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ECLECTICA v.2012.08

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IN THE NEWS

JIM SULLOS
Long Beach couple has me Tarzan, you Jane relationship
Jim and Vicki Sullos
By Rich Archbold ~ Contra Costa Times ~ August 4, 2012

You may know them as mild-mannered Jim and Vicki Sullos, but beneath their quiet exteriors lies the fantasy world of Tarzan and Jane. "Except for the leopard loin cloth, Jim and I have had pretty much a Tarzan/Jane relationship for 40 years," Vicki said gleefully from their home in Bixby Hill. "He beats on his chest, and I respond with my point of view, which usually prevails." Jim smiles at his wife's characterization of their married life.

The Sulloses are having a little fun at Tarzan's expense, but Jim is no nonsense in his late-in-life, second career as caretaker of the literary legacy and business empire of Tarzan's creator, Edgar Rice Burroughs. In his first job as a longtime accountant and managing partner with the powerhouse Long Beach accounting firm Windes and McClaughry, it would have been hard for Jim to imagine that he one day would be making deals and decisions affecting the image and business potential of one of the superstars of pop culture and literature. After mandatory retirement from Windes and McClaughry, Jim became president of Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc. on May 1, 2008.

"It's the best job in the world, but it's a killer commute," Jim said. Three or four days a week, Jim makes the daily 1 1/2-hour trip each way to his ERB office in, where else, Tarzana, the city Burroughs carved out from a 555-acre ranch he bought in 1919. Jim's office is in the same Spanish-style bungalow built by Burroughs and set back from Ventura Boulevard in the San Fernando Valley. The office is filled with Burroughs' memorabilia, including the author's walnut desk decorated with Moorish figures.

It's like living in another world for Jim, who was born and raised in Long Beach, where he graduated from Poly High School. He became a Long Beach community leader active on many boards and nonprofit organizations and is chairman of the board of International City Bank. His wife also is active with the Assistance League of Long Beach.

"My ERB job is exciting and really interesting," Sullos said as he outlined details for the Tarzan Centennial Commemorative celebration to be held Aug. 16-18 at the Warner Center Marriott Hotel in Woodland Hills next door to Tarzana. A keystone of the celebration will be the Dum Dum Convention, the annual fan event of the Burroughs Bibliophiles, a nonprofit organization formed 60 years ago to further the literary legacy of the most prolific author of the 20th Century. Burroughs wrote more than 70 novels and 40 short stories and is referred to as the Master of Adventure and the Grandfather of Science Fiction.

Burroughs was a failure at every job he held until he struck gold with his stories. He was a railroad watchman, a Sears manager and a stationery store owner, among other endeavors. In 1912, at age 37, Burroughs decided that his latest job as a pencil sharpener salesman wasn't bringing in enough money to support a wife, two children and a baby on the way. He had been reading stories in pulp fiction magazines and figured he could write stories better than those and actually get paid for them.

He received $400 for his first novel, "Under the Moons of Mars," written under the pseudonym, Normal Bean, because he wanted this science fiction story to be more credible if written by a "normal" person. Later in 1912, he wrote another novel, this time under his real name, about a boy who grows up to be "Tarzan of the Apes." He received $700 for this story, which ran in All-Story magazine. "The rest is history," Sullos said. "It's estimated that over 100 million copies of his books have been published around the world, and with books, movies, comic books, comic strips and merchandise, he reached over a billion people at his peak."

Burroughs, who never expected his writing to amount to much, was overwhelmed by the positive response he got from his early stories. In 1923 he did a very smart thing. He had the foresight to start Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc. to protect the copyright of his literary creations and to market them as he and his family wanted.

Sullos' path to Tarzan was much different.  After graduating from Occidental College and Columbia University, Sullos started working "as a baby accountant" for Windes and McClaughry in 1960. By coincidence, one of Windes and McClaughry's accounts was ERB Inc. and guess who was assigned to that account? Young Jim Sullos. When he retired from Windes and McClaughry, it was a relatively easy decision by the Burroughs family to put him in charge of ERB.

