Jesse Marsh

Previously, all Tarzan comics were reprints from the newspaper strips. He also worked on the Gene Autry comic book for many years. Marsh's deceptively simple style of cartooning has been praised by critics. Writer Dan Nadel noted his "scalloped brush strokes for clouds, the tangle lines for the brush, and the swift, coarse outline of Tarzan's body in motion" in his introduction to a collection of his Tarzan stories. Artist Gary Panter called Marsh's art "a stripped-down version of Milt Caniff's or Noel Sickles's movie-influenced drawings. Marsh's style was virtuosic in the use of blocks of black areas and empty spaces, in compositions derived from Orientalism and the influences of Japanese ukiyoe prints on late nineteeth-century painters and illustrators, like Whistler, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Aubrey Beardsley, a generation before the first Sunday comics pages." Prior to working for Western, he had worked for The Walt Disney Company, doing animation work for Make Mine Music and some Pluto cartoons as well. Marsh began drawing the adventures of Tarzan in 1947 with Dell Comics' Four Color #134, with the story "Tarzan and the Devil Ogre," written by Gaylord DuBois. Marsh also provided book covers, promotional art, and other images for Tarzan and other jungle-themed products throughout his years on the feature. He would turn the Tarzan series over to Russ Manning in 1965 due to failing health. Marsh was also the original illustrator of the Brothers of the Spear feature, which ran initially from 1952 to 1966. In 2009, Dark Horse Comics announced an archive reprint series of his work on Tarzan entitled Tarzan: The Jesse Marsh Years.

• Born — July 27, 1907 • Birthplace — Florence, Alabama • Died — 28 April 1966 • Place of death — Monrovia, California • Nationality — American • Cartoonist — y • Pencil — y • Ink — y • Notable Works — Tarzan, Gene Autry