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With the coming of January 1940, most of the Tarzan clones took to the comic book pages. Fiction House’s Jungle Comics, working on the popularity of Sheena in Jumbo Comics, produced a handful of new characters including Kaanga, Wambi and Camilla. Every competitor had to have a jungle lord or lady in their comics too. Despite this, a few Pulps still tried to keep the jungle fever going. Many chose to become more fantastic in an ever-growing familiarity with simple jungle adventures.
Again around this time, the equally popular Jungle Lady had a parallel history to her lord. For a list of Jungle Girls, go here. Beginning with Sheena in 1938, the first female lead in a comic, beating out Wonder Woman by years, the female version of Tarzan sold many Pulps and comics too, as you will see from the covers of these Pulps.
The 1940s
Matalaa, the White Savage by Martin McCall (E. Hoffman Price)
E. Hoffman Price wrote these four lead novels under the house name “Martin McCall”. Matalaa lives with the South Sea islanders after his parents’ ship wrecks. He fights for them against evil intruders including pirates.
“The White Savage” (Red Star Adventures, June 1940)
“Cruise of the Savage” (Red Star Adventures, August 1940)
“Savage Jeopardy” (Red Star Adventures, October 1940)
“Treasure of the Savage” (Red Star Adventures, January 1941)
Jongor of the Lost Land by Robert Moore Williams
Jongor was intended by the editor, Ray A. Palmer, as an Edgar Rice Burroughs replacement. RAP had success with several short stories from ERB but wanted more. He approached SF writer Robert Moore Williams to produce the new novels. Only RMW didn’t write them all that fast, with the first in 1940 and the second four years later. A third one appeared after Palmer’s tenure as editor. More important than who wrote the stories, Palmer knew he needed J. Allen St. John (the artist most closely associated with ERB) to do the covers. For more Jongor, go here.
Jongor of Lost Land (Fantastic Adventures, October 1940)
The Return of Jongor (Fantastic Adventures, April 1944)
Jongor Fights Back! (Fantastic Adventures, December 1951)
Tharn by Howard C. Browne
With Robert Moore Williams dragging his feet, Ray Palmer turned to Howard C. Browne to give it a try. He produced two novels about Tharn but again, not in a hurry, five years apart. Browne was more interested in Mystery fiction and would take over from Palmer as editor later. For more on Tharn, go here.
Warrior of the Dawn (Amazing Stories, December 1942 January 1943)
The Return of Tharn (Amazing Stories, October November December 1948)
Toka the Jungle King by J. W. Pelkie (Ray A. Palmer)
Fed up with waiting for others, Ray A. Palmer donned the persona of J. W. Pelkie and gave it a try for himself. He produced three for Fantastic Adventures, but after losing the editorship, took the fourth one with him. It appeared in rival magazine, Planet Stories. For more on Toka, go here.
“King of the Dinosaurs” (Fantastic Adventures, October 1945)
“Toka and the Man Bats” (Fantastic Adventures, February 1946)
“Toka Fights the Big Cats” (Fantastic Adventures, December 1947)
“In the Sphere of Time” (Planet Stories, Summer 1948)
Ki-Gor by John Peter Drummond (Various)
Ki-Gor can claim to be the most successful Pulp jungle lord. With 56 novels, he out-performed Tarzan by at less twice as much. But it depends on how you measure success. Ki-Gor had no comic strips, radio shows, movies or even serials. He came and went between 1939 and 1954 and was quickly forgotten after the Pulps died. The Ki-Gor formula was based largely on the Tarzan movies, not the books. For more on Ki-Gor, go here.