Now, it is Sullos' job to not only protect the copyright and legacy of the Tarzan name, but also to expand on his popularity. He spends a lot of time dealing with copyright issues and negotiating contracts for and licenses for everything from Tarzan hats to video games in Las Vegas casinos, one of the most popular new games of its kind on the market. He also is fiercely aggressive in stopping "infringers," those people who want to use the Burroughs creations illegally.

"The Internet has helped us worldwide to discover people who are violating our copyright," Sullos said. "We've gone after some people making pornographic films using the Tarzan name. Tarzan has become a big international business, and different copyright laws in different countries makes our job more difficult," he said. "For instance, there's Tarzan soap in India, Tarzan fertilizer in Pakistan and Tarzan cosmetics in South Korea, just to name a few."

Sullos said if you want to use the Tarzan name for anything, you have to follow various rules instituted by ERB. "For example, Tarzan doesn't smoke," he said. "Tarzan doesn't drink. He's not mean to people, except the bad guys." It's sort of like Tarzan's l0 Commandments.

Sullos' job is a demanding one. He's working on so many projects it's hard to understand how he has time for all of them. Sullos is working now on the release of a new book, "Jane, the Woman Who Loved Tarzan," by Robin Maxwell. Other Tarzan books, written by Andy Briggs for a young audience in England, soon will be published in the United States. And then there are more movies to plan and, oh yes, the centennial celebration in two weeks. The three-day centennial event will feature a convention with fans, collectors, actors, authors and artists.

A special guest speaker at the dinner Aug. 18 will be Dr. Jane Goodall, founder of the Jane Goodall Institute. Goodall credits Burroughs' "Tarzan of the Apes" novel and other stories as the source of her lifelong interest in primates. She began reading Tarzan stories when she was 11.

Sullos said ERB also will be unveiling newly commissioned statues of Tarzan in fighting garb, done by artist Joe DeVito. The painted version will sell for $225, the bronze version for $425. If you would like a solid bronze statue, you can buy one for $7,500, but there are only 10 of those, so move fast.

In other Tarzan news, Sullos said the U.S. Postal Service will unveil an Edgar Rice Burroughs commemorative stamp Aug. 17 at 11:30 a.m. at the Tarzana Community & Cultural Center, 19130 Ventura Blvd., Tarzana.

All of these activities should guarantee that the famous Ape Man will continue swinging from the vines with the help of Jim Sullos and his Jane, Vicki.

rich.archbold@presstelegram.com

EVENTS

DUM-DUM UPDATE

ROBIN MAXWELL: AUTHOR OF JANE
Appearing at the 2012 Tarzana Dum-Dum


Robin and Max on the cover of the annual
Desert Writers Issue which will be out August 22, 2012

RALPH HERMAN
Encino-Tarzana Library to Celebrate Tarzan Centennial
Local historian Ralph J. Herman, Sr. shares some Tarzana history
in honor of the 100th anniversary of Edgar Rice Burroughs' classic 'Tarzan of the Apes'.
Encino-Tarzana Patch


November 1945: American actor and Olympic swimmer Johnny Weissmuller (1904 - 1984)
as Tarzan with Johnny Sheffield as Boy and the chimpanzee Cheetah. In honor of the 100th anniversary of the publication of Edgar Rice Burroughs' classic Tarzan of the Apes, the Encino-Tarzana Branch Library will host a screening of the 1932 movie Tarzan of the Apes and will also host separate presentation by local historian and Tarzana native Ralph J. Herman, Sr.
.

Tarzana Hall of Fame Photo From Broadway Premiere of Tarzan the Musical

Ralph Herman Presentation at Tarzana Ranch with Danton Burroughs and Bill Hillman

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“I’ve given probably 75 presentations over the year or more, large groups, small groups, etcetera,” Herman said. “For this event, for 100 years of Tarzan of the Apes, I’m going to concentrate mainly on a small bit of the history of the Valley.” Herman, whose family moved onto part of the original Tarzana Ranch, worked on the ranch as a teenager. “We had alfalfa, rice, barely and a small flock of sheep on the property,” Herman said.  “During World War II we had the Tarzana army camp on it, which not too many people realized existed.”

