T
he jungle was stirring; the natives, as always, were restless. By the time the
Illustrated Weekly began to print
Phantom, the end of the Empire was at hand; the sun was setting in the East. And back at Phantom HQ, otherwise known as King Features Syndicate (a division of the Hearst Corporation), the editors made a number of changes to accommodate the sensibilities of their burgeoning Indian readership. Bengal had become first Bengali, and then Bangalla. To avoid any confusion with Hinduism's favourite hero, the Phantom's enemy Rama became Ramalu. The Pirate Singh Brotherhood, whose name was—however inadvertently—guaranteed to offend both the Rajput and Sikh communities, became the Singa Pirates. Until, finally, only one diminutive trace of our hero's original landfall remained: the Phantom's pygmy friends, the Bandar, whose tribal name Falk had lifted from the
Jungle Book. They were still the Bandar log, the monkey people. After all, there are no pygmies in India.