Official Edgar Rice Burroughs Tribute and Weekly Webzine
Since 1996 ~ Over 15,000 Webpages in Archive
Volume 3672

ECLECTICA v.2011.10

 Aristocrat's Tarzan Lord of the Jungle and Cashman Fever Named
Best Slots in 2011 Best of Southern California Gaming
Readers Choice Awards
LAS VEGAS, NV, Sep 30, 2011 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) -- The votes are in, and Aristocrat's Tarzan(R) Lord of the Jungle(TM) and Cashman Fever(TM) slot games have been named Best Slots in the 2011 Best of Southern California Gaming(TM) Reader's Choice Awards. The awards are overseen by the Southern California Gaming Guide, and are voted on by the magazine's readers.

Aristocrat was a quadruple winner. Tarzan Lord of the Jungle was voted #1 Best Video Slot and #3 Best Progressive Slot. Cashman Fever was named #1 Best Penny Slot and #2 Best Video Slot. "We are absolutely thrilled with these four wins, especially because it was players giving us the recognition," said Aristocrat V.P. of Gaming Operations Dallas Orchard. "At Aristocrat, we create the world's best gaming experience every day, and we are very happy to know that players throughout Southern California and across North America love our games."

Tarzan Lord of the Jungle video slot game brings the myth and fantasy of the famous tale to life with dazzling graphics, stereo sound, five high-hit frequency bonus features and a four-level progressive with a giant top jackpot of $250,000. Cashman Fever is a feature-rich, highly entertaining gaming experience with four red-hot, high-frequency Cashman Fever bonus features and an exclusive Cashman Fever Progressive Link feature that offers 20 jackpot pools.

Aristocrat Technologies Inc. is a subsidiary of Aristocrat Leisure Limited (asx:ALL), a leading global provider of gaming solutions. The Company is licensed by more than 200 regulators and its products and services are available in more than 90 countries around the world. Aristocrat offers a diverse range of products and services including electronic gaming machines and casino management systems. For further information visit the company's website at www.aristocratgaming.com .

TARZAN(R) and TARZAN YELL(R) are registered trademarks of EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS, INC. and Used by Permission. Copyright 2011 Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc., All Rights Reserved.

More>>>

See our Tarzan Slots feature: http://www.erbzine.com/mag35/3558.html

ERB CENTENNARY

2012 marks the 100th Anniversary of the story of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs. BrownTrout is pleased to present this calendar celebrating this favorite literary and comic character. The story of Tarzan is compelling told, and his adventures are beautifully displayed in this square wall calendar featuring illustration by a multitude of talented artists including J. Allen St. John, Frank Frazetta, M.C. Wyeth, John Coleman Burroughs, Zdenek Burian, Robert K. Abbett, Dean Williams and Mel Greifinger.
 

Many examples of most of the artists featured in this Centennial Calendar are featured in ERBzine: J. Allen St. John Frank Frazetta N.C. Wyeth John Coleman Burroughs Zdenek Burian Robert K. Abbett ERB Artists Encyclopedia

System Magazine was published and edited out of 151 Wabash Ave, Chicago,  by Arch W. Shaw (b. Michigan 1876, d. 1962),  one of the preeminent business book publishers from 1910 to 1930.  He helped Harvard (where he taught now and again) get its Business Review magazine going in 1922.  Shaw was also a partner in the Kellogg Company. The magazine became Business Week in 1929.

Edgar Rice Burroughs was associated with System Magazine before he gained fame as a writer of popular fiction. He was turned off by the fact that writers like him, with no business experience, were supposed to provide advice to business managers in the journal. He began sending stories out to be published, first science fiction stories, then the Tarzan stories, in order to be able to leave the magazine and make it as a writer on his own.

