The First and Only Weekly Online Fanzine Devoted to the Life and Works of Edgar Rice Burroughs Since 1996 ~ Over 15,000 Webpages in Archive |
|
The First and Only Weekly Online Fanzine Devoted to the Life and Works of Edgar Rice Burroughs Since 1996 ~ Over 15,000 Webpages in Archive |
|
CONTENTS
1. My Father, Elmo Lincoln ~ The Original Tarzan
by Marci'a Lincoln RudolphMy Father, Elmo Lincoln: The Original Tarzan is a book that explores the life and times of Elmo Lincoln--an actor that changed the face of film and started in some of the greatest and most well known films of all time. His roles in Tarzan of the Apes, Birth of a Nation, and Intolerance have changed the face of film forever. TRULY A COLLECTOR'S ITEM! This volume contains never-before-seen biographical information.
2. ERB-TRIVIA
TRIVIA:
The title given to THE RETURN OF THE MUCKER when it was published in England was:
The Man Without A Soul.TRIVIA:
ERB's Tarzana phone numbers were Reseda 222 and 220TRIVIA:
Robert Abbett, cover artist for the ERB Ballantine paperbacks, used to sneak into J. Allen St. John's classes at the Chicago Art Institute in the late 1940s.TRIVIA:
Science-Fiction writer Harlan Ellison estimated, in Time Magazine, that there are only five fictional characters known in practically every part of the earth: Tarzan, Sherlock Holmes, Mickey Mouse, Robin Hood, and Superman.
3. APE-MAN WANNABEES
Kaspa, the Lion Man ~ Bantan of the Islands ~ Jan of the Jungle ~ Tam, Son of the Tiger ~ Bomba the Jungle Boy ~ Ra Tau, Father of Lions ~ Morgyn the Mighty ~ Tahara ~ Tarkan ~ Zuman ~ Tabu Dick ~ Lord of the Leopards ~ Sojarr of Titan ~ Lord Tyger ~ Kioga ~ Triton ~ Ka-Zar the Great ~ Matalaa the White Savage ~ Kroom, Son of the Sea ~ Kwa of the Jungle ~ Ki-Gor, Jungle Lord ~ Tharn, Warrior of the Dawn ~ Jongor ~ Akim ~ Kali ~ Kalar ~ Azan ~ Jacare ~ Zembla ~ Tarou ~ Zangar ~ Kaanga ~ Panco ~ Wild-Boy ~ Samar ~ Keeto, the Jungle Boy ~ Tharn ~ Thun'da ~ Halcon ~ Jaragu ~ Thaur ~ Zan ~ Sheena ~ Nyoka ~ Ratnaz ~ Melvin ~ George ~ Tarak
4. FOULDS FIGURES
These statuettes were manufactured by the Gem Clay Forming Company of Sebring, Ohio. They were all copyrighted as of February 13, 1933.
ERB's descriptive list includes:
Kala the Mother Ape. Squatting figure holding infant in her arms.
Jane Clayton, a standing figure of girl wearing shirtwaist and skirt and high laced shoes.
Numa the Lion. Statuette of lion on all fours.
Sheeta the Panther, a crouching figure of a panther.
Tarzan, a standing figure of half-nude man, with ape sitting at his feet grasping both of the man's legs.
5. Code Names Dictionary
Edited by F.G.Ruffner, Jr. and R.C. Thomas
Gale Research Co., Detroit, Michigan ~ 1963
TARZAN used as a code name:
1. U.S. radio-controlled bomb developed in 1945 and continued experimentally after World War II. Weighing about six tons, it was to have been carried by B-29 or B-36 aircraft.
2. Allied plan for airborne capture of Indaw-Katha area, Burma, in conjunction with a major land advance. Modified into GRIP-FAST. Late 1943, World War II.
6. IT'S A BLACK DAY FOR TARZAN SERIES
The Register, Orange, California ~ June 16, 1972PORTLAND, Ore. (UPI) -- The chairman of the Oregon Black Caucus and the general manager of KATU-television have a different opinion on the showing of "Tarzan."
"The 'Tarzan' movies are an insult to black people," Dr. Lee P. Brown, chairman of the caucus said. "They perpetuate the myth of white superiority. They are demeaning to the African nations as well as Americans of African descent."
