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Volume 1425

The Burroughs Biblio-Pro-Phile Series
www.ERBzine.com/bb
Spotlight on ERB Fan
Mickey Burwell

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The first time I gave the Tarzan yell was at the hands of a doctor, when I was born in Baraboo, Wisconsin in 1941.  I lived in a small community of North Freedom and on Saturdays my brother and I would go to the movies in Baraboo if my parents had the money.  We both liked the westerns, but I liked Tarzan and anything of the jungle, Frank Buck, Clyde Beatty, Abbott and Costello in the Jungle, it didn’t matter as long as I was in the jungle. We loved the cliff hanger serials and would talk about them all week until we could see the next chapter to see how our hero escaped.  I was a Johnny Weissmuller fan and we would go to the little grocery store to get Dixie Cup ice cream cups to see whose picture we could get on the ice cream cup lids.  I was always elated when it was Johnny.

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Frank Buck and Clyde Beatty
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Clyde Beatty Circus Poster and Abbott & Costello in Africa

Dixie Cup Lids and Tarzan Book Premium

 We moved from there to another little community of Lake Delton, where I had a friend who had every new comic that came out (or so it seemed to me).  We would hang out at his house and I would always want to read the Tarzan comics.  If I had read the newest one I would just start over on the older ones.  My dad had asthma and emphysema and so we moved to Arizona.

The day we were leaving, this friend came to say good-by, he brought me a whole stack of Tarzan comics that he had a little string running through the upper left hand corner.  He told me they would keep me company to Arizona.  My dad was the only one able to drive and so late one night he stopped to rest and drink some coffee. We were all asleep and the next day I couldn’t find my comic books, only to hear that my dad couldn’t find anything to make a fire with and so he used my stack of comics.  It bothered me at the time, but looking back he was just trying to stay awake and protect his family.

 The next year we move to Bay City, Texas.  And so this is where most of my early years were spent.  I still collected Tarzan comics and went to the movies whenever they came out. As I said, I was a Johnny fan, but it really didn’t bother me when they changed actors to play Tarzan, I was there to be entertained with the story. I wasn’t looking to see if it was a good plot or a sorry plot “It was Tarzan.”

 In 1961 I moved to Freeport, Texas and went to work for The Dow Chemical Company.  After I had moved out of my mom’s house and was living in Freeport my mom needed my room for my younger sister and so she “cleaned” out my room. When I went back to get my comic books, baseball cards, marbles and a lot of old records it was only to discover they had been boxed up and put out for the garbage man.

 In 1962 I married my “high school sweetheart.”  Shirley knew I was a Tarzan fan and so for our first Christmas together she bought me the Grosset and Dunlap Tarzan series.  I subscribed to the Dell Tarzan comics and have been a collector of Tarzan “stuff” ever since.

 Shirley and I were going to the Gospel Quartet Convention in Louisville Kentucky, and I told her that I had seen an article about George McWhorter and his Tarzan collection at the University.  I was really interested to meet this man and see his books.  We called George and set up an appointment to visit.  I am so glad that I went and got to meet this kind gentle man.  He took the time to show me his books, posters and most all of his complete collection.  He was most gracious, even though I was just a small time collector; he treated me like I had the biggest collection in the world.  I am glad the first “real” Edgar Rice Burroughs collector I ever met was this gentleman.  We have been to several conventions and I have met a lot of very nice fellow collectors and fans.  I was so pleased to meet Danton, I felt like I was almost in the presence of Ed himself.

Mick and Shirley with Danton Burroughs
The McWhorter Memorial ERB Collection at the University of Louisville

 My wife worked at a bank in Freeport and started group travel in our area in the late 60’s.  She and I would escort the groups to various things in and around Houston and then we would take them on a longer trip to foreign countries.  We were in England on one such trip in the late 70’s when I saw a little book store just around a corner down a little alley.  I went in there as always looking for Tarzan or anything ERB.  The nice gentleman showed me the two sets of comics that he had and since I had never seen any English comics I bought them.

I toted those two stacks of comics all over England for a week until we got home.  When I met Bill Hillman at my first convention and later got on the e-mail list to receive his newsletters, I saw what a fantastic job he is doing.  I could see that he is trying to share all things ERB with the rest of the fans of Ed’s.  I had these comics in a closet for years and I thought that perhaps they might serve a better purpose if Bill had them and could share them with the rest of our ERB friends.

 I am still just a little collector, but I have tried to hold on to my collection better.

A ride on Tantor's Indian Cousin

Mick and Shirley at the Taj Mahal