Medium Stripe
littlerocketpubslogo

Welcome
to the
WILD STARS!

Locations:
jfkstore35k

cbssmall
The Comic Book Store
News & Events:
what's new
What's New
Wild Stars Navigational Chart:
wsnovelcollection
Wild Stars History

Multiversal Scribe magazine
1970s

Wild Stars vol. 2 #1
1980s

Under The Wild Stars novel
1990s

Wild Stars: The Book of Circles - Recalbirated - 25th Anniversary Edition
New Millennium

Wild Stars Volume 2
20teens

Chief Press
Production Notes

Mary Tierney painting
Mary Tierney Paintings

Free Preview Issue
Wild Stars 1 Preview

Wild Stars II preview banner

Wild Stars 3 Wheatley 2 color


Hidden Wild Stars
Reviews
Michael for Maumelle City Council
Videos:
 Video Page
ERBACv2
P. J. Monahan artwork
Tarzan fumetti
Tarzan Fumetti!
pulp covers
Articles:
style cover 2001

tarzan large feature 5

Tarzan sharkfighter

john carter of mars

Gullivar of Mars
Conan #1

Bomba the Jungle Boy

WD C&S #1

Dr who MP 59

Dr who matt smith

bonus material
Bonus Material
cartoons

curse of haw 056

lightning strikes

snow gazeebo
Masked Adventures:
dive logs

dive log 1

dive log 2

dive log 3

dive log 4

dive log 5

dive log 6

dive log 7

dive log 8

dive log 9

dive log 10


dive log11

dive log 12

dive log 13

dive log 14

Contact Us

Site navigational tip:
Return to the homepage by clicking on the logo bar at the top or bottom of any page.
Manta Ray - Flower Gardens, Gulf of Mexico 2000.
See the Dive Logs for more.

Tarzan is a ® Trademark of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.

The cover for Young Tarzan and the Mysterous She is © Copyright 2019 Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.

The covers for the Edgar Rice Burroughs 100 Year Art Chronology are © Copyright 2018 Edgar Rice Burroughs, inc.

All other Cirsova covers are © Copyright Cirsova magazine

Wild Stars III is © Copyright 2018 Michael Tierney

Wild Stars is a ® Registered Trademark of Michael Tierney

All dive photos © copyright 2002 Michael Tierney

wsbanner

Home

Tarzan and the Lost Worlds
by Michael Tierney




Announced at San Diego Con July 24th, 2026, this new novel of Tarzan is #15 in ERB, Inc's Wild Adventures line.
That signals readers this is a non-canon story, unlike my previous collaboration with Edgar Rice Burroughs on Young Tarzan and the Mysterious She.

Tarzan and the Lost Worlds began as a pitch for a screenplay to reintroduce the ape-man to modern audiences.
My concept was to give Tarzan the Wild Stars treatment. Wild Stars are a series of novels and comics that I created across decades.
Having planned it over a long period of time, it introduced multiple worlds, settings, and timelines simultaneously.
My pitch was basically a question--

What if Edgar Rice Burroughs already knew what he wanted to do with Carson of Venus, Abner Perry of Pellucidar, and John Carter of Mars when he first wrote Tarzan?
My modest intention was to create a tentpole with which to launch the entire ERB Universe.
ERB, Inc. countered that they liked the idea, and wanted to see it as a novel.

So now all I had to do was remold a classic character into contemporary times,
while staying faithful to ERB's vision.
Don't worry.
There will be NO mystical super-human jungle powers or monkey-fu, like in similar attempts.

The goal was to take the core material and make it fresh--in exciting, new, and unfamiliar ways.

Michael Tierney--July 25, 2026



Here's a screenshot of a wonderfully cute gif reaction posted on ERB, Inc.'s Facebook page when this was announced.

Young Tarzan and the Mysterious She

by Edgar Rice Burroughs & Michael Tierney

Young Tarzan

Cirsova's Revenge--Jon Mollison's June 25, 2019 Review:
"But the story...is it any good?

Of course it is. Michael Tierney did the heavy lifting here to prepare the work for publishing,
and his stitch-work comes off as invisible.
Tierney has made more than a few appearances in previous editions of Cirsova...
He's a solid writer that's hard to pigeonhole, as his stories always speak with a different voice.
He dons the voice of Burroughs in his Tarzan narration, and it works well.

... reading Young Tarzan and the Mysterious She takes me right back to high school ...
It's a haunting tale ...
As such, it stands as a fitting posthumous tribute to one of the all time greats."



5-Star Review on Amazon:
"... the headliner alones sells the magazine.
"...the surprisingly introspective Tarzan tale... works well..."

5-Star Review on Amazon:
"It is not apparent where the fragment ends or which are the new part(s) added by Mr. Tierney.
...was well handled as Burroughs might have done...
...a rare treat"

5-Star Review on Amazon:
"Michael nailed it.
This brought me back through a couple of decades and dropped me right back into the jungle.
Such a feeling of deja vu - Michael handled completing this lost tale perfectly.
Such an absolute joy.
Michael's writing complements Burroughs so well, it's hard to define where one drops off and the other picks up.
Truly something any Burroughs or Tarzan fan needs in their collection."

5-Star Review on Amazon:
"I'm loving it.

"I feel like I'm there (in the jungle) and that it's real (Tarzan and the Mangani seemed real).
I also had that same great feeling I had as a teen reading Burroughs' Tarzan stories in my room for the first time,
complete immersion in an exciting and strange world.

I was trying a little to distinguish between what (Michael Tierney) wrote as opposed to ERB's fragment writing.
A week later I find out that I was right about some parts but wrong about others.
Michael did a great job.
I loved the ending.
Now I plan to pick up something Michael Tierney has written solo."