But William J. Hubbach, station general manager, replied that the station is showing a series and not the old "Tarzan" movies.
"This is a recent television series which has been updated," he said. "We've been showing it for three years without any complaint. We've deliberately studied this recent series and do not find the features demeaning to any group as the old 'Tarzan' movies sometimes were."
The caucus is to take up the issue during a meeting Sunday.
7. Russ Manning Letter to the Editor
The Register, Orange, California ~ June 25, 1972Tarzan
In Portland, Ore. when the chairman of the Black Caucus, Dr. Lee P. Brown, noted the possible racial slurs in the Tarzan movies, he showed his understanding of the situation by attacking the movies, and not Tarzan himself. Dr. Brown has evidently read the original novels and know that Tarzan is above prejudice and intolerance, that Tarzan mistrusts the entire human race, particularly "civilized" man and put his trust in the individuals, black, white or animal, who have proved themselves worthy of it.While I don't particularly admire the TV Tarzan (not enough like the hero created by Edgar Rice Burroughs in the books, which is the one I recreate in the comic strips), at least the TV series tried not to repeat the early movie scenes wherein Tarzan single-handedly battles and defeats whole villages of African natives.
Tarzan has become accepted as a folklore the world over, including Africa not by insulting people, but by being the heroic, capable person that everyone can dream of being.
Russ Manning
Orange
Russ Manning
8. MOVIE WILL SHOW "THE TRUE TARZAN"
By Nancy Anderson
Copley News Service ~ 1976HOLLYWOOD - Danton Burroughs, grandson of Edgar Rice Burroughs, has had limited acting experience -- mostly in school plays -- but nonetheless says he'd like to play Tarzan in Warners' upcoming treatment of his grandfather's work.
Robert Towne who wrote "Shampoo" and "The Last Detail" has finished a screenplay which, according to young Burroughs (he's 32), is more true to the spirit of the original Tarzan than scripts previously brought to the screen.
"Towne says he's going to give my grandfather's Tarzan to the people," the grandson cheerfully tells us. I've liked some of the screen Tarzans, but none of them has been like the man my grandfather created. If you've read the books, you know that Tarzan was actually an English lord who was well educated and didn't use 'me' in the nominative case.
"I believe Warners has an actor tentatively cast to play the adult Tarzan, but I'd certainly like to play the part. I'm the right age, and I'm in good condition, because I've been working out since I was 15. Physical fitness was paramount with my grandfather. These interests really inspired Tarzan.
Of the screen Tarzans to date, Burroughs says Herman Brix was his favorite."He was absolutely the best," he says. "But I also like Johnny Weissmuller, and I loved Lex Barker."
The elder Burroughs wrote 26 "Tarzan" books, the first of which appeared in 1912 in All Story magazine and two years later in hardback. "There've been 16 movie Tarzans and 50 'Tarzan' movies," grandson Burroughs reveals. "But, since the movie producers didn't read the books, the hero of the pictures wasn't much like the one my grandfather imagined."
9. State of Alabama
Proclamation
by the GovernorWHEREAS, Edgar Rice Burroughs, endowed with a talent seldom found in man, devoted his gifts as a fiction author to write for the entertainment of both the young and the young oldsters; and
WHEREAS, in the span of his seventy-five year life, he authored ninety six entertaining and thrilling novels, becoming a phenomenal success, not only in the United States, but all over the world; and
WHEREAS, his wild romances, almost incredible as they may seem, did fulfil the subconscious desires of boys and girls, men and women, who would like to be stronger, braver and even more physically attractive; and
WHEREAS, he exemplifies one in early life, who was of his generation's failures but by his unrelenting and tenacious will for achievement did harness and develop his talent; and
WHEREAS, Edgar Rice Burroughs was born in Chicago, September 1st, 1875, and this year being the 100th anniversary of the birth of one of the world's best known authors and is being commemorated by motion picture theatres throughout Alabama;
NOW, THEREFORE, I, George C. Wallace, Governor of the State of Alabama, do hereby proclaim March 7-13, 1975,
EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS WEEK
in Alabama in recognition of the 100th anniversary of his birth.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Great Seal of the State of Alabama to be affixed by the Secretary of State at the State Capitol in the City of Montgomery on this the 21st day of February, 1975.
