Most of us are pretty familiar with the art of Frank Frazetta: his amazing Edgar Rice Burroughs illustrations. His original creation, the Death Dealer. And so much else. But you haven't really learned the story of Frank Frazetta, unless you've read a brand new book, Frank Frazetta: Art and Remembrances.

Published by Hermes Press and co-edited by the folks behind Famous Monsters magazine, Frank Frazetta: Art and Remembrances is a treasure trove of stories and art, with text written by his son, Frank Frazetta, Jr., telling Frazetta's entire life story. You can order the regular and special edition versions here.

The great thing about reading Art and Remembrances is that Frazetta's personality comes through, from the accounts of his early brawling on the streets of Brooklyn to his uncompromising attitude to his art and work. You can see the early comics that Frazetta produced as a teenager and sold to his friends, as well as his early work for comics publishers in the 1950s, in a very Lil' Abner style:

And you can see his better-known art style develop over the course of the 1950s, as he does Buck Rogers covers and slowly begins to get work doing more heroic pulpy book art. But the magic doesn't really start to happen until the 1960s — according to Frazetta's son, there was a time in 1962 when Frazetta was out of work for so long, that his drawing skills got rusty. Frazetta refused to change his style to please publishers, and this limited his options — but then he went back to night class and studied nude live drawing, completing sketches of the nudes within the 15-20 minutes allotted instead of barely getting started the way most of the other students did. Frazetta's friend Roy Krenkel had more work than he could handle doing Tarzan book covers, so he farmed some of it out to Frazetta, and the legend was born.

As Frazetta, Jr. relates:

All through my life, I heard fans tell me and my father how they used to rip the covers off his paperback books. They would tell us how they had purchased the book just because of the cover, read the entire book in search of the scene on the cover, and were devastated never to find it. They would go as far as reading the book again, guessing they missed it somewhere, only to never come across it.

Frazetta's swagger comes through in anecdote after anecdote, many of them peppered with famous people — at one point in the 1980s, Sylvester Stallone tried to buy one of Frazetta's prized paintings for $1 million, but Frazetta refused to sell. And Stallone also offered Frazetta an exorbitant sum to paint the poster for one of his movies, but Frazetta was too busy. There are also tons of pictures of Frazetta hanging out with Clint Eastwood.

Most of all, you get a sense of what a relentless perfectionist Frazetta was with his heroic art — he could finish a painting in less than a day, but he would keep coming back to paintings and changing and adding stuff to them. (As the book's foreword by Metallica's Kirk Hammett says, Frazetta kept going back and putting fewer clothes on his Vampirella.) As soon as Frazetta broke out of being an artist on Al Capp's assembly line, he became a relentless visionary.

There's also tons of behind-the-scenes info about Fire and Ice, the movie that Frazetta made with Ralph Bakshi, using rotoscoping and based on Frazetta's designs. At one point during filming, the actors were having trouble because they were holding back during the fight scenes for fear of hurting each other by accident. But since the action was going to be rotoscoped, Frazetta came up with the idea of having them whack each other with rolled-up newspapers.

All in all, if you've always admired the fierce and dramatic artwork of Frank Frazetta, you should make a point of checking out Art and Remembrances. It's full of sketches, original artworks and rare photos that you probably haven't seen before. 

JOCK MAHONEY
The Life and Times of a Hollywood Stuntman 
by Gene Freese
Preface

I became interested in Mahoney through watching his Tarzan films and was particularly intrigued by the physical hardships he faced filming in real jungles around the world. I wanted to learn more about his athletic accomplishments, military background, and the often anonymous work he performed as a stunt double for actors Errol Flynn, John Wayne, Randolph Scott, Gregory Peck and others. I cover Mahoney's entire life from his Iowa upbringing to the stroke and motor vehicle accident that claimed his life in 1989 at the age of 70. His professional career as a stuntman and actor is described in full detail. Less interest is paid to private aspects of his personal life, although these are discussed where pertinent or noteworthy.