1912: May: Brother Coleman's stationery business is unable to support two families so Ed cuts back his hours and takes a second position as manager for the System Service Bureau of System: The Magazine of Business Efficiency. Ed task was to give business advice to subscribers. He does all of his writing in his spare time.
1913: February 28: The birth of third child, John Coleman Burroughs. Ed decides to give up his job with Shaw's Systems to devote full time to writing.  ~ ERB Bio Timeline
 

The ERB / System Magazine Connection is documented at: http://www.erbzine.com/mag5/0527.html ERB Bio Timeline LA Times The Success of Failure

Adhor Farms was the famous dairy farm next to Tarzana Ranch

'
From the Danton Burroughs Collection | Featured at the tarzana.ca site

Adohr Tale: A Window on the Past
L.A. Times: Then and Now ~ March 01, 1998
To young families starting out in a sprawling new kind of city that had just made its decisive turn into the automobile age, they were more than a mere convenience. They were heroes; the emerging consumer society's equivalent of the Three Musketeers: the Helms man, the milkman and the Good Humor man.

By the late 1930s, Los Angeles was sprawling outward in every direction, as family cars and new road networks brought cheap land and, therefore, homeownership within reach of an ever-growing number of people. Supermarkets and other amenities, however, were slow to follow into the new suburbs. Many families still used wooden iceboxes, where milk and butter could not be stored for long. So enterprising local companies used the same rubber tires that carried commuters to and from the new neighborhoods to bring customers a daily ration of those staples of the good, or any, life: bread, milk--and a little ice cream for dessert.

The Helms man and his mobile bakery have vanished, of course. So has the Good Humor man, though similarly melodious trucks still make their rounds in many neighborhoods, where ice cream vendors are a sweet reminder of home to many new immigrants. Few people, however, realize that milkmen in their starched white uniforms still ply their predawn trade in a few of the city's enclaves.

In those earlier years, though, milkmen from dozens of dairies--Swan, Supreme, Excelsior, Crown City, Carnation, Driftwood and Alta Dena--blanketed Southern California, trailing puddles of water from blocks of ice that kept their farm-fresh products cold. But it was the giants like Adohr Farms that had hundreds of routes and that people in the new suburbs depended upon the most for special deliveries. Despite rain, dogs and robbers, Adohr's clean-cut milkmen delivered fresh dairy products daily to customers, who demonstrated their trust by leaving their kitchen doors unlocked.

One of Adohr's outstanding employees was milkman Elmer Moss, who joined the company in the 1930s. For more than three decades, Moss made his way along a route that stretched from West Los Angeles' flatland bungalows to mansions in Holmby Hills. Moss' extra services included bringing in newspapers, putting the milk into customers' refrigerators and even moving the old milk upfront. He made sure houses were securely locked when customers went on vacation and always had a kind word for those home sick in bed. Once Moss fixed breakfast for twin 7-year-old girls who had made a mess in the kitchen, while their mother was ill in bed. When Moss--his hair by then as white as his uniform--retired in the 1960s, residents of Holmby Hills honored him with a neighborhood party and a check for $1,030.55.

Though their service was very much a modern convenience, Moss and his colleagues worked for employers whose roots ran back to the city's earliest days. In 1916, Merritt Huntley Adamson Sr. and his heiress wife, Rhoda Rindge Adamson, whose parents were the last owners of the vast Spanish land grant in Malibu, founded a state-of-the-art dairy in Tarzana called Adohr Farms; Adohr was Rhoda spelled backward.

A decade later, when Adohr's famous reddish-golden brown Guernseys were known worldwide for their quality, size and productive capacity, the family opened a subsidiary--Adohr Creamery Co.--on a 20-acre parcel in what was then the country. The new plant processed and distributed the dairy products produced on the Tarzana farm. For more than 40 years, the company's landmark, a fetching milkmaid, would stand with her cow and child, catching the eye of every passing motorist at La Cienega Boulevard and Sawyer Street.

The Depression plunged the family's other operation, a beef ranch, into bankruptcy, forcing the Adamsons to sell most of their land to pay creditors. However, the dairy business kept the family solvent. Adamson summers still were spent in a huge Spanish-style mansion on a 13-acre slice of beachfront, just east of Malibu Lagoon, that would become a showcase of colorful, locally produced ceramic tiles--one of the jewels of Southern California's late Arts and Crafts era--and has since been converted into a local history museum.