Ki-Gor, King of the Jungle (Winter 1938) written by John Murray Reynolds
Ki-Gor and the Stolen Empire (Summer 1939)
Ki-Gor and the Giant Gorilla-Men (Fall 1939)
Ki-Gor and the Secret Legions of Simba (Winter 1939)
Ki-Gor and the Forbidden Mountain (Spring 1940)
Ki-Gor and the Cannibal Kingdom (Summer 1940)
The Paradise That Time Forgot (Fall 1940)
The Empire of Doom (Winter 1940)
Lair of the Beast (Spring 1941)
The Temple of the Moon God (Summer 1941)
White Savage (Fall 1941)
Tigress of T’wanbi Winter 1941)
Slaves for the Renegade Sultan (Spring 1942)
Blood Priestess of Vig’Na (Summer 1942)
The Cannibal Horde (Fall 1942)
The Devil’s Death Trap (Winter 1942)
Voodoo Slaves for the Devil’s Daughter (Spring 1943)
Eyrie of the Golden Goddess (April 1943)
Caravan of Terror (Summer 1943)
Death Krall of the Elephants (Fall 1943)
Stalkers of the Dawn-World (Winter 1943)
Cobra Queen of the Congo Legions (Spring 1944)
The Monkey Men of Loba-Gola (Summer 1944)
Bride of the Serpent God (Fall 1944)
Land of the Lost Safaris (Winter 1944)
The Silver Witch (Spring 1945)
Huntress of the Hell Pack (Summer 1945)
The Golden Beasts of Zuli’Maen (Fall 1945)
Slave Brides for the Dawn-Men (Winter 1945)
The Monsters of Voodoo Isle (Spring 1946)
Death Seeks for Congo Treasure (Summer 1946)
Safari for Black Ivory (Fall 1946)
Blood Gold of B’Tonga (Winter 1946)
Where Man-Beasts Prowl (Spring 1947)
The Diamond Fangs of M’Muba M’Ni (Summer 1947)
Warrior Queen of Attila’s Lost Legion (Fall 1947)
The Seven Silver Skulls of L’Gonda (Winter 1947)
Slave of the Jackal-Priestess (Spring 1948)
Zomba Has a Thousand Spears (Summer 1948)
The Golden Claws of Raa (Fall 1948)
The Lost Beasts of Ta-Tamba (Winter 1948)
Nirvana of the Seven Voodoos (Spring 1949)
Safari of the Serpent-Slaves (Summer 1949)
The Mad Monster of Mu-ungu (Fall 1949)
The Sword of Sheba (Winter 1949)
Lost Priestess of the Nile (Spring 1950)
The Beast-Gods of Atlantis (Summer 1950)
Voodoo Slaves for the Devil’s Daughter (Fall 1950)
Flame-Priestess of Carthage (Winter 1950)
The Monkey Men of Loba-Gola (Spring 1951)
The Devil’s Death Trap (Fall 1951)
Blood Priestess of Vig N’Ga (Winter 1951)
Night of the Wasuli Death (Spring 1952)
The Monsters of Voodoo Isle (Fall 1952)
Caravan of Terror (Winter 1952)
The Silver Witch (Spring 1953)
Slave-Caverns of Molundu (Fall 1953)
Fane of the Python Princess (Winter 1953)
White Cannibal (Spring 1954)
Avar, The Man From Yesterday by Lee Francis (Howard C. Browne)
“The Man From Yesterday” (Fantastic Adventures, August 1948) has Avar coming to modern times from the past. This fish-out-of-water tale is similar to Edgar Rice Burroughs’ “The Resurrection of Jimberjaw” and The Eternal Savage. You might remember it better as Encino Man (1992).
The 1950s
The 1950s saw the last of the Pulp heroes as these magazines faded, being replaced by the paperback book. Fans of the jungle still craved more adventures, especially in England. Back in the US, Edgar Rice Burroughs died on March 19, 1950. Ray A. Palmer (author of the Toka stories above) wanted to take on the task of new Tarzan adventures. He tried but failed to swing it with the Burroughs family, the copyright holders. (For more, go here.) This did nothing to stop the clones.