(signed George C. Wallace)
CROWSNEST BOOKS
"THE LEADING PUBLISHER OF E-BOOKS"
http://207.201.173.29//greennebula/brs_scifi.htm
These books require the FREE Rocket software for your PC or MacCrowsnest have some SF choices which should be of interest to ERB fans.
Strange though...some of these I don't remember reading :-)10. SCIENCE FICTION
Top Picks: Edgar Rice Burroughs:At The Earth's Core
Nutty scientist tunnels to a strange land at the centre of the planet.The Mad King
Another John Carter of Mars novel.The Outlaw of Torn
Third book in the John Carter of Mars series.People That Time Forgot
More trips through the dinosaur-haunted hidden lands deep inside the ice cap. Follow on from the land that time forgot.Pellucidar
Martian madness as a Terran hero gets sucked through a time warp to fight on a long dead Mars.Princess of Mars
Fourth book in the John Carter of Mars series.Thuvia, Maid of Mars
John Carter goes adventuring on the red planet again.Jungle Tales of Tarzan
Find a vine and get swinging with the jungle set.
Subject: Kudos for your ERB efforts
Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2000 08:04:46 -0600
From: Mary Sullivan <onion@rytebyte.com>
To: hillmans@mb.sympatico.caHello Bill,
A friend recently pointed me in your direction, and by copy of this note I'm thanking him for that. Wow, you really have a comprehensive site -- obviously born of a genuine love of the subject.
The catchy little ditty of ERB's entitled "It's Ants" particularly struck my fancy, and I'd think it'd be a good choice as next week's featured light verse at the URL in my sig. Although the material itself is in the public domain, since you've gone to all the trouble to dig it up I'd like to also include a link to your site. If that meets with your approval would you let me know which page you'd prefer guests arrive on?
Keep up the good work!
Mary
:-) http://welcome.to/lightnup
an oasis of cockeyed optimism"Alrighty then, each week let's put a little short something-or-other on this page that exemplifies the lightnup philosophy; either something I run across in my own farflung web travels or something you kindly point me toward. Doesn't have to be funny, just needs to be lighthearted original material (with author's permission to post or unmistakably in the public domain). "
We think you earthlings take yourselves way too seriously.
Mary Sullivan: E-Mail ~ onion@rytebyte.com
12. TARZAN OF THE PAPERBACKS
by Paul Mandel
LIFE Magazine ~ November 29, 1963
Two years ago, a lady librarian in California took a Tarzan book off the shelf on the spoilsport grounds that Tarzan and Jane were living together out of wedlock. She could have had no inkling of the consequences of her misguided act. The furore it aroused in newspapers has brought the Ape Man roaring back out of literary limbo to delight millions of nostalgic Americans and thrown a bomb into the paperback book business.
The Tarzan books, along with other works of their author, Edgar Rice Burroughs, are runaway best-sellers today and have been ever since they began to come out last year. They have sold something more than 10 million copies, almost one thirtieth the total annual sales of all paperbacks in the U.S. Their resurgence has outraged some publishers whose pet books have been rudely elbowed off the display racks, but has brought a gush of renewed nostalgia to at least two generations who remember and revel in the days of Burroughs' first triumphs and are delighted to see them recur.
From 1914 until roughly 1940 Burroughs was a splendid phenomenon in publishing. His books, the first one of which appeared exactly 50 years ago next June, sold 35 million copies in the face of concerted critical antagonism which called them (in one typical example) "flap doodle... wild, utterly preposterous, utterly meaningless and humorless... long-winded and repetitious... sheer bumble puppy." Burroughs owed most of his success to one creation -- a little English orphan lord who was raised and educated by apes: Tarzan. Burroughs wrote 24 Tarzan books in all and they were translated into 31 languages, including Esperanto, Urdu and Russian (the Soviets felt that although Tarzan was a peer, he had been brought up by proletarian apes so it was all right for young Communists to like him). In Germany after World War I, Tarzan's sales were so vast that a disgruntled local publisher printed a counter-Tarzan tract called Tarzan Eats Germans. In the U.S. the novels inspired Tarzan bread, Tarzan sweaters, Tarzan ice cream, 37 Tarzan movies, and innumerable do-it-yourself Tarzans: one day during the time of Tarzan's greatest success there were l5 children in Kansas City hospitals who had hurt themselves falling out of trees while playing Ape Man.