In 1947, Adohr Farms moved from Tarzana to Camarillo, and two years later Adamson shot himself to death, apparently despondent over his failing health after a stroke. After her husband's death, Rhoda continued to sell off property to meet expenses. When she died in 1962, only about 4,000 acres of Malibu land remained out of the 17,000 acres of the Spanish land grant, title to which she and her siblings had inherited from their parents.

By 1966, the price of cattle feed had skyrocketed and the Adamson trustees were forced to sell Adohr Farms to the Southland Corp., which would change hands again more than two decades later. Making room for the Ward Plaza shopping center and the Westview Park subdivision, the dairy was torn down in 1969. The landmark milkmaid was saved from the bulldozer at the last minute, only to be abandoned by her new owners at one of their processing plants in Tulare County, where she still sits in disrepair.

Learn much more about Tarzana at: www.tarzana.ca Including updates in the TARZANA HALL OF FAME series www.erbzine.com/mag31/3131.html

Click to enter larger image gallery: ENTER
Photos adapted from http://justjared.buzznet.com  and  http://showbizcafe.com/en

 
Variety ~ October 13, 2011
JOHN CARTER---the Disney movie based on Edgar Rice Burroughs' JOHN CARTER OF MARS had 18 days of reshoots following a critique by Pixar. Disney paid for the reshoots which it hopes will pay off box office-wise because of the movie's almost $300 million budget. A July prescreening of an unfinished version in Portland, Oregon scored an impressive "good" or "excellent" from 75% of the audience. Taylor Kitsch, Willem Dafoe, Lynn Collins and Thomas Haden Church star.

Tarzan: Lord of the Louisiana Jungle update

Wow! A lot is happening at this time.  The final script is finished and Allison is editing away on the documentary.  Kermit Poling is writing the musical score for the original Tarzan of the Apes film.  We have already re-edited that film and we’re adding a new orchestral music score that is sounding  super fantastic.

I have been trying to get into various companies seeking corporate sponsorship.  I am looking for a Louisiana-based company that has national and possibly international distribution.  I have already been rejected by Tabasco and Raising Cane’s without even having a chance to present the opportunity.  I am going after others now.

I meet with Carrie Stansbury who is head of tourism and the film office in the Morgan City area on Thursday, Sept. 22.  She has put together a committee of folks from that area for a Tarzan Festival on the weekend of April 13-15, 2012.  I will be giving a report in an upcoming article for www.erbzine.com.

Many of you have purchased a Tarzan poster.  All the money goes into the production of the documentary and the remake of the original Tarzan of the Apes film.  Everyone who obtains a poster will have their names listed as a sponsor of the film in the end credits of the documentary.  If you haven’t gotten one or more, I have some left and it would really help push the boulder up the hill.  To order, go to www.albohl.com. Thanks,

Umgawa!
Al Bohl

Read all Al Bohl's Behind-the-Scenes Stories Tarzan: Lord of the Louisiana Jungle www.erbzine.com/mag31/3110.html

Elmo's Original Tarzan Yell


From "You Asked For It"
Thanks to Ted McKosky

TARZANA–A 93-year-old “bad man.” who was once allegedly the fastest man with a gun in the West, met up with television’s Wyatt Earp and immediately went for his clippings, memories and tales of the Old West at his modern-day hide-out in Tarzana. Al Jennings, last of the real shoot-’em-up gun slingers, can talk for hours about such men as the original Wyatt Earp, the Daltons, Jesse James, Doc Holiday and Bat Masterson–all men he has known. “I won’t give ya a plugged nickel for today’s crop of television’s western heroes,” Jennings told Hugh O’Brian, who plays Earp. He reached for a gun that O’Brian gave him to look at.