During his presentation, Herman will detail the history of the ranch, first owned by General Harrison Gray Otis, the former publisher of the Los Angeles Times who named it Rancho de Cabrillo. After he passed away, Burroughs purchased the ranch and named it Tarzana Ranch, the name of the community later. “Otis bought the land out of the first parcel subdivided of the 47,500 acres. He used it for everything from raising goats to you name it. Edgar Rice Burroughs continued on with everything from small dairy farm on it and quite a range of additional animals,” Herman said.

At the presentation, Herman will also bring in some memorabilia to share with the audience, including a famous plaque that General Otis produced. “The plaque was discovered within the walls of the writing quarters, it was actually Burroughs’,” Herman said. “He found the plaque on site and when he built the writing quarters he stuck it between the plaster, we later discovered it when we tore apart the place to rebuid and enlarge it.”

Herman will also bring in an original piece made in honor of Tarzan of the Apes, filmed in 1917 and released in 1918. Herman, who acquired it through auction, said that the gift, oil paintings in lineture, depicts original scenes from the movie. “This was a piece that was presented to the head of the promotional group which promoted film," Herman said.

Herman said he has made it a point to know the history of the Tarzan Ranch because it fascinates him.  “I got involved in what I would call investigative history when I was in high school, I was interested in the history of the ranch,” Herman said. “It’s also personal, it’s part of my life.”

To learn more about the history of the ranch and the valley come to the library
Aug. 18 at 11:30 AM to hear Herman's presentation.
To watch the screening of Tarzan the Ape Man (1932) come to the library Aug. 17 at 2 PM.
The events are co-sponsored by the Friends of the Encino-Tarzana Library.

RICHARD LUPOFF

AT A SPECIAL JOHN CARTER SCREENING
Join SF in SF for a screening of JOHN CARTER (of Mars!) (PG-13, 132 mins.)
www.sfinsf.org
Bringing quality science fiction & fantasy authors & films to the Bay Area since 2005
SATURDAY, AUGUST 11TH

We're delighted to have a Burroughs scholar on hand to introduce the film!
Author Richard A. Lupoff
www.erbzine.com/mag30/3048.html
was the editor at Canaveral Press in the early 1960's,
www.erbzine.com/mag28/2805.html
when they issued many of Edgar Rice Burroughs' novels.
http://www.ERBzine.com/chaser/
This included first editions based on unpublished manuscripts and previously uncollected magazine stories.
Lupoff also briefly served as a consultant to Pixar Studios on the John Carter motion picture.
www.cartermovie.com
Ironically, he has never seen the finished film,
so it will be as new to him as to anyone else in the audience!
He is also the author of Master of Adventure: The Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs.

5:30PM - doors and cash bar open ~ 6:30PM - Event begins - free popcorn for the movie!
Seating is limited, and is first come, first seated.

The Variety Preview Room Theatre
The Hobart Bldg., 1st Floor
582 Market Street @ 2nd and Montgomery
San Francisco, CA 94104
Email sfinsfevents@gmail.com or call 415-572-1015 (night of event only)

Museum San Fernando Valley ~ July 26, 2012
Thursday, July 26, 2012
MUSEUM PREPARES EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS EXHIBIT
CHERISHING OUR VALLEY     2012


Under the direction of Board Member Willard Simms, The Museum of the San Fernando Valley
has begun an intensive search for materials related to the life of America's beloved author Edgar Rice Burroughs.
Contributions to the exhibit are being accepted now until the celebration of the first Tarzan book this coming August.
(Contact Mr. Simms through The Museum at (818) 347-9665.

Joe Jusko and Cathy Wilbanks
San Diego Comic-Con 2012

NEW ERB-RELATED RELEASES

Recommended releases on TARZAN and his First 100 Years

More on this new Sean Egan book  at ERBzine 3739

More on this Scott Tracy Griffin Book at ERBzine 4016

..

Michael Sellers discusses how the cornerstone of modern science fiction
flopped at the box office but continues to continues to inspire fans and filmmakers.
Book launch at the 2012 Tarzana ERB Centennial Celebrations.
Click to read full cover blurbs
.

