Official Edgar Rice Burroughs Tribute and Weekly Webzine Site Since 1996 ~ Over 10,000 Web Pages in Archive Presents Volume 3997

Eclectica Archive

ECLECTICA v.2013.07

Eclectica Archive

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Burroughs Bulletin editor Henry Franke reports that the Summer 2011 issue will be out soon.

Visit the ERBzine pages devoted to the Burroughs Bibliophiles at: www.ERBzine.com/bb See the official BB Website at: www.burroughsbibliophiles.com Register for the August BB Convention --The Dum-Dum at www.ERBzine.com/dumdum

‘Tarzan: The Complete Russ Manning Newspaper Strips,
Volume One: 1967-1969
blogcritics.org ~ July 2, 2013 As stated on the last page of this book, “The Library of American Comics [published by IDW] is dedicated to preserving, in definitive editions, the long and jubilantly creative history of the American newspaper comic strip.” They shine a well-deserved spotlight on the very talented Russ Manning in the first of four volumes collecting his Tarzan newspaper strips.

As William Stout, artist and former assistant to Manning, reveals in the book’s foreword, Manning began his comics career at Western Publishing in 1952 and began a long professional association with Edgar Rice Burroughs’ famous creation. He did occasional art on their Gold Key Tarzan comic book before becoming its main “artist for a four-year stint beginning in 1965 and also drew the first eleven issues of the Korak, Son of Tarzan series.” He “became the writer and artist for the Tarzan of the Apes Sunday and daily newspaper strips in 1967. He ended the dailies in 1972, but he continued the Sunday strips into 1979 in addition to creating four Tarzan graphic novels.”

The two dailies stories featured are “Tarzan, Jad-Ben-Otho,” which ran about 10 months from December 11, 1967 to October 5, 1968, and “Tarzan and the Renegade,” which ran for just over 53 weeks until October 18, 1969. The three Sunday stories are “Tarzan Returns to the Land of the Ant Men,” “Tarzan and the Return of Dagga Ramba,” and “Korak and the Elephant Girls” that collectively ran from January 14, 1968 to May 11, 1969.

Manning uses the original version of the character he grew up reading and enjoying in ERB’s books. Tarzan is not the monosyllabic “me Tarzan, you Jane” character unfortunately memorialized in the movies. He’s John Clayton, son of the late Lord and Lady Greystoke. He is a man as intelligent as he is athletic. He lives on an estate with his wife Jane and together they have a son, who goes by the name Korak. Manning signals the return of the character to its roots in the first panel of the first strip where Tarzan thinking, “it is time I returned to the best land of all – home” has two meanings. Manning’s strips also used ideas from ERB’s work. Examples include: the city of Opar from The Return of Tarzan, the Land of Pal-ul-don in Tarzan the Terrible, the diminutive Ant Men from the coincidentally titled Tarzan and the Ant Men, and the character Mugambi from The Beasts of Tarzan.

Stout gives glowing tributes to Manning as a writer, as an artist, and as a man. I don’t know about the latter, but the evidence of the first two are clearly on display. Although he had assistants, Manning was the main creative force behind the panels. He wrote the scripts, drew the art in both pencil and ink, lettered the dialogue and exposition, and added colored the Sundays strips. Every element is of outstanding quality and are a treasure to behold.

Although the strips are over 40 years old, they don’t show any ill effects from their age. The adventures are compelling and believable in the world they are set. While Tarzan is the main hero of these stories, the other characters are interesting as well. I never found myself in a hurry to get back to Tarzan when someone else was the focus for part of the story. A very impressive aspect is how well the pacing works. Almost each daily ends with a bit of a cliffhanger to get the reader to come back the next day, yet there’s no detriment to the flow of the story when reading weeks or even months at a time.

The action is constant as the characters continually find themselves battling villains and having to rescue one another or be rescued. Jane frequently finds herself in the latter position, although she doesn’t hesitate heading into danger to find her husband and/or son. I just wish she had been a little less of a damsel-in-distress, which is my only minor criticism of the stories.

Manning keeps the reader off balance about what is really going on with the way he presents information. The first daily strip ends with a lion sitting in wait. This must have created enormous suspense for a reader who had to wait a day before the next strip showed a distracted Tarzan getting pounced upon by the lion. Then it would be another day before expectations were up-ended when the lion is revealed to be Tarzan’s friend, Jad-bal-jada.