The small, wiry, white haired former desperado, not much taller than 5 feet, tried twirling Earp’s gun and finally gave it up because his once nimble fingers weren’t what they used to be. Finally he snorted, looked at the blank TV screen and confided to O’Brian: “These television heroes are no good at all!. They’re certainly not as good with a gun as the men in my day. It’s a joke!”

Jennings should know what he’s talking about. His trail leads back to train and bank robbing feats, five years in the penitentiary at Columbus, OH., a parole by President McKinley and a pardon from President Theodore Roosevelt in 1907. “Now let me tell ya,” he continued, “On television they’re always hitting the cap of the gun and fanning it real fast so it looks good.”

“I always aim before I shoot,” OBrian answered. “Why, that’s right!” Jennings said. “A man couldn’t hit a flock of barns shooting the way most of them movie gunmen do. He’d be jerking the gun so much that he wouldn’t be able to aim at anything.”

Jennings passed away in 1961. His Times obituary published on Dec. 27, 1961 reported:

Al Jennings, said to have been one of the most feared of the bad men in the blazing youth of the Southwest, died at 97 Tuesday with his boots off…. Jennings was an admitted bank robber, train robber and cattle thief of the 1880s, and was said to have been acquainted with some of the marshals and badmen whose names still live in western legend. “Some of the finest men I ever knew were horse thieves,” Jennings once said.

Hollywood News from Tracy Scott Griffin
Lincoln High School alumni in Los Angeles have formed a foundation in the name of Kenny Washington, a star football player. They are raising several million dollars to put artificial turf on their field and do other renovations and upgrades. Kenny's jersey (#13) was retired at tonight's home game. A statue of him will be erected on campus.

When it is, this will be another site for ERB pilgrims to get photo ops. Washington was Woody Strode's best friend from childhood, and the two played on the UCLA team then on Los Angeles Rams together, the first two blacks to reintegrate football, in 1946. Washington went on to play "Akaba" on the Ron Ely Tarzan episodes later combined in the movie Tarzan's Deadly Silence. Kenny's father Edgar "Blue" Washington also appeared in Tarzan films, including Tarzan's Revenge, Tarzan and the Slave Girl and perhaps others, uncredited. Blue was a regular on John Ford's movie sets (even when he wasn't on-camera), and his phobia of snakes was cause for much merriment among the cast and crew, who would kill rattlesnakes and toss them on him at inopportune times.
 There is a documentary on Washington currently in production
More at
WIKIPEDIA
LA Times
Kenny Washington Stadium Foundation

Johnny Weissmuller Photos


Buster Keaton gives Johnny Weissmuller a swim lesson

Buster Crabbe and Johnny Weissmuller in Combat
From the Johnny Weissmuller Scrapbook page: ERBzine 0394

Johnny examined by Laurel and Hardy

Johnny on the Tarzan set

"Janet Goodall Live!"
a night for chimps' champ at theaters

Denver Post ~ September 24, 2011

Jane Goodall has studied chimps since 1960.

"She's a star. She loves being a star" says Pierce Brosnan, a guy who knows a thing or 007 about stardom. The actor appears in "Jane's Journey," a documentary about Jane Goodall, who more than 50 years ago began telling the world stories about the lives of chimpanzees. "She just has a way of casting a spell," Brosnan adds.

Tuesday evening, that spell will be cast wide — nationwide — when "Jane Goodall Live!" takes place in 500 movie theaters. NCM Fathom Events' one-night multimedia program will play 15 Colorado theaters. Guests include international space station astronauts, as well as Dave Matthews and Charlize Theron. Still, the main attraction is Goodall.

In 1960, the then-27-year-old Brit arrived in Tanzania's Gombe Stream National Park as one of Louis Leakey's primate researchers. She had no degree but knew where she wanted to make her mark. She'd wanted to travel to Africa since she was a child. "Girls certainly didn't do that sort of thing," she says in "Jane's Journey." "Dream about things you can actually achieve, people told me. But not Mum." Gombe was the fruition of one dream and the beginning of others. Her research changed how humans understood primates but also ourselves. . . .