The original Tarzan hard covers fathered a vast tribe of derivative publications. There were Tarzan Big Little Books and Better Little Books, which were small and chunky like baby bricks, and Tarzan Big Big Books, which were the same in content but bigger -- roughly the size and consistency of a modern club sandwich. They alternated short, fevered pages of text (Tantor advanced his snake-like trunk toward the terrified Swede. His little eyes blazed. At last he had found the creature who had killed his mate) with snappily captioned drawings (Bellowing Horribly, the Elephant Charged: Brooding, ULP Gazed into the Fire.) There were Tarzan bubble-gum cards and Tarzan cartoon strips, and even an official manual for Tarzan Clans which included a 500-word dictionary, English-Ape and Ape-English.
World War II seemed to end the craze for Tarzan books, perhaps because substantial clans of American boys had started living their own real-life jungle dramas. By the time Burroughs died in 1950, leaving his valuable rights to his books to his three children in Tarzana Calif. Tarzan appeared to have entered the literary dinosaur park reserved for other has-beens like the Boy Allies or Don Sturdy.
Then came the lady librarian in California. When newspapers heard what she had done, they published reams of foolish speculation about just what Tarzan and Jane were to each other -- foolish because anyone who had studied the Ape Man's domestic arrangements knew that Jane's father, an ordained minister, had married the two in a small family ceremony in the bush. In any case, all the publicity apparently started old Burroughs fans rooting around for more books to buy for their children and reread themselves. They found to their dismay that only nine of the the 24 Tarzan books were still in print, on the backlist of a New York publisher named Grosset & Dunlap.
The sales of these nine titles increased 25%, but they by no means satisfied the pent-up interest the librarian had unwittingly released. Other publishers petitioned the Burroughs estate for permission to reprint Tarzan. Perhaps because they were content with the revenues from their movie rights, the heirs failed to answer most of these inquiries. Finally one dogged Tarzanophile publisher wrote the Library of Congress to see exactly what rights the heirs still owned. The library's answer disclosed that Burroughs' heirs had committed a lapse which would have sent Burroughs' hero skulking into the underbrush. U.S. copyrights expire in 28 years unless renewed, and the heirs had forgotten to renew the copyrights on at least eight Tarzan books plus about 20 other Burroughs novels. Lo, the Ape Man lay naked in the public domain.
There ensued, starting to the spring of 1962, a feast over his literary body as savage as any jungle episode Burroughs ever created. (At the smell of blood the panther gave forth a shrill scream, and a moment later... beasts were feeding side by side upon the tender meat.) New York Canaveral Press got out 19 hardback Burroughses. Dover issued four paperbacks combining 10 Tarzan paperbacks. Ballantine published 10 Tarzan paperbacks, then two more, plus nine non-Tarzan books, and now plans to bring out another 10 Tarzans and one more non-Tarzan. The threat of a mass freeload on what they had previously regarded as their patrimony sent the Burroughs' heirs to shaking out the drawers and safes at Tarzana to see if there might be anything left which they did own. They found at least five unpublished novels and promptly sold hardcover rights to Canaveral for these and any of the books which were still copyrighted. By next summer some 70 Burroughs novels will be in print. In the illustrations for their reprints the publishers have shown wide differences of opinions about what Tarzan looks like. Ace's Tarzan -- in the tradition of the big Little, Bib Bib and Burroughs' original books -- is mesomorphic, equipped to wrestle monsters and save maidens from parboiling. Ballantine's Tarzan is sleek and cerebral-looking. But whatever their image of the hero, all the books have been selling wondrously. Both Ace and Ballantine have gone into enormous second printings -- 300,000 and 110,000 per title respectively. In the Ace catalogue today Edgar Rice Burroughs occupies an entire separate category, a little smaller than either Science Fiction or Mysteries, but larger than Adventure, Humor or Self-Help.