Manning’s visual storytelling might even be more remarkable. His drawings offer brilliance in the fine line work and detail, the use of shading and black, and the framing of images. Though single panels, he creates a sense of movement and action, like watching animation. It’s hard to imagine the art looking any better and then the Sunday strips section does just that when Manning adds color to his arsenal.

For fans of comics and adventure, I can’t recommend Tarzan: The Complete Russ Manning Newspaper Strips, Volume One highly enough. Volume Two is set to be released in November and it can’t come soon enough.

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 RUSS MANNING with two Tarzan paintings he did in the 1970s

Visit the Russ Manning Tribute in ERBzine www.ERBzine.com/manning

See the Frank Frazetta ERB Art in ERBzine www.ERBzine.com/ff

Publishing Update from Author David Fury
The new Kindle edition of Johnny Weissmuller: Twice the Hero has been published and is available at the Amazon Kindle store. (Coming to Kindle in August 2013 is Maureen O'Sullivan: No Average Jane ... already available is Chuck Connors: The Man Behind the Rifle....both at $9.99)

The Johnny Weissmuller book is complete and unabridged from the original hard-cover book, but has some new added information, edited from cover to cover (eliminating minor errors), and has in the vicinity of 50 new photos.... many of Johnny with celebrity friends never seen before in print. I believe there are well over 200 photos in this book, each gets a separate page in this format.

The price is $9.99 and if you click on or copy/paste the link below in your browser, you can view and read the first few chapters as a sample.

www.amazon.com/dp/B00DNCP0B6

This book will also be available as a Barnes & Noble "Nook" edition around the end of September.

I hope Tarzan fans and Burroughs readers enjoy taking Johnny (and soon Maureen!) with them everywhere they go with the new E-book editions of these popular books. By the way, Kings of the Jungle by David Fury is also available in a McFarland Kindle edition... price is $9.99.

As always, any questions can be sent to David Fury at Tarzan1904@aim.com

Maureen O'Sullivan "No Average Jane" by David Fury  was reviewed in a previous ERBzine feature: ERBzine 1941

ABOUT "IN THE MOUNTAINS OF FROZEN FIRE"
AND THE ENIGMA CLUB The mysterious M4, master of espionage and disguise, travels to the frozen wastes of Ghutranh and encounters a diabolical trap set for him by his arch-nemesis, the nefarious Cobra!  Trapped in an unearthly landscape of icy death, M4--Enigma Club founding member Commander Denis Cushing--discovers a terrifying secret, and must do battle with a team of assassins . . . and an unspeakable threat that has survived in the Arctic snows for millennia.  There he comes face to face with a terror from beyond the seas of eternity . . . "In the Mountains of Frozen Fire!"
THE ENIGMA CLUB is a contemporary pulp adventure novel, currently being marketed to publishers by my agent, Andrew Zack of The Zack Company.  It's the story of how the discovery of an obscure pulp magazine sends the novel's hero in search of the Enigma Club, supposedly located on a forgotten island in the Gulf of Mexico. What he discovers is a land forsaken by time--Cayo Arcana, an island forgotten by the world for more than sixty years--where the pulps are still alive.  The Enigma Club is a haven for adventurers, explorers, heroes, starlets, scientists (mad and otherwise), warriors and spies, all members of a classic gentlemen's club created by and for all the pulp archetypes from the Golden Age of Adventure.

THE ENIGMA CLUB recreates the pulp era of the '20s and '30s, and also makes an impossible tale and the impossible locale very real and almost interactive, integrating artifacts--photos, sidebars, excerpts from fictional books and pulps, telegrams, and even vintage postcards--to create a world that the reader feels could possibly exist. My original intent with THE ENIGMA CLUB was to include a sample pulp story for each of the Club's charter members, as published between 1911 and 1953 in the Club's pulp, The Enigma Club All-Adventure Magazine.  However, the novel became too long, so I included only one story, "Sky-Gods of Ixtamal," to represent the themes inherent with the pulp era: adventure, wonder, lost races, fantastic technologies, and everyday characters who embody the heroic ideal.