This edition compiles the first four tales of intrigue and discovery during Powell's lifetime among the Martians. The first chronicles Powell's arrival and subsequent enslavement to the Red Martian overlords, and his eventual fight for freedom. The second story involves a lowly thief who is thrust into the role of leader when Powell's freedom forces threaten a slave-state. The third story relates the fall and rise of Barsoom's most beautiful and malevolent femme fatale. The fourth and last tale in this edition tells the story of Powell's battle against a despotic cult leader and the secret the villain hides about the red planet.
 

Henry Morton Stanley

Henry Morton Stanley, GCB (1841-1904) statue Denbigh, Wales (where he was born John Rowlands, Jan 28, 1841)
Although Stanley is a much maligned character in modern times, he was a man of his era. Just like any other human being he had his faults, but he would tower over most people of today's generation. His rags to riches story is inspirational, his life story truly fascinating. From a Victorian work house orphan to world famous explorer, it's almost as if he had jumped head first out of the pages of a Dickensian novel.

Most famous for allegedly uttering the words, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume," Henry Morton Stanley was one of the most well-known of all nineteenth-century British explorers. In his early years (as a naturalized American) he led a roving life, fighting in the American Civil War on both sides on land and sea, serving in the merchant marine and the federal navy, and reporting as a journalist on the early days of frontier expansion. He became famous when the New York Herald commissioned him to "find Livingstone" in Africa.

After finding Robert Livingstone (no mean feat, since Livingstone was living in the interior of Zanzibar, where even his friends could not find him), and following in the footsteps of Livingstone, Richard Burton, John Hanning Speke, and others, Stanley went on to explore the rivers and lakes of central Africa. Through the Dark Continent (1877) is his account of those explorations. Failing to interest the British government in developing the Congo, Stanley accepted the invitation of King Leopold of Belgium to explore the region -- an expedition that led to the establishment of the "Congo Free State" under the sovereignty of King Leopold, and to Stanley's book, The Founding of the Congo Free State (1885). Stanley continued to explore and write until the end of the century, producing In Darkest Africa in 1890 and Through South Africa in 1898. He died in England in 1904. (Jay - UK and international admin)

Call it the biggest little home makeover in the world.

Conservators at the Museum of Science and Industry are beginning work today on a three-month “facelift” on Colleen Moore’s Fairy Castle, one of the musuem’s iconic exhibits. The castle, which, according to the museum took seven years and nearly $500,000 to create in 1935, will be dismantled, deconstructed, revamped, fitted with state-of-the-art electrical systems, re-painted as needed and then reassembled and reconfigured for its official “re-unveiling” on March 17, 2014.

The public is invited to watch the entire process in a special conservators’ studio/gallery direcctly next to where the castle is usually displayed.

“The castle has been on display at the museum since 1949," said director of MSI museum collections Kathleen McCarthy. “In our role as caretakers of the castle, we have done conservation projects on it before, the last one in the mid-1990s. … This conservation effort is focusing on the castle itself, not the objecs [and furnishings]. We’re working a lot on the facade because over the years the paint has worn away or simply fallen off in spots. It’s a bit of a technological challenge to paint metal because over time the paint just peels off. Also, we’re looking at any damage that’s happened to the walls and due to electrical lightbulbs which were much large and hotter back in the day, resulting in some of the walls being scorched.”

During regular museum hours, visitors can watch the project as it unfolds through the skill and artistry of four conservators, a miniature maker and two electricians all dispatched for the painstaking, hugely detailed work. Science plays a role in the project as well, as the paint, for example, must be analyzed for pigments and replicated as near to the original as possible. Heat and humidity levels must be analyzed and stabilized.

McCarthy Likens the project to something every homeowner goes through especially in older dwellings.

“The castle’s plumbing system has leaked over the years,” McCarthy said. “So we will be fixing anything that’s buckled because of [water damage]. The electrical system will be updated and we will replace some of the lighting with fiber optics. Originally the chandeliers had lightbulbs the size of a grain of wheat. Of course nobody makes those anymore. Im the late 60s early 70s we replace them with fiber optics while retaining the look and feel of the original [light fixtures]. So we’re updating and expanding the use of the fiber optics as needed. It’s really like updating the plumbing, electrical and paint in one’s own home.”

