Number 1465: Jungle royalty

Queen of the jungle and princess of the jungle are mighty highfalutin titles for women wearing abbreviated costumes and swinging through trees, wouldn’t you say? I guess it all started off with Tarzan, who was really England’s Lord Greystoke, and back home in Africa known as Lord of the Jungle. Sometime in the thirties when Sheena was created it sounded good to say “Sheena, Queen of the Jungle.” The name and title roll off the tongue. It wouldn’t sound right to have her called “Lady Sheena” or even a title like “Sheena, Duchess of the Jungle.” They just don’t have the same ring, do they?

So Sheena was queen and Taanda, who came along later and could not be queen because Sheena was queen, was the white princess of the jungle. I’ve got stories featuring both of these royal jungle gals today.

Sheena’s story is from Jumbo Comics #101 (1947), and Taanda is featured in a cover story from Avon’s White Princess of the Jungle #4 (1952). The Sheena art is by Robert Webb, the Taanda artist is unknown by the Grand Comics Database.

Number 320

Jungle Vengeance

How many white girls in tight-fitting animal-skin costumes were running around in the comic book jungle, anyway? Off hand I can think of Sheena, Rulah, Jann, Lorna, Judy, Tiger Girl, Shanna the She-Devil, Nyoka (who wore shorts) Jun-Gal…and Taanda, White Princess of the Jungle. I wonder if thosse jungle babes formed a coffee klatsch, got together in a hut somewhere once a week to swap stories of lions they'd killed, witch doctors they'd foiled, or white hunters they'd chased out of their jungles.

Well, whatever. Taanda appeared for a time in Avon Comics, drawn by Everett Raymond Kinstler, who went on to become a famous portraitist. This is from Skywald's 1971 Jungle Adventures #1, reprinted from White Princess Of The Jungle #2, from 1952.