taden and Om-at all look like the same color of tan- in the Manning original, they are white, white and blue-black)
The Gryf's hood is changed from red and yellow to blue-gray
Jane's yellow leopard loincloth is changed to dark brown
Lt Obergatz' hair is changed from yellow blond to (you guessed it) blue-gray

In general, it should be pointed out that the Dark Horse approach to the panel backgrounds is more realistic and consistent (sky always blue, etc) but the down side of that is that the pages are much darker and less colorful than the Gold Key issues, which featured a brighter color scheme overall (such as nighttime scenes, which Dark Horse grayed out much blacker, etc)

One can only hope that if Dark Horse gives Manning's Tarzan the hardback treatment that they gave Kubert, that they will reference the original Manning color schemes. The mis-coloration of the Waz-don was almost unforigivable. Manning's orignal color scheme of the Waz-don was really perfect and beautiful—the blue-black made it look like they had a sleek, glossy coat of fur. Changing that to light brown comes off making them look like fuzzy negroes.