COMING FROM DARK HORSE

Tarzan: The Russ Manning Years Volume 1 HC Experience three of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan novels as drawn by Russ Manning, the most beloved comic-book interpreter of the lord of the jungle! Collecting Tarzan #155–#161,#163, #164, #166, and #167, from the 1960s, this volume is an essential addition to any comics fan’s collection! * Collecting Russ Manning’s adaptations of Tarzan of the Apes, Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar, and Tarzan the Untamed! Writer: Gaylord DuBois ~ Artist: Russ Manning Publication Date: December 19, 2012 from Dark Horse Format: FC, 288 pages; HC, 7" x 10" ~ Price: $49.99 ISBN-10: 1-59582-937-7 ~ ISBN-13: 978-1-59582-937-5

Tarzan: The Once and Future Tarzan (one-shot) Just in time for the 100th anniversary of Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Tarzan of the Apes, artist Thomas Yeates (Prince Valiant, Conan) spins a surprising new tale that drops the lord of the jungle in an unfamiliar setting—the future! Can Tarzan’s vine-swinging skills serve him in the half-flooded ruins of a future London? * Artist Thomas Yeates returns to one of his favorite subjects! * From the pages of Dark Horse Presents! Artist: Thomas Yeates ~ Colorist: Lori Almeida ~ Cover Artist: Thomas Yeates Writers: Alan Gordon, Thomas Yeates Publication Date: October 31, 2012 ~ Format: FC, 32 pages Price: $3.50 UPC: 7 61568 21707 0 00111

Tarzan the Jungle Warrior By Andy Briggs The world's greatest eco-warrior is back for another white-knuckle adventure! Amazon.ca  |  Amazon.co.uk When a baby gorilla is snatched from its family by the world's most infamous hunter, Tarzan will stop at nothing to track him down - crossing the wild jungle and hostile African savannah to bring him to justice. Meanwhile, Jane is trying to learn more about Tarzan's past, and must decide whether reuniting him with his lost Greystoke family is the right thing to do. But Robbie has ideas of his own. He has formed a plan that will get rid of Tarzan for good, and keep the secrets of his own past safe. "Tarzan, The Jungle Warrior" is a lion-roaring read that brings the classic story bang into the 21st century. Paperback: 240 pages ~ Publisher: Faber And Faber Ltd.  Andy Briggs began his writing career working on Hollywood movie projects, such as Freddy Vs Jason and Foreverman for Spider-Man creator Stan Lee and legendary producer Robert Evans. He has written several graphic novels, including the horror-thriller Ritual and Kong King of Skull Island. His first children's books were the eight part Hero.com and Villain.net series for Oxford University Press. He's currently working on several exciting TV and feature projects in between his books. Tarzan has been a passion from childhood and he's thrilled to now be writing and updating the legendary hero. Meet Andy Briggs at the 2012 Tarzana Dum-Dum

Bookman David Kipen: California invented Mars
Off-Ramp ~ August 4, 2012


David Kipen, founder of Libros Schmibros in Boyle Heights,
perusing one of the books that shaped Mars in pop culture and lit.

California invented Mars. Don’t believe me? Then take my quick quiz.

Question one: Who wrote “A Princess of Mars,” the sci-fi novel that launched the famous Barsoom series of books, and inspired the recent movie “John Carter of Mars”? If you said Edgar Rice Burroughs, I don’t know, give yourself a Mars bar.

Question two: Who wrote “The Martian Chronicles,” the groundbreaking book of fantasy stories about man’s colonization of the red planet -- which works as an allegory for the suburbanization of Southern California. Ray Bradbury.

Three: Who wrote the sci-fi novels “Red Planet,” “Podkayne of Mars,” and “Stranger in a Strange Land,” the last of which found a huge readership in the 1960s with its portrait of a gentle, freedom-loving Martian who refuses to adjust to life on earth? The answer: Robert Heinlein -- you hippie you.