"Jane's Journey," which anchors Tuesday's event, makes clear, the spry Goodall, now 77, is a charming and forthright raconteur. In a scene from the film, Goodall has gotten an award and is standing at a podium, her silver hair pulled back in that trademark ponytail. "Many of you know Dr. Dolittle?," she begins, recounting her girlhood reading habits. "There's the one where Dr. Dolittle takes the circus animals back to Africa. Well, I love that book." Then there was Tarzan — the Edgar Rice Burroughs? books, not the films. She was 10 or so. "I read about this glorious lord of the jungle. Obviously, I fell passionately in love with him — as little girls 10 or 11 do. And what did he do? Married that other, wimpy Jane." The crowd laughs. Because, Goodall — champion of animals, illuminator of humans — could never be confused for a wimpy Jane.
 

News of Jane Goodall's achievements and her admiration for ERB  has appeared regularly in ERBzine News Archive: http://www.erbzine.com/news

Men and women and that whole Tarzan thing
An Abbreviated Conversation between Donna and Eve Shavatt and Wayne Moss

HometownAnnapolis.com  ~ September 23, 2011

E: "Have you ever pondered a world without women?" I asked Donna. When she laughed out loud, I continued. "I know. It's unimaginable. What would become of mankind?"

D: "Need I remind you of Tarzan? Eating with his hands, sleeping on a tree limb - what kind of a life did Tarzan have before Jane came along? Let's face it, he lived like an animal. If it weren't for women, men might still be swinging around on vines, hanging out with chimps, grunting and picking lice from each other's heads. You know, they were on about the same mental level. It was a simple existence. So they needed us to civilize them."

E: "That's not really what Donna meant.Look at it this way. Jane made Tarzan realize his full development potential. Desperate to keep her happy, he built an elevator to their tree house and even managed to equip it with running water. It demonstrated that when men put their mind to it, they can sometimes accomplish great things. . . . Let me try that again. Tarzan would probably have accomplished great things eventually even without Jane."

W: "When Tarzan was alone, he formed alliances with nature and the animals. His days were peaceful, swinging from tree to tree, eating some fruit, taking a swim, hanging out with Cheetah. But once Jane showed up suddenly he's forced to start killing crocodiles, wrestle lions and fight the natives trying to save her and her citified friends on safari. She didn't improve him, she ruined his life! You can't tell me old Tarzan wasn't happy before her. He was physically fit and satisfied with what he had. Then wham, Jane moves in and the next thing you know he's building rustic cabinets to house her 16-piece bamboo dinner ware. Now tell me, how exactly did that make him a better man?"

D: "Tarzan wasn't the only one making compromises, Wayne. What a price Jane paid for the sacrifices she made. How she must have longed for all the luxuries of her former existence - fine restaurants, nice clothes, manicures and designer handbags. Highlights. Collagen. Lipstick! She didn't even have a single pair of shoes. But she willingly gave them up to be with her man. Then, just when she was beginning to think she was making some progress with her efforts to educate and refine him, along came their son. Jane wanted to give him a proper English name, maybe Reginald Wellington or Jonathan Winthrop or at least Tarzan Jr. But she thought it would be a nice gesture to let Tarzan have the honors. Big mistake. He insisted on naming the kid 'Boy.' Seriously?"

W: "You wanna talk sacrifice? Tarzan sacrificed his manhood. And I'm sure somewhere along the way Jane complained he wasn't the same met she fell for when she first met him. Obviously, he wasn't the same man. She spent 10 years trying to change him, then she complains he's different. What did she expect?"

D: "Did she? What really changed with men? These days, instead of a monkey, men have a dog, and they still walk around in their underwear, grunting one syllable words. At least women have wised up. You won't catch us going barefoot again. We've made up for that shoe thing with a vengeance."

Umgowa.

Strange Worlds is now available!