Two other stories were already finished, and the first of these, "In the Mountains of Frozen Fire," is a tale of Commander Denis Cushing, Agent M4, whom I created as a cross between James Bond, Artemus Gordon and G-8.  My inspiration for the story was a painting by Frank Frazetta, The Frost Giants, with a little Lovecraft and a lot of Robert E. Howard thrown in. My goal was to tell a period story, using the tropes of Howard, Lovecraft and traditional spy fiction, while also serving up a dose of 21st Century humor--along the lines of Indiana Jones meets SNL.

"In the Mountains of Frozen Fire" will be published in the July/August 2013 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.
You can order copies here: http://www.sfsite.com/fsf/current.htm

The second completed story is "Hot Time at Bad Penny's," a tale of founding member Bucky Sniggles-Wooten—charmer, adventurer, and accomplished cad.  It’s a saucy story of deadly gangsters, speakeasies, and super-science run amok.   My goal with this was to show today’s readers what the pulps’ saucy or spicy stories were all about, while also playing with some of the tropes of big city pulp stories (with a tip of the hat to ERB, Amazing Stories, and the classic Fleischer Superman cartoons).  It is currently being considered for publication at F&SF.

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ABOUT THE WRITER:
Rus Wornom
ERB and A Princess of Mars were my primary influences when I decided to become a writer. Burroughs showed me that a writer is born in his heart, and that even a pencil sharpener salesman could tell stories of extraordinary people in extraordinary circumstances that could enthrall generations of readers.  Once I read A Princess of Mars, I knew that I wanted to tell stories that could make people believe in worlds undreamed of.

Rusty is what my friends call me, but Harlan Ellison once yelled at me in a workshop, “Nobody’ll read anything by a guy named Rusty!   It’s a kid’s name!”   So Rus was born, even though my given name, Howard, was used when my novella, “Puppy Love Land,” was published in the April, 1996 Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.   The story was later nominated as Best Novella on the Preliminary Ballot for the Horror Writers of America awards.   I was also the pseudonymous author of Spelljammer: The Ultimate Helm, Dungeon of Fear, and Castle of the Undead, all published by TSR Books way back in the dim, dark ‘90s.   Spelljammer made the Waldenbooks bestseller list . . . for a month.   Since 1983, I've been published in such magazines as Omni, Premiere, Gauntlet, and Storyboard, and in newspapers and regional magazines, and contributed to The Stephen King Companion.   I've participated in writing workshops with Ellison, Brian Aldiss, Gene Wolfe, and Kate Wilhelm.   A spec teleplay got me in the door at Star Trek: The Next Generation, where I pitched story ideas four times.   I've also acted on the Discovery Channel in The New Detectives, although I was never credited.   (Somehow, though, Buddy the Beagle got a credit.)   I live in Virginia with my wife and a large, furry family.

Lee Chase, Edgar Rice Burroughs' stepson and the last living person to have lived with ERB
is currently on a cross country Ford Model A tour of the Lincoln Highway,
and is due to arrive in the New York City area late next week.

More about Lee Chase in ERBzine.com Lee Chase at the 2013 Tarzana Centennial Dum-Dum www.erbzine.com/mag41/4119.html

ERB at Westercon in Sacramento, CA "The Northern California Mangani, the newest chapter of the Burroughs Bibliophiles, will be present at the July 2013 Westercon in Sacramento, California.  The Westercon was created in 1948 by Walter J. Dougherty of the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society, and guests of honor have included, Ray Bradbury, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Richard Matheson, and Ursula K. Le Guin.  The Northern California Mangani was founded by fans Ralph Brown, Tom Tolley, Richard and Patricia Lupoff, Thomas Yeates, and David Lemmo back in November of 2011.

The NCM's two-day 2012 Tarzan Centennial Conference at the Sacramento Central Library was the group's first major event.  They will have a table at this year's Westercon distributing information about the Burroughs Bibliophiles, how to join the NCM, and ERB in general.  Major ERB fans Tom Tolley and Don Gray will have tables of their own, selling collectibles and helping to promote the Burroughs Bibliophiles."

A new fitness blog from
Denny "Tarzan" Miller

http://dennymillertarzan.blogspot.com/

ERB portrait by Nick Poliwko

LA OF OPAR One of the color originals offered for sale by Mark Wheatley at the 2013 San Diego Comic Con.

Gordon Scott art by Uwe Reber,  available through Fig Tree Creative Artistry.

"I found this in the attic of my father's house. I have looked online for something about it and didn't find anything. Any information you can give me would be greatly appreciated." Thank you, Mary Snyder

UK ad for the Tarzan of the Apes paperback. It was featured on the back page of  arzan comics published in the UK in the '70s.

Look who uses the Snorkel!

Visit our Danton Burroughs Memorial Tribute www.ERBzine.com/dantonburroughs and the Danton Burroughs Website www.dantonburroughs.com

Letter from ERB's son Hulbert Burroughs of  Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. From the Dick Siegel Collection

The latest discovery in the Danton Burroughs ERB Archive Treasure of the Black Falcon by John Coleman Burroughs Manuscript: original and carbon Plus The Danton Doring Movie Synopsis

Many more rare ERB documents may be found  all through the ERBzine.com site Start at the Lost Words of ERB www.erbzine.com/mag2/0219.html ERB Bio Timeline www.ERBzine.com/bio ERB: The War Years www.ERBzine.com/war Put keywords into the internal Google pages  found via the Archive link in every ERBzine.com logo. www.ERBzine.com/all

Treasure of the Black Falcon www.erbzine.com/mag9/0938.html www.erbzine.com/mag9/0939.html Black Falcon Correspondence www.erbzine.com/mag11/1173.html

Ray Bradbury on Edgar Rice Burroughs
Oak Parker Burroughs is "probably the most influential writer in the entire history of the world. Oak Park Patch
Ray Bradbury, author of  The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man and Fahrenheit 451 (among many other books) loves the work of Oak Park's Edgar Rice Burroughs.

In an excerpt from Sam Weller's recently published book, Listen To The Echoes: The Ray Bradbury Interviews ($18.95, Stop Smiling Books), Bradbury talks about Burroughs, creator of Tarzan and his own set of Mars adventures featuring John Carter.

"I love to say it because it upsets everyone terribly—Burroughs is probably the most influential writer in the entire history of the world," Bradbury said.

"By giving romance and adventure to a whole generation of boys, Burroughs caused them to go out and decide to become special. That's what we have to do for everyone, give the gift of life with our books. Say to a girl or boy at age ten: Hey, life is fun! Grow tall! I've talked to more biochemists and more astronomers and technologists in various fields, who, when they were ten years old, fell in love with John Carter and Tarzan and decided to become something romantic. Burroughs put us on the moon. All the technologists read Burroughs."
 

The ERBzine Ray Bradbury Tribute: ERBzine 3724 Tarzan in the Movies ERB: The War Years

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PASSING SHOW December 16, 1933  Edgar Rice Burroughs VENUS Fortunino Matania art

Tarzan Album (1973, Netherlands) 48 pages.  Full color, foreign language comic. Artwork reprints of US Tarzan by John Celardo.

2000 SAN DIEGO COMIC CON souvenir book. Front cover by Bill Stout.  Portfolios of illustrations featuring  The Spirit, EC COMICS,  Dinosaurs, The Flash and Green Lantern.

ASI MAGAZINE Vol. 4 #1 (2000) 36 pages in original plastic mailing envelope addressed to Forrest Ackerman. All about science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard. Previously unpublished short story "Stowaway Deluxe". Hubbard bibliography. Hubbard exhibition in Germany and more. Many illustrations in full color including inside back cover by Frank Frazetta .	ASI MAGAZINE Vol. 3 #1 (1999) 36 pages.  All about science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard.  Many illustrations in full color including one by Frank Frazetta.  An interview with Algis Budrys.  Article by Dave Wolverton about collaborating with Hubbard, and more.

BURROUGHS BULLETIN #51 - 1975 Edgar Rice Burroughs fanzine	ERBIVORE #5 (1972) 16 pages. ERB fanzine which has features  such as a 13-page article on the arctic region of Barsoom  (with maps and other illustrations)  by John Flint Roy, Frank J. Brueckel, and  Philip J. Currie.  Back cover by Clyde Caldwell

A new logo commemorating the 75th anniversary of Superman has been issued by DC Entertainment as part of a year-long celebration of the comic book icon. Its first appearance in print on 12 June will coincide with the release of Man of Steel, the new Superman movie starring Britain's Henry Cavill (right).

ERB in Film ERB On Radio John Carter of Mars Film