Four: Who wrote “Black Amazon of Mars,” a delightfully cheesy novelette about the sword-wielding interplanetary hero Eric John Stark -- and then co-wrote the screenplays for “The Big Sleep” from 1946, “The Long Goodbye” from 1973, and The Empire Strikes Back, from 1980? The same woman, Leigh Brackett.

Last question: What do all these Mars-obsessed writers have in common? In 1939, Edgar Rice Burroughs was still living near Encino on a ranch he named after perhaps his best novel, a little spread called Tarzana. Also in 1939, you could have walked into Clifton’s Cafeteria downtown on any given Thursday and found a meeting of the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society: Bradbury, Heinlein and Brackett -- and frequently fellow Martian pulp writers Fredric Brown and L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology. They were all sipping Clifton’s free limeade and, just incidentally, altering the future of American popular culture and literature. If H.G. Wells, the father of modern science fiction and author of the Martian invasion classic “The War of the Worlds,” couldn’t make it on Thursdays in 1939, it was only because he was in Europe, watching the world war he predicted.

Nowadays, a short drive from both Tarzana and Clifton’s, most of the scientists at JPL prefer Kim Stanley Robinson’s epic Mars trilogy, “Red Mars,” “Green Mars” and “Blue Mars.” Although Robinson was born in Ray Bradbury’s hometown of Waukegan, Illinois, he’s a Californian, too. He lives up in Davis and went to school at UCSD, where it so happens he published a dissertation on the novels of Philip K. Dick.

That’s Philip K. Dick, author of “Martian Time-Slip” and the Mars-set story “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale,” which comes out in a new movie adaptation entitled "Total Recall" next week (but without the Mars setting of Arnold Schwarzenegger's 1990 movie of the same name). As any Dickhead could tell you, Dick couldn’t make any meetings of the Science Fantasy Society either. In 1939, his father was taking him to the World's Fair in San Francisco, where he saw such seemingly benevolent gifts from the future as the TV and the cyclotron.

For better and worse, TV and particle physics have come a long way since 1939. But the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society still meets, at its present-day headquarters near the Van Nuys Orange Line station. It’s hard not to hope that building’s lights will be on Sunday night, while they watch a new spaceship crash-land on the surface of a planet their founding members more or less invented.

AL BOHL

We just updated our website at www.TarzanLordLAJungle.com.  We replaced the "festival" section with "archives."  It now contains radio/podcast interviews, magazine and newspaper stories.  Also, we added lots of photos from the various events surrounding the release of the documentary.  In August, Allison and I show the documentary and Tarzan of the Apes reissue at the big Tarzan convention in Tarzana, California. We have entered about 25 film festivals looking for a distributor.  I hope you enjoy this.  Umgawa! ~ Al Bohl
 

Tiger Over-Population Wreaks Havoc in Africa

  NAIROBI, Kenya (API) -- The Kenyan Ecology Counsel today officially classified tigers as an invasive species in the Serengeti, and urged adjacent Tanzania to do the same.   "You can hardly drive down a dirt road without seeing a dead tiger," said Mwai Odinga, minister of the Counsel,  "But unfortunately the number of vehicle-tiger accidents hasn't been enough to overcome their rapid rate of reproduction."

  Tigers are not native to Africa but officials believe the "invasion" began several years ago when some tiger cubs were imported from India and sold as "exotic pets."   "The trouble with keeping such beasts as pets," said Odinga, "is that they get bigger and harder to manage. And then, insteasd of calling a zoo or a wildlife control agent, the pet owners just release them into the wild, where they find each other and mate!"

  The tigers are competing with other beasts of prey for food, and that has created a dwindling supply of fresh game. As a result, the population of lions, cheetahs and leopards is decreasling as well, while the tigers continue to multiply.   "We're concerned that when the population of water buffalo, eland and zebras gets even more scarce, that these ravenous beasts will start moving into more urban areas and carrying off pets and small children," said Odinga.

  There is a $500 bounty on tigers but the number of hunters has failed to diminish the population by that much.   "We're at the stage where we're basically trying to keep the tiger population stable," Odinga said. "It's probably impossible to eradicate them now."   Some innovative solutions are being considered, such as re-locating lion prides and other grassland predators to the western plains of the United States, or to the vicinity of some U.S. resort towns which have an over-population of so-called "tame deer."

