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.

Number 1996: “Bundolo Tarzan!”

It has been a while since I went ape, so here is another Tarzan adventure, this time with apes not as friends, but trying to kill him. In one panel the ape hollers “Bundolo Tarzan!” “Bundolo” means kill in ape talk, which is demonstrated — oddly — in this panel from the Ape-English dictionary in Tarzan’s Jungle Annual #1 (1952), which is where I got today’s story. To demonstrate the word meaning a tribesman is about to clobber a pot with a stick. My assumption is that Marsh may have drawn the panel with a snake coming out of the pot, which the editor nixed. After the snake was whited out we were left with a headscratcher of a panel.

 Tarzan had been to Opar before. I showed a story of Opar in 2013, with cavemen instead of apes, and also with Queen La. There is a link below.

“Tarzan Returns to Opar” was written by Gaylord DuBois, and Jesse Marsh did the artwork.

An earlier Tarzan adventure in Opar. Just click on the thumbnail:

Number 1291: Tarzan's big scaly friend

Welcome to Pappy's 2013! It’s time to get back to school or to work. In my case my "work" is bringing you great old comics.

But...waitaminit! Didn't I just show a story about Tarzan and a Tyrannosaurus Rex? I sure did, in Pappy's #1255 in November. That story, from Tarzan #121 (1960), was drawn by Jesse Marsh. This story of Tarzan and a friendly Tyrannosaurus, who has come out of an egg thinking Tarzan is his mom, is from Tarzan's Jungle Annual #4 (1955). The script is credited by the Grand Comics Database to Gaylord Du Bois (same as the later story), yet drawn not by Marsh, but by Russ Manning.

Unlike the Tarzan drawn by Manning ten years later (Pappy's #1217), this Tarzan hews pretty close to the Jesse Marsh version. I believe here Jesse Marsh drew the faces to keep a continuity in style. The rest of the art is pretty easy to identify as Manning. His figure drawing is distinctive.

On seeing Tarzan leading a line of dinosaurs (page 11, “Page 51” of the Annual) my mind, which draws comparisons anyway, thought of a Supermouse story (Pappy's #941) I've shown before. Here's the panel sequence the Tarzan story reminded me of: