Warner Brothers has set a release date for their live-action take on Tarzan, the story of a boy raised in the jungles of Africa by apes.

The studio has locked the movie in for the July 1, 2016 date, putting it in the same summer as WB’s recently pushed back Batman vs. Superman sequel to Man of Steel.

The movie stars True Blood fan favorite Alexander Skarsgard as the titular vine-swinging man of the wild.

It’s being reported that Christoph Waltz, the two-time Academy Award-winning star of Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained, is in talks to play the villain in Tarzan, Warner Brothers’ new live-action feature based on the classic Edgar Rice Burroughs tale.

Waltz would play Captain Rom, a Belgian soldier who’s out to capture Tarzan in exchange for diamonds.

Korak, Son of Tarzan, Vol. 2
Hardcover
Written by Gaylord DuBois
Illustrated by Russ Manning
Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: September 17, 2013
Cover Price: $49.99

A list of comic book artists inspired by Russ Manning would be a long one, and the fact that San Diego Comic Con gives out an annual award in his name is testament to that influence. Truly, Manning is a comic artist’s “artist,” one whose influence clearly exceeds his stature. Thankfully, the Dark Horse reprints of his Edgar Rice Burroughs works, as well as his own Magnus Robot Fighter series, are rectifying that.

Korak, Son of Tarzan, Vol. 2 is the second Dark Horse volume collecting Manning’s Gold Key Korak comics, and as with the first volume, these are original stories, written by Gaylord Dubois. They’re fun, imaginative, and move along at a brisk pace. However, as with those previous volumes, this collection is really all about the art. Simply, Manning is one of the medium’s masters. His line work is confident and expressive, and his command of the human (and animal) form is right up there with the likes of Hal Foster. Clearly, there wasn’t anything he couldn’t draw, and when one compares him with numerous artists of today who rely on photographic reference, that distinction becomes much more impressive.

Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan
The Sunday Comics, 1931-1933
Hardcover
Script by George A. Carlin, with R.W. Palmer
Art by Hal Foster
Introduction by Mark Evanier
Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: July 31, 2013
Cover Price: $125.00

Everyone knows who Tarzan is, right? We’ve all pretended to swing through the jungle on vines while yelling. Heck, Steven Spielberg even had a little homage in his last Indiana Jones film, what with Shia LaBeouf doing a Tarzan impression amidst the treetops. What few people know is exactly how different the character was originally. Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan: The Sunday Comics, 1931-1933 gives us the chance to see the pulp hero as he was seen in times gone by.

While I am reviewing this book based upon a digital version, I know that the physical edition is going to be a gorgeous specimen. The strips will be hardbound in a beautiful 15″ by 20″ perfect bound collection. Printed on very high quality paper (unlike the original newspaper editions) and colored exactly as they were before, this will be a worthy addition to the true collector. Written by George A. Carlin (no, not the comedian…he wasn’t even born yet) and illustrated by Hal Foster (who later went on to create the still ongoing Prince Valiant comic strip) this compilation of the Sunday strips is an amazing series of adventures that still grip the reader to this day.

Tarzan, everybody’s favorite swinging alpha-male King of the Jungle, makes his way to a book series of collected comic strips that were originally illustrated by the late Russ Manning and the first volume of which will be released on May 29, 2013.

Tarzan: The Complete Russ Manning Newspaper Strips, Vol. 1: 1967 – 1969, will contain the strips that originally ran in black and white from 1967 – 1974 in many daily American newspapers. Sunday color strips ran until 1979. IDW Publishing, responsible for many other handsome collections of comic strips such as Lil’ Abner, Dick Tracy, Blondie, and Bloom County among others, now takes on the famed Edgar Rice Burroughs creation.

IDW’s President and Chief Operating Officer Greg Goldstein, summed it up by exclaiming that “the addition of Tarzan to the Library of American Comics amplifies even further that the imprint is the premier archival home for comic strip reprints and collections. Russ Manning’s Tarzan run is one of the real highlights of the modern age of adventure strips and we are definitely excited to be the home of its long-anticipated return to print.”