Write, Right, White, Rite: Literacy, Imperialism, Race, and Cannibalism
in Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan of the Apes
By Jeff Berglund: Studies in American Fiction ~  Spring 1999 ~ Volume/issue: Vol. 27, No. 1
Academic journal article from Studies in American Fiction, Vol. 27, No. 1
Article Excerpts:
In a book written in English by an American in 1912 about an era twenty-odd years before its publication, during the height of British imperialism and during the escalation of the United States' own empire-building, it is not surprising that the appearance of the English book would re-establish the authority of imperial power. Homi Bhabha makes this exact point: "The immediate vision of the book figures those ideological correlatives of the Western sign--empiricism, idealism, mimeticism, monoculturalism (to use Edward Said's term)--that sustain a tradition of English `cultural' authority. They create a revisionary narrative that sustains the discipline of Commonwealth history."(5) This is true to a large extent in Tarzan of the Apes and will be a useful frame of reference for understanding the reasons why Burroughs may have relied--perhaps unconsciously or uncritically--on plotting devices as mechanical and absurd as they appear to current audiences. The appearance of the book and subsequent scenes of reading and writing, all absurd and tellingly unrealistic, ultimately assert the dominating authority of western order, of Empire. Yet, initially, the hybridized English book penned by Tarzan fails to extend this very authority.

The novel's scenes of reading and writing set in motion several crises of identity and account for the split between textuality/literacy/ civilization and orality/illiteracy/barbarity. I limit my analysis here to this novel and not its twenty-six sequels and numerous film and television incarnations because in Tarzan of the Apes cannibalism is complexly enmeshed within a discourse about orality and written literacy. Tarzan's knowledge about the morality of cannibalism comes to him via the found books. Furthermore, Tarzan's inability to merge his written and oral identities, his seeming inability to communicate like other whites, allies him with the cannibal tribe. This makes sense, since as Maggie Kilgour points out, "the image of cannibalism is frequently connected with the failure of words as a medium, suggesting that people who cannot talk to each other bite each other."(6) Because Tarzan's physical presence and his at first unrecognizable oral expression are unconnected to the notes he has composed, he is linked connotatively to the most barbaric of savages, the cannibals. In tracing the dynamic circuit of literacy, authorship, the English book and its oppositional relationship with cannibalism, orality and illiteracy, this essay simultaneously explores an anxiety about the eruption of foreign elements into the homogeneous spheres of whiteness, manliness, and economic plenitude. The English book, supposedly an authorizing scene of western culture, initially splits under the uncanny pressures of hybridity, but ultimately is imaginatively reintegrated by Burroughs through the tenacious bonds of inherited civility. The complexly coded and highly symbolic issue of cannibalism reveals previously hidden connections between the processes of writing and reading, technologies that both administered and menaced the scenes of imperialism.
Read the full-text article with a free, 1-day trial of Questia

Aristocrat's Tarzan® Lord of the Jungle™ Slot
Jackpot Hits for Second Time in a Week in Nevada
Melodika.net ~ August 5, 2012

Less than a week after Aristocrat's Tarzan® Lord of the Jungle™ video slot game's jackpot hit for an amazing $959,961.43 in Las Vegas, the top jackpot has hit in Nevada again, this time for $260,017.78 at the Virgin River Hotel/Casino/Bingo in Mesquite.

Kimberly Ball was visiting Mesquite from Cedar City, Utah, when she swung into Virgin River Hotel/Casino/Bingo for a day of fun, and had a life-changing encounter with Tarzan®.

Incredibly, this is the 15th time the top progressive jackpot has been hit on Tarzan Lord of the Jungle since the game was released last year, and Tarzan Lord of the Jungle has paid lucky players more than $5.2 million in top jackpot awards since its debut.

ERB ART

Compiled by Khanada Taylor

Tarzan by Jose Luis Salinas

John Buscema

Chessmen of Mars Mike Hoffman

UK Cover Art .

Featured at GorillaDaze