It’s been a long haul and lots of artwork but the Strange Worlds Anthology is now available. Nine stories and one comic book ! Each story is illustrated in color and black and white. Working with a great group of writers we created the first NEW collection of NEW Sword and Planet stories to be produced in a very long time. Check out the gallery page for a closer look and and get ready to order your collection of illustrated adventure now !  - Jeff Doten http://www.strangeworldsanthology.com/

Craig ‘Hustle & Flow’ Brewer talks 'Tarzan'
Orlando Sentinel ~ September, 30 2011

The director of “Hustle & Flow,” Craig Brewer, has done his “rap movie,” (“Hustle & Flow”), his blues movie (“Black Snake Moan”) and, he figures, thanks to an adorable line-dancing scene in his remake of “Footloose,” his “country music movie.” But what he REALLY wants to do is show the world his take on “Tarzan.” “I just finished a draft on ‘Tarzan,’” he says. “So far, everybody I’ve shown it to is digging it. . . . But I don’t put ‘Tarzan’ in the remake category. I’ve gone back to the Edgar Rice Burroughs books, which most of the earlier movies haven’t stuck to. I think it’s about time for me to show I can do something that isn’t connected with music. ‘Footloose’ was a special situation (He calls it a “life-changing movie for me, when I was 13.”).  . . . I’d like to do some smaller, indie things. But ‘Tarzan’ is a passion of mine. I hope I’m able to do it.” More>>>

CCA Selected For Disney’s Tarzan Project
Chattanoga.com ~ October 11, 2011

Chattanooga’s Center for Creative Arts has been invited by Disney Theatrical Productions to participate in a pilot project to stage and perform Tarzan, the stage musical based on the Disney animated feature film. CCA will be one of the first high schools in the nation to premiere this musical. Disney’s Tarzan will be performed on Feb. 16, 17, and 18 in CCA’s auditorium at 1301 Dallas Road in North Chattanooga. Tickets will go on sale in January. More>>>

"John Carter" Must Gross $700 Million to Get a Sequel?

New Yorker ~ October 17, 2011
According to New York Magazine, John Carter of Mars needs to earn a whopping $700 Million at the worldwide box office in order to justify a sequel. That would mean that the film would have end up being among 50 highest-grossing movies of all time, above "Wall-E" and "Iron Man." And it would have to do almost twice as much business as another recent Disney sci-fi film, "Tron Legacy," which grossed $400 million and is considered a hit.
More Highlights from the New Yorker Article:
Steve Jobs RIP Cover
". . . he was doing reshoots for “John Carter” on the Playa Vista lot near the L.A. airport.  In April, Stanton began an unusually extensive eighteen-day reshoot on the film. “After two decades in animation,” he said, “I was spontaneity-starved.” Mentions film editor Eric Zumbrunnen. Stanton was born in 1965, and he grew up in Rockport. After a year at the University of Hartford, he transferred to the character-animation program at the California Institute of the Arts. In 1989, he married his childhood sweetheart, Julie, and they settled in L.A. That same year, John Lasseter, a fellow CalArts grad, asked Stanton to join him at Pixar, making commercials as the company’s second animator. As the company grew from thirty-eight employees, in 1992, to more than twelve hundred today, Stanton’s responsibilities grew with it. Mentions composer Michael Giacchino. Describes how Stanton developed the idea for “Finding Nemo.” Discusses Stanton’s fears of failure. One morning, over the July 4th holiday in 2001, he woke before dawn and wrote a mission statement. “Try to get fired,” he wrote. “Don’t be concerned about box office, release dates, audience appeal, Pixar history, stock prices, approval from others.” After this reckoning, he began to ask colleagues for help, and the main thread of “Finding Nemo” finally came together. At a recent “John Carter” test screening, a robust seventy-five per cent of the audience rated the film as excellent or very good. The film had scope and humor and gusto, and you could feel a bounding imagination at work.
Read the Full Text in New Yorker

John Carter Comics from Marvel
Licensed from ERB, Inc.

