Burroughs Superfan Publishes Magazine YUBA CITY, Calif. They call themselves ERBs. There are several thousand ERBs scattered around the world all over the Americas, in France, Germany, Italy, England, Africa, Japan, Russia and Australia. Bill Dutcher, 34-year-old hamburger-slinging bachelor here is an ERB has been since he was 13.
Syracuse Post-Standard ~ May 19, 1971
By Charles Hillinger
www.erbzine.com/mag11/1198.html
An ERB is a superfan of the life and works of the author and creator of Tarzan, the late Edgar Rice Burroughs. ERBs come in many varieties circus acrobats, company presidents, writers like Ray Bradbury, accountants, electricians, college professors, pilots, the young, middle-aged, elderly.
President John F. Kennedy was an ERB He had excellent credentials. His father produced one of the 42 Tarzan movies. When Bill Dutcher isn't tossing hamburgers onto the grill at his Yuba City stand, he's busy publishing an ERB magazine called Jasoomian. During an interview in his apartment, crammed with an incredible assortment of Tarzan and Burroughs memorabilia, Dutcher nibbled Tarzan vinegar-flavored potato chips made in Quebec and explained the name of his publication: "Burroughs' first novel, Princess of Mars, was one of 10 science-fiction books he wrote about Mars. "He wrote 90 novels in all 26 in the Tarzan series. In his books appear 18 languages invented by Burroughs including the language of Martians. "Jasoomian is one of Burroughs' Martian words. It means earth-man." Dutcher's 32-page illustrated slick magazine sells for $1. It has a circulation in excess of 2,000 with ERBs in Europe, Africa, South America, Asia and Australia among regular subscribers.
"I like to think of Jasoomian kind of like a Time Magazine of Tarzan buffs," said the 5-foot 1-mch, 210-pound superfan. "It's filled with photos, special features, and news items about Tarzan and ERB activities." Before going into business in Yuba City, Dutcher worked for seven years as a printer for the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times. He values his Tarzan-Burroughs collection at approximately $50,000. It includes first editions of all Burroughs' novels; 10,000 Tarzan movie still photos worth 50 cents to $1 each to ERB collectors, and early-day Tarzan comic books that sell for as much as $50 each. Only 1,000 first editions of "Tarzan of the Apes" were published. Rare book buyers pay $600 for a copy $200 for just one of the original dust jackets.
Dutcher has tapes of Tarzan radio episodes aired in the 1930s, a series in which Jane was played by Burroughs' daughter, Joan, and Tarzan by Joan's husband Jim Pierce. He has silent and sound Tarzan movies, old movie window cards and original Tarzan movie scripts. Dutcher's apartment is cluttered with file cabinets brimming with Tarzan bubble gum, cigarettes, potato chips, T-shirts, games, records, trading cards, posters, printings; wrappers from Tarzan bread and ice cream bars. His magazine, issued quarterly but soon to be published monthly, contains Tarzan and Burroughs related features such as stories about Tarzana, Calif., and Tarzan, Tex. A recent issue reproduced a copy of the Rand McNally rejection slip for "Tarzan of the Apes" written by Burroughs in 1912. The rejection read: "careful consideration and while interesting we find it does not fit in with our plans."
More than 35 million copies of Tarzan books have been published in 36 different languages. Dutcher, who is leading a campaign to get the Post Office to issue an Edgar Rice Burroughs commemorative stamp, has endless Tarzan statistics. Tarzan films started in 1915 and are still being made today the longest running motion picture series ever made... "Tarzan of the Apes," starring Elmo Lincoln, the first Tarzan, war the first film to gross more than $1 million. "Burroughs was born in Chicago Sept. 1, 1875. He died March 19, 1950, at his home in Tarzana, Calif. He never set foot in Africa. He was the oldest American war correspondent during World War II."
Dutcher, whose favorite film ape man is Gordon Scott, says some places in the world are just now discovering Tarzan. In France Tarzan novels are the hottest single item in the book publishing business. The whole series of Tarzan books is being printed in French at 250,000 copies per book, Dutcher figures once his magazine reaches a circulation of 5,000 a month he'll be able to quit slinging hamburgers and become a full time publisher.
He's been a member of the Burroughs Bibliophiles for 10 years. That group includes 2,500 paid-up members ($5 annual dues.) The bibliophiles conduct an annual convention. This year it will be in Boston. It has been in England twice. Germany will play host to ERBs in 1972. "The conventions are pretty exciting," said Dutcher. "The Burroughs usually show up, so do many of the movie Tarzans. 'Tarzan and Burroughs items are swapped and sold by bibliophiles. "You'd be surprised at the widespread interest in Tarzan and Edgar Rice Burroughs after all these years," said Dutcher. "And it's a growing interest not a diminishing one. "Tarzan is a heck of a lot more popular than Sherlock Holmes and the rest of the other life-like fictional characters."
