Number 2213: Tarzan Jungle Annual: de-tailing Pan-at-lee

Om-at and his love, Pan-at-lee, are characters from Tarzan the Terrible. In the book, The Tarzan Novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs: An Illustrated Reader’s Guide by David A. Ullery, Pan-at-lee (meaning “Soft-tailed-doe”) is described as “the beautiful black and hairy female Waz-don who was in love with Om-at.” She is depicted in the Gold Key adaptation of Tarzan the Terrible from 1967, as being dark blue, and having a tail. Go to the link below for scans of that comic from ERBzine.*

The versions of Pan-at-lee and her love, Om-at, that appeared in Tarzan Jungle Annual #4 (1955) are shown to be African humans...with no tails. I have also seen a panel online from a Dell Comic that depicts Pan-at-lee as Caucasian. Perhaps the characters gave the folks at Dell a problem, and they thought the solution was to render them tail-less. For the 1967 version they went with Burroughs’ description of the characters in his 1921 novel.

Grand Comics Database gives Gaylord DuBois credit for the script and names Russ Manning for the artwork. If it is Manning, he stayed close to the Jesse Marsh version.

*The entire issue of Tarzan #166, adapting Tarzan the Terrible is scanned in two parts for Bill and Sue-On Hillman’s ERBzine. Click on the thumbnail for part one, which contains a link for part two.