Azan by Marco Garon (Denis Hughes)
The Lost City (1950)
The Missing Safari (1950)
Jungle Fever (1951)
King Hunters (1951)
Tribal War (1951)
White Fangs (1951)
Anjani by Earl Titan (John Russell Fearn)
The Gold of Akada (1951)
Anjani the Mighty (1951)
Jacare the Untamed by Victor Norwood
The Untamed (1951)
The Caves of Death (1951)
The Temple of the Dead (1951)
The Skull of Kanaima (1951)
The Island of Creeping Death (1952)
Cry of the Beast (1953)
Drums Along the Amazon (1953)
Zamba of the Jungle by John Raymond (Various)
Zamba of the Jungle (1951) by Leonard G. Fish was based on the 1949 film.
Zamba and the Silver Globe (2024) by Peg O’Neill Scott and Peter T. Scott is a 1964 revision of Barton Werper’s Tarzan and the Silver Globe with all the names changed.
The 1960s
By the 1960s, the jungle swinger had become a joke. George of the Jungle showed the disdain most held for all things Tarzan. This was about to change as Tarzan and ERB had a renaissance. New fans found the old Tarzan stories in Ballantine’s reprinting in paperback. (This was after a short war with ACE Books, but eventually Ballantine took Tarzan and John Carter and ACE got Pellucidar and the rest.) Ron Ely portrayed the jungle man in the late 1960s and jungle stories were new again!
Lord Grandrith by Philip Jose Farmer
Philip Jose Farmer was a big fan of both Tarzan and Doc Savage, so he put the two of them together in a short series of novels, part of his Wold Newton universe. He would later write a biography of Tarzan called Tarzan Alive! The jungle lord idea had been around long enough by this time that Farmer could use it in ways that had not been done before.
A Feast Unknown (1969)
The Lord of the Trees (1970)
The Mad Goblin (1970)
The Monster of the Hold (2022) with Win Scott Eckert
The 1970s
Balzan of the Cat People by Wallace Moore (Gerry Conway)
With the resurgence in Tarzan paperbacks, it was inevitable that some publisher would try to jump on the bandwagon with a new Tarzan clone. Wallace Moore was actually comic book writer, Gerry Conway.
The Blood Stones (1975)
The Caves of Madness (1975)
The Lights of Zetar (1975)
Bunduki by J. T. Edson
The English critics may have given Edgar Rice Burroughs a hard time back in 1912, but as the 1950s and later show, the Brits have loved Tarzan too. J. T. Edson was a UK writer of Westerns who managed to get permission from the copyright holders, Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc. to add a new character to the Tarzan family, Bunduki. Later on ERB Inc. pulled their permission but Edson wrote a few more anyway.
Bundiki (1975)
Bunduki and Dawn (1976)
Sacrifice For the Quagga God (1976)
“The Mchawi’s Power” (J. T’s Hundredth, 1979)
Fearless Master of the Jungle (1980)
“Death to Simba Nyeuse” (J. T’s Ladies, 1980)
“Accident or Murder?” (More J. T’s ladies, 1987)
“A Good Time Was had By All” (Mark Counter’s Kin, 1990)
Amazons of Zillikian (2023)
Conclusion
The Jungle Lord as a concept is still with us, perhaps in the comics more than anywhere else. I can’t think of a new novel series to have appeared in recent days.Will Murray is writing new Tarzan adventures but new characters are thin on the ground. This should be no real surprise. Readers are far more aware of real African politics and geography to buy the idea of a white guy leaping from tree to tree and saving all the black folks. A problem they tried to address in the last Tarzan film, The Legend of Tarzan (2019). Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Africa was always a Fantasy milieu, no different than Barsoom or Pellucidar. It only appeared to be in the real world. The Jungle Lord (and Lady) are equally fantastic (and best matched with dinosaurs, in my humble opinion) and should be enjoyed in that frame. Swing on carbon copies of Greystoke. Swing on!
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