Not everybody is delighted by this Burroughs rebirth. Norman Podhoretz, the editor of a furrowed-brow magazine called Commentary, has ticked of Burroughs' style as "that Victorian kind of heaviness." And Dr. Fredric Wertham, an extremely serious student of the psychiatric implications of modern publishing trends, feels that there is something sick about Tarzan's return. "The vogue," he says, "has a definite social meaning: to bring out acceptance of violence crime and war -- as a legitimate means of social action. Tarzan appeals to the easiest thing to appeal to: our primitive instincts. We have to try to get out of this."
On the other hand there has been a countercurrent of delight. The Wall Street Journal, which often confines its scrutiny of books on such sprightly topics as corporate merger, gave Tarzan a whole column not long ago. "When it comes to forming the mind," the writer asked, "would you rather have... Tarzan... or the modern comic books [or] Spillane...? The Tarzan stories... are among the most elevated and edifying books... now on the racks."
The Wall Street Journal has found some noisy support for its enthusiasm in the activities of a recently formed organization called the Burroughs Bibliophiles, which has nearly l,000 members. It publishes a Burroughs fan magazine and a newsletter and holds a yearly "Dum-Dum" which is ape talk for "meeting," at which it gloats over its favorite author's renaissance.
And there are indeed some things to gloat over. The first is that Burroughs' non-Tarzan novels -- he wrote 36 of them -- turn out to be better than the Tarzan books. Some are even good. They range from Upton Sinclair-like examinations of gamy corners of American Life (The Mucker and The Girl from Hollywood) to inventive science-fiction books. These included 10 Mars novels, all of which will shortly be out on paperback, about an earthman named John Carter, who finds himself on Barsoom, the local name for Mars. The planet is populated by a colorful assortment of white apes green Communists and nubile red girls. Carter marries one of the latter -- no question either.
There are six topsy-turvy novels about a world called Pellucidar inside the earth's core. It is first found when the controls on a big man-carrying drill becomes stuck at Full Down. Pellucidar's rulers are a nasty lot of reptiles. Just once Burroughs lets down the barriers between his two sets of books and has Tarzan visit Pellucidar. The Ape Man gets in some good licks for the mammals upstairs.
Some of the non-Tarzan books are taut and serious and the best one, The Lost Continent, formerly called Beyond Thirty, tells of a war-ruined England peopled by savages who call it Grabritin. It sounds much more like Orwell than Omtag the Giraffe.
The second lesson from the Burroughs revival is that his book Tarzan is far more interesting than the movie one. The films presumably had trouble finding suitably muscled ape men who could learn long lines, so their Tarzans tended to be laconic ("Me Tarzan. You Jane. Where Boy?") The book Tarzan, on the other hand, is always saying things like "I know the legend well, and because it is so persistent and... circumstantial, I have thought that I should like to investigate it." This makes him a lot more sophisticated, if a little long-winded.
Until the most recent movies the film Tarzan tended to be a treebody keeping pretty close to home with Jane, while the book Tarzan turns out to be a veritable boulevardier, visiting such exotic locals as Paris, London, the Dutch Indies, Baltimore and Wisconsin, in the course of his effort in behalf of the apes at home. Lest any heretic dispute the superiority of the book Tarzan over the Hollywood Tarzan, he should read one of the newly reprinted paperbacks Tarzan and the Lion Man. In its last chapter Tarzan visit Hollywood incognito. He is offered a chance to play the lead in a Tarzan movie but flunks the screen test and loses out to an adagio dancer.
The apes in the Tarzan series came strictly from Burroughs' imagination.
In size and habitats -- such as eating meat -- they are unlike apes in the world.
The ERBzine Eclectica Navigation Site is featured
at:
https://www.erbzine.com/eclectica/
.
WEBJED:
BILL HILLMAN .
Visit
our thousands of other sites at:
BILL
and SUE-ON HILLMAN ECLECTIC STUDIO
Some
ERB Images and Tarzan© are Copyright ERB, Inc.- All Rights Reserved.
All
Original Work ©1996-2010/2020 by Bill Hillman and/or Contributing
Authors/Owners
No
part of this web site may be reproduced without permission from the respective
owners.