John Carter Prequel (2011) #1

John Carter: The World of Mars #1 preview art by Luke Ross

MARVEL COMICS

MORE UNAUTHORIZED ERB COMICS FROM DYNAMITE

LORD OF THE JUNGLE
(Unauthorized)
Press Release from Dynamite Comics The original Lord of the Jungle returns! Dynamite is proud to announce the December release of Lord of the Jungle! Dynamite's Lord of the Jungle is true to Edgar Rice Burroughs original tale, savage, violent, and uncensored for the first time in its 100 year history!  We are so proud and excited about this book, that we are offering the first FULL issue for the introductory price of just $1.00!

Based on the classic Edgar Rice Burroughs adventure story, Tarzan of the Apes, the first of his famous series, which initially began publication in All Story Magazine in 1912.  The saga of Greystoke begins in December, written by Arvid Nelson and illustrated by Roberto Castro, and featuring covers by Alex Ross, Lucio Parillo, Ryan Sook, and Paul Renaud!

"Tarzan's DNA is in everything from super heroes to space epics," says writer Arvid Nelson.  "But I was surprised at how little I knew about him, because the many adaptations wander very far from the original character. His true story is so much deeper and more interesting -- that's we're trying to bring to life in Lord of the Jungle."

"To allow the series to be accessible to fans old and new, we are offering the first issue at the Introductory Price of $1.00 for the full ENTIRE 32 page comic, as well as dedicating both of the Dynamite front gate folds of the October shipping Previews Magazine to our launch," says Dynamite Entertainment President and Publisher Nick Barrucci. "Get on board for the biggest comic book launch this December!"

www.newsarama.com/php/multimedia/album.php?aid=44363

 

Alex Niño, Renowned Comic Book Artist
AsianJournal.com ~ September 24, 2011


ERB Artist Encyclopedia : NOP Section

FILIPINO comic book artist Alex Niño doesn’t get the credit most of his peers receive. When you think of the Filipino pioneers that entered the US comic industry in the 1970s, you’d automatically think of Tony DeZuniga (the creator of Jonah Hex), Nestor Redondo (an illustrator for Swamp Thing and Tarzan) or the late Alfredo Alcala (winner of several science fiction awards at the time). But Niño holds up more than his own to these legendary figures. Niño has illustrated more than 300 stories for comic publishers in the Philippines before migrating in the 1970s to the US, to work for DC and Marvel, the two biggest US comic publishing firms.

At DC, he co-created DC hero Captain Fear, a hero that is making a revival for the publisher in 2011. At Marvel, he illustrated Conan and Hulk, among others. Later in life, Niño worked in animation for Marvel Productions, Fox TV, Hannah-Barbera, SD Entertainment, and Walt Disney on feature films such as Mulan, Atlantis, Treasure Planet, and Emperor’s New Groove.

Born in Tarlac, Philippines, Niño was an ambitious kid, despite being born during the WW II era. Niño knew by the age of six that he wanted to be an artist. “Unlike other kids, whose parents could afford to give them pencil, paper and crayons, Niño drew with a small stick in the sand, underneath his parent’s bamboo shack. He drew stick figures constantly, until it got so dark that he couldn’t see anymore,” according to his biography by Auad Publishing. His love for drawing was further fueled, when he worked as a newspaper boy -- delivering newspapers to nearby neighborhoods. “There he was, exposed to the work of popular strip artists at the time, including Hal Foster and Milton Caniff, and the work of Nestor Redondo, Francisco Coching, Alfredo Alcala from the comics,” said colleague and Filipino comic historian Gerry Alanguilan.

The Philippines was a gold mine of artistic talent, said DeZuniga. And the artists also, came in the cheap. This is when the first wave of Filipino artist began to transform the US comic industry. Among those recruited by Orlando and then editor Carmine Infantino was Nestor Redondo, Alfredo Alcala, Mar Amongo, Ernie Chan, Gerry Talaoc and Alex Niño. Niño became a staple in DC and Marvel comics (it was fairly common at the time for artist to jump from one publishing company to another despite being rival companies). Niño, though specializing in horror and supernatural comics, illustrated some of the most popular comics at that time including Tarzan, Conan and Hulk. More>>>
 

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