The castle, constructed of cast aluminum in the late 1920s, weighs nearly a ton, and features 12 lavishly decorated rooms. It was the labor of love for the raven-haired Hollywood silent film star Colleen Moore, whose passion for dollhouses and miniatures was legendary (as was the bobbed haircut she made famous). According to museum documentation, she began the project in 1928, utilizing some of Tinsel Town’s most acclaimed set designers and miniaturists to help make her castle a reality. More than 100 people worked on the castle’s construction and decoration. In 1949, Moore donated the castle to the museum, often visiting it and adding to its interior artifacts. Moore, a native of Port Huron, Mich., died in California in 1988.

'Bomba the Jungle Boy' Swings into Action
via the Warner Archive Collection:
From Hollywood & Vine to You; or, He Was a Teenage Tarzan
Commercial Appeal Blog
As portrayed by Johnny Sheffield in 12 low-budget backlot/Bronson Canyon jungle adventures produced for Monogram Pictures from 1949 to 1955, Bomba the Jungle Boy is the most unlikely inhabitant of Africa since the okapi or aardvark. A scrubbed, cleanshaven, essentially hairless (except for his head of tight curls), basically sexless and frequently clueless hunk of man-boy beefcake in a leopard-skin loincloth, Bomba looks more like a Pasadena lifeguard than a tragic orphan who managed to survive a childhood in the jungle, "beyond the big rift." Perhaps that's because Bomba's Africa, for all its perils, seems closer to painter Edward Hicks' "Peaceable Kingdom" than to the pygmy-stalked, Nazi-threatened, croc-crowded Dark Continent of the best of the MGM and RKO Tarzan adventures that introduced Sheffield to Hollywood and vine -- and to eager audiences -- in the role of the Ape Man's literally swinging protégé, Boy.

When RKO decided Boy had outgrown his name and dropped Sheffield from the final film in the Johnny Weissmuller series, "Tarzan and the Mermaids" (1948), savvy fledging producer Walter Mirisch recruited the on-the-edge-of-18 star for a profitable low-budget franchise inspired by the 20 "Bomba" novels published between 1926 and 1938. (The books were credited to "Roy Rockwood," a pseduonym for ghostwriters created by the Stratemeyer Syndicate, which used a similar strategy for its Nancy Drew, Tom Swift and Hardy Boys novels). Sheffield's movie career ended with Bomba, but Mirisch left B-movies behind and became one of Hollywood's most successful and lauded A-list producers, with a roll call of credits that includes "Some Like It Hot," "West Side Story," "The Pink Panther" and "Fiddler on the Roof."

The movies present Bomba as even more a tree-hugger and animal activist than his Edgar Rice Burroughs predecessor. He's like a Greenpeace eco-warrior as Tiger Beat pinup, but although he appears physically mature (and, significantly, is never far from his spear) he's boyishly innocent, probably because the movies, like the books, were aimed at youngsters -- and young boys, in particular, were notoriously impatient with "mush." As a result, the attractive young starlets thrown at Bomba in each film interest our hero less than his "jungle friends," the animals. "Don't you like me just a little?" asks stacked and flirty Zita (Sue England) in "The Hidden City" (1950). Responds Bomba: "No."

Bomba appears happy in his Thoreauesque isolation. While most movies insist on the primacy of community, Bomba is unfamiliar with the concept. "What 'family'?" he asks, in his signature  broken English, after hearing the strange word for the first time in the inaugural film in the series, "Bomba the Jungle Boy" (1949). The white people in that movie want to return Bomba to so-called civilization and end his loneliness, but Bomba insists: "Not alone. With jungle friends. Always home." Notes Allene Roberts, the spunky young female lead of "Bomba on Panther Island" (1949): "Well, independent seems to be the word for Bomba!"

