In Kage Baker's novel The Empress of Mars, human colonists on Mars have a Christmas-like celebration, and a settler appears costumed as "Uncle Tars Tarkas", giving gifts to children as if he were Father Christmas or Santa Claus.
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Tars Tarkas is the first Barsoomian John Carter encounters when he appears on Mars.
Two Tars | Norfolk Tars |
The Tharks and Tars Tarkas are featured in many of the ten Martian novels written by Burroughs, in toys (as recently as the 1990s), in John Carter, Warlord of Mars comics published by both DC Comics and Marvel Comics in the 1970s, and in comic strips by John Coleman Burroughs (son of Edgar Rice Burroughs).