BULLETIN BOARD: 
The Tarzan Claque, Other News, Notes
October 16, 1970 ~ San Francisco Chronicle
World of Books Column by William Hogan
After a varied career as soldier, policeman, cowboy, manger of a department in a Sears, Roebuck store, gold miner and storekeeper, Edgar Rice Burroughs began to write. And write he did, beginning with "Tarzan and the Apes" (1914).The rest is history of a sort -- Tarzan books, comic strips, on the air, in the movies (Elmo Lincoln, Johnny Weissmuller) in many languages. One theater in India showed Tarzan pictures for two years straight. Burroughs incorporated himself; two towns (in California and Texas) were named after Tarzan. Burroughs earned millions.
Well, up in Yuba City, William Dutcher, a great Burroughs and "Tarzan" fan, produces an illustrated magazine, "The Jasoomian," devoted to these enthusiasms. Dutcher tells us he has a subscription list of some 200 (Australia, Belgium, England, Canada, etc.) and adds that Burroughs is still going strong, two decades after his death.
Each reprint of a Burroughs title sells about 250,000 copies per printing in France alone. The Ace paperback people, moreover, have just published a brand new Burroughs novel, "Pirate Blood," found in his private vaults down in Tarzana. If there are other Burroughs enthusiasts of these dimensions, Dutcher and "The Jasoomian" may be reached at P.O. Box 1305, Yuba City, Calif. 95991.
 |
A Yuba City hamburger-slinger is proving a success in
his first venture into the publishing business, an Edgar Rice Burroughs
fan magazine known as the Jasoomian.
Bill Dutcher of McDonald's Hamburgers has published one issue of his magazine and already has a circulation of about 200 including subscribers from Australia, Belgium, France, England, Canada and all over the United States. Just to prove that he and his subscribers aren't crazy, he lists among them three professors and one minister. He says he's made enough money from his first issue to make the second one better, perhaps even with color. Dutcher, who used to work for the St. Petersburg Times in Florida lays his magazine out himself at his home, 856 Clark Ave. It is printed by offset at Normart Printing Co. in Marysville. He obtains his subscribers through advertisements in other fan magazines, through correspondence with his many Boroughs fan friends and through a nationwide club to which he belongs, with about 6,000 members, all fans of the old-time science fiction writer. |
 |
Dutcher's first issue has on its cover a picture of his
hero reading one of his books. "Tarzan and the Lion Man." The same issue
contains a complete report on Tarzana, the Southern California community
named for the Burroughs character. It also includes a facsimile of Burroughs'
first literary effort, a two-line poem written at the age of five; another
facsimile page 71 of the original manuscript of "Tarzan of the Apes" where
Burroughs first used the name Tarzan, and a facsimile of an early Burroughs
rejection slip from Rand McNally and Co. dated Aug. 20, 1913.
Dutcher plans to publish his magazine about four times a year at $1 an issue or $3.50 a year. For his next issue he is doing research on the old Tarzan advertisements used by Signal Oil Co. in the 1930s. "There has been a lot written about Burroughs and his works. I'm trying to find things that haven't been written yet," he explains. Another study he's making is of the relationship between Burroughs and the movie actress, Thelma Todd, who is supposed to have died mysteriously. He's collecting photographs of the silent screen star who played Tarzan and may do an entire issue on them. Still another subject of a future article is his collection of tapes from Tarzan radio shows of the 1930s and 1940s. He selected the name Jasoomian from a language Burroughs invented for his Martian books. The name is supposed to mean "Earth" in Martian and he says he picked it to show that his magazine will deal with down-to-earth stories of Burroughs the man. "Burroughs was probably the most written-about author there was," Dutcher says. "Today's generation likes him too. He always wrote good, clean stories and we don't have too many of these any more." Dutcher himself has been a Burroughs fan since his youth and his former home in Florida has a large collection of first editions, which are now worth about $200 apiece. He enjoys his fan magazine as a relaxing hobby, enabling him to use his mind after a day of slinging hamburgers. If the Jasoomian turns out to be a successful hobby, all the better. |
A JOHN COLEMAN BURROUGHS INTERVIEW
Conducted by Bill Dutcher in 1972 for Jasoomian
Transcribed with added information and illustrations
by Bill Hillman
www.erbzine.com/mag27/2773.html
Click for full size
Click for full-size collage
Visit the Jasoomian Art Gallery
BILL
HILLMAN
Visit
our thousands of other sites at:
BILL
and SUE-ON HILLMAN ECLECTIC STUDIO
ERB
Text, ERB Images and Tarzan® are ©Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.-
All Rights Reserved.
All
Original Work ©1996-2011/2019/2022 by Bill Hillman and/or Contributing
Authors/Owners
No
part of this web site may be reproduced without permission from the respective
owners.