This freedom probably appealed to the films' young fans, who could fantasize about their own Bombaesque Edens, away from bothersome brothers and sisters and scolding parents. An ideal fantasy companion for kid moviegoers, Bomba is even more a "boy" than Tarzan's Boy was by the end of that series. As a young kid says of Bomba in "The Lost Volcanco" (1950): "He doesn't like grownups." Bomba's connection to children is reinforced in "Elephant Stampede" (1951), when exotic village girl Lola (Donna Martell) teaches him his ABC's; even Lola's tight sarong doesn't distract Bomba from the excitement of learning to spell L-I-O-N.

Rarely screened on Memphis television (unlike the ubiquitous Tarzan movies) and never released on DVD, the first six Bomba movies now are available in "Bomba the Jungle Boy Volume 1," a three-disc set issued by the estimable Warner Archive Collection, the manufactured-on-demand "classic movie" initiative of Warner Bros. Home Entertainment. The six movies in the set, in chronological order, are "Bomba the Jungle Boy," "Bomba on Panther Island," "The Lost Volcano," "The Hidden City," "The Lion Hunters" and "Elephant Stampede." No doubt a concluding second volume will arrive later this year.

Directed and frequently written by B-veteran Ford Beebe, the Bomba movies aren't exactly progressive, but the pro-environment, anti-exploitation themes of the simple scripts are so overt and accessible that they almost contradict the pro-growth, pro-business spirit of the postwar period in which the films were produced. ("Africa resists intrusions," a developer who wants to raze the forest for a "mechanized plantation" is told in "Bomba on Panther Island.") In fact, Bomba's very happiness is almost an affront to capitalism and so-called Western civilization. "'Work'? What is 'work'?" he asks, repeating another new word."'Pay'? What is 'pay'?... 'Buy'?" Bomba is incorruptible as well as unseduceable.

Meanwhile, the "natives" in the films are generally helpful and intelligent, while the white "bwanas" often are impatient and arrogant. When the developer in the "Panther Island" developer is warned that his plan to clear timber with fire is likely to "burn off half of Africa," he snorts: "Small losse, if you ask me." Of course, these racial generalizations are sometimes contradicted. The village chief (Martin Wilkins) in "Elephant Stampede" welcomes the intrusion of education; he tells an "old maid" missionary-type school teacher (Edith Evanson) that his tribespeople are "like children... They'll never have a better way of life without the white man's help."

Bomba's gentleness extends beyond his treatment of women. Unlike some other jungle heroes, he is a reluctant killer; unlike Tarzan, he doesn't beat his chest or celebrate after emerging victorious from a brawl with a crocodile or a leopard. In "Elephant Stampede" (1951), Bomba tosses a killer python from a tree rather than fighting it; Beebe show the snake slithering away, unharmed.

You don't kill your pals and neighbors, apparently, and Bomba identifies strongly with his "jungle friends." He frequently is accompanied by a capuchin monkey (a species actually found only in the New World) or hawk; in fact, he communicates with birds via squawks and caws. This Doctor Dolittle-esque vocal talent may be less impressive than Weissmuller's bloodcurdling ape yell but it is throroughly in keeping with the Bomba franchise's lowkey, almost pacifistic vibe.

ERB "100 Years of Tarzan and John Carter" Centennial DVD 

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Now Available From Amazon The first two discs of the Edgar Rice Burroughs "100 Years of Tarzan and John Carter" DVD collection are now available from Amazon.  These are official commemorative DVDs from Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc., coproduced by The John Carter Files and ERB Inc.
Disc one contains the Centennial Banquet and includes the speeches by Jane Goodall and John Carter Producer Jim Morris, plus all the video clips (Edgar Rice Burroughs Tributre, 100 Years of John Carter, and Tribute to the Movie Tarzans). 
Disc two includes the Tarzan Yell Competition plus some of the best seminars and presentations.

For full information go to these links:
Amazon Link for Disc One -- "100 Years of Tarzan and John Carter"
Amazon Link for Disc Two -- "100 Years of Tarzan and John Carter"