Tarzana celebrates Edgar Rice Burroughs and Tarzan postage stamp
By Dana Bartholomew, Staff Writer LA Daily News TARZANA -- The unmistakable yell of Tarzan ripped through the trees Friday above Tarzana Community and Cultural Center. Then off came the veil from an oversize newly released postage stamp of San Fernando Valley author Edgar Rice Burroughs and his tree-climbing, ape-man hero. "Wonderful!" gasped Sandra Berube of Tarzana. "It's just gorgeous." "Play the (Tarzan) call again," yelled a fan.

The U.S. Postal Service honored the celebrated author Friday with an Edgar Rice Burroughs Forever Stamp. In a first-day-of-issue ceremony, hundreds of officials, community members, Burroughs family members and fans hailed the author on his home turf, on what was once his sprawling Tarzana Ranch. From across the nation, they came to trumpet Tarzan of the Apes, Lord of the Jungle, on the eve of his 2012 centennial birthday. And they came to celebrate his cozy namesake called Tarzana.

"We're here in Tarzana to honor Edgar Rice Burroughs, the great author who put the beautiful community of Tarzana on the map," said U.S. Postal Service Vice President Giselle Valera, managing director of global business. "He is still entertaining audiences 100 years after his creation. "Along with this writer, Tarzan will endure forever."

The new stamp depicts a balding Burroughs, hovering over a knife-wielding Tarzan, who clings to a tree in a leopard loincloth. Tarzan first appeared in "The All-Story" pulp magazine
of October 1912 in a groundbreaking "Tarzan of the Apes." It was the story of an orphaned boy, raised by a new tribe of apes, who becomes cultivated but returns to his beloved Jane and jungle. The Tarzan hero would go on to appear in at least 26 books, 50 films and numerous TV and comic episodes, with a new Tarzan movie slated for next year.

Throughout the morning Friday, fans -- many from a Tarzan/John Carter Centennial Celebration being held in Woodland Hills -- lined up to buy first-day cancellations, T-shirts and more. A dreadlocked Tarzan sparred with a person in a Cheetah chimp suit in junglelike summer heat. A live trio played "Tarzan's Lullaby."

Lydie Denier, a French-born actress who played a TV Jane, appeared near the 12th actor to play a movie Tarzan. "I'm very proud," said Denny Miller, 78, of Las Vegas, who acted in the 1959 remake of "Tarzan the Ape-Man." "I could swing, but I could never yell. I sounded like a wounded yak."

Mike Conran, who became a Tarzan fan at 14, bought three sheets of commemoratives, not including the five more reserved at his Midwest post office. "Very excited," said Conran, 64, of Hudsonville, Mich. "It's been years that we've wanted a Burroughs stamp." Huck Huckenpohler, secretary of the Burroughs Bibliophiles, had campaigned for such a stamp since the '70s, and had 29 cachet envelopes and stamps in hand. "I'm just glad to see him get the recognition he deserved," said Huckenpohler of Washington, D.C.

"Tremendous," said Gil Layman, 74, of Studio City, who once peddled Tarzan books to schools and libraries across 10 states and who also campaigned for a stamp. "It really puts Tarzana on the map. You'll have more people reading Tarzan than ever before."