Review on tangentonline.com by Victoria Silverwolf:
"The most interesting aspect of the story is the way it delves into Tarzan's psychology."

"...the cover art for this issue is beautiful."

Review by Paul Lucas:
"...effective story... adds something new and quite psychological to the Tarzan mythos without undermining it in the slightest.
I found that this got me thinking in a reflective way, while still being interesting and affecting.
I even went back and re-read it later, which is something I rarely do.

"Young Tarzan is the best (story in this issue) at getting across the character."

Digital copies and the paperback version of Cirsova Vol. 2 #1 containing Young Tarzan is now available for $9.95 on Amazon.com!

The hardcover is availble for $30 on Lulu.com.

YOUNG TARZAN'S PLACE WITHIN CANON

Michael Tierney -- March 22, 2019


I intentionally didn't say a lot about the setting of Young Tarzan and the Mysterious She until others had a chance to read it for themselves. Wanted them to experience it with a fresh perspective and no sense of precognition. Plus, to say too much would give away a surprise element of the plot.

Young Tarzan had been getting all 5-Star reviews on Amazon until today, when a negative review didn't feel that the story has a place within canon. So now it's time to explain the placement of Young Tarzan.

As the 3-star reviewer who has previously seen the fragment mentions, in ERB's section the mangani (apes) discuss the gomangani (natives) and their blond white captive, with Tarzan's ape mother Kala a part of the conversation. He speculates that maybe Burroughs felt this was an error to write and then abandoned the story--implying that it should never have been finished.

Going back to Tarzan of the Apes, ERB stated that the gomangani village had been around for several months prior to Kala's death, and I worked within this time frame. There was another statement about apes having never seen a native, but it didn't say that every ape in the tribe had never seen them. As far as Kulongo being the first native that Tarzan had seen, that could have been interpreted as the first he had seen up close. So it's a tight window, but there is wiggle room for interpretation.

***SPOILER***

As far as Tarzan having never seen a white woman before Jane, apparently the 3-Star reviewer didn't finish reading the story, because Young Tarzan does not contradict this. But to say that gives away a plotline of the story--which is why I've been quiet until now.

Concerning why ERB abandoned the story, I'd speculate that it had more to do with Blue Book editor Edwin Balmer, who purchased ERB's previous Jungle Tales a decade before, suddenly leaving to edit Red Book the same year Young Tarzan was written. New editors meant different tastes and agendas, and while new Blue Book editor Donald Kennicott would turn out to be a big ERB fan, perhaps he preferred his novels. He certainly bought a lot of them!

January 23rd 2019 Update

The story behind the story of Young Tarzan and the Mysterious She

 The Young Tarzan fragment was first hand-written and partly typed by Edgar Rice Burroughs in 1930.
It was left unfinished and, after his death in 1950, lay hidden until it was rediscovered in the early 1960s, along with many other "treasures in the safe."
Many well-known writers were offered the chance to complete the story, but there were elements that they considered problematic, and they passed.

In 2005, ERB's grandson, Danton Burroughs, offered me the chance.
I found the problems to be opportunities to explain what I considered to be inconsistencies in the jungle lord's established history.

But on the day of Danton's greatest accomplishment, when he became President of his grandfather's company, Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc., there was a fire that destroyed many of his father, John Coleman Burroughs' paintings--some of them lost forever without a record.
Danton tragically died that night of a heart attack.

What I didn't learn until recently was that the fire left ERB, Inc. with no record of the story.
Danton took his knowledge with him, and the fragment was essentailly lost to the company his Grandfather founded.

Fortunately, I still had my digital files, and the original fragment was discovered after the annoucnement of this publication.
Danton had sent it to be transcribed into digital format by Bill Hillman, webmaster of ERBzine.com, who announced this very day that he still has it.

While I was creating the Edgar Rice Burroughs 100 Year Art Chronology, I'd asked current President Jim Sullos for an opportunity to do something with the story.
What I didn't realize until recently was that he thought this was all my creation.
We didn't both put all the pieces together until just a few weeks ago.

That's the story behind the story of Young Tarzan and the Mysterious She.

Michael Tierney -- January 17, 2019

Who is Michael Tierney?

michaelphoto1 Beyond the Farthest Star
Michael Tierney has been involved in comics and the publishing industry since the 70s. Owner and proprietor of both The Comic Book Store and Collector's Edition, Michael was a Finalist for both the Star*Reach Comics Retailer of the Year Award in 1985 and the Will Eisner Spirit of the Comics Retailer of the Year Award in 1999, has been an Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide Advisor since the 1990s, and is a staple of Central Arkansas' comic scene. A former journeyman printer and printing division manager, he's written, published, and at times even penciled, inked, and printed his own comics. He is currently writing, lettering, and coloring Edgar Rice Burroughs' Beyond the Farthest StarTM online, and his four volume Edgar Rice Burroughs 100 Year Art Chronology was published by Chenault & Gray in 2018.
His four volume Robert E. Howard 100 Year Catalog Art Chronology was published by Chenault & Gray in 2023.

Michael has been a regular contributor to Cirsova Heroic Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine, who released the 2019 35th Anniversary set of Michael's Wild Stars comics and books. Cirsova Publishing is a Central Arkansas semi-pro publisher of Science Fiction and Fantasy. Its flagship publication, Cirsova Heroic Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine was a 2017 Hugo Awards finalist for Best Semi-Pro Zine.

They also published Michael's posthumas collaboration with Edgar Rice Burroughs on Young Tarzan in 2019.

Shown below are Michael's book releases from 2018 through 2025, which includes some, but not all, variant covers.
Below that is a display of the issue of Cirsova Magazine containing Michaels appearances, with links to the individual issues.

wsbanner