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Pat Lupoff, beloved wife and co-fan of Science Fiction
writer and Burroughs buff Richard Lupoff, passed away just over two
years ago on Oct. 17, 2018. A couple of days later, I made some "In
Memory" covers with an oft-seen image of the couple and was able
to pass several of these along to Richard when I visited with him
the following spring during a gathering of the Northwest Coast Mangani
in Folsom, California.
The Wonder Woman stamp seemed an appropriate one to use
with these covers, not only because Richard and Pat were great fans
of the comic books, but also because Pat in her own way was a Wonder
Woman.
The name of Richard A. Lupoff came to my attention in
the 1960s Burroughs Boom, when Canaveral Press was republishing some
of the Edgar Rice Burroughs titles which had been out of print for
years. Lupoff was in charge of preparing the books for publication
and was also assigned to write a scholarly book about Burroughs and
his works. The book, titled Edgar Rice Burroughs: Master of Adventure,"
came out in 1965 and I was quick to purchase a copy.
How did Lupoff become an ERB fan in the first place? According
to fan Dick Spargur, of Dayton, Ohio, and others, it was his wife, Pat,
"who had first read a Tarzan novel and suggested he read it."
He did and he was hooked, like so many other longtime
fans.
In reminiscing about Pat Lupoff, one of her sons -- Ken
-- said, "Along with my father she played a role in several seminal
cultural events. Together they created 'cos-play,' where folks come
together dressed as their favorite superhero or science fiction/fantasy
character." The photo on the postal cover is of their first such
appearance in costume at a science fiction convention in 1960, with
Richard dressed as comic book hero Captain Marvel and Pat as his twin
sister, Mary Marvel.
Pat and Dick met on a blind date in 1957 and were married
a year later. While Richard was a book author, Mary was co-editor
of the amateur fan magazine, "Xero," and thus she helped launch modern
comic book fandom, Ken said.
Xero could be spectacular, with contributors such as Anthony
Boucher, Harlan Ellison, Ethel Lindsay, Fred Pohl, Rich Sneary, Bob
Tucker as "Hoy Ping Pong," and Harry Warner -- fans and pros mixing it
up. Roger Ebert, later a movie critic, contributed poetry, often
free-style, or formal and funny.
Pat's co-editors were her husband and Bhob Stewart. Pat
and Richard typed stencils in their Manhattan apartment, printed
them on a basement machine, collated them by hand, and lugged the
results to sci-fi cons or stuffed them in mailboxes. In 1963, the
trio won a Hugo, the highest award in science fiction fandom, for
their fanzine, making Pat the second woman to win the distinguished
award, named for Hugo Gernsback, editor of the professional science
fiction magazine, Amazing Stories. She and her husband also co-edited
"The Best of Xero," which was a finalist for the Best Related
Book Hugo Award in 2005. She worked on various other fanzines as
well.
I first met Dick and Pat Lupoff in person in August
of 2015 when I attended a gathering of Edgar Rice Burroughs fans
in Willows, Calif., hosted by the Northwest Coast Mangani,
a chapter of The Burroughs Bibliophiles. Since Northern California
through Washington is Bigfoot, or Sasquatch, country, the name of their
Mangani cousins was adopted as most of the group members are from those
areas.
"She was my father's muse throughout the '70s and '80s,
reading and discussing many of his novels with him in the drafting
stages," said Ken of his mother. In the mid-80s, she worked at Cody's
on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, as the children's section book buyer,
building it into one of the country's preeminent collections.
Xero was not originally intended to be comics-oriented,
but became very involved after a nostalgic article by Richard featuring
a series on old comic books called "All in Color for a Dime." The
articles in this series were later reprinted in two books: "All
in Color for a Dime" (1970) and "The Comic Book Book"
(1973).
ERBzine References:
Richard Lupoff Remembered in ERBzine
https://www.erbzine.com/mag30/3047.html
https://www.erbzine.com/mag30/3048.html
https://www.erbzine.com/mag30/3048a.html
Pat Lupoff Remembered in ERBzine
https://www.erbzine.com/mag67/6728.html
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We all remember the movie "Tarzan Meets Frankenstein"
in which the ape man, in the person of Lex Barker, took on the Frankenstein
monster, right? Well, John Colasanti of Dora, Michigan, does and he made
this cover to commemorate the movie, having it canceled on Oct. 31 of last
year. One thing is for sure, if there were really such a movie, we'd probably
all have it in our collections.
We do know for sure, though, that there was a movie titled
"Tarzan Finds a Son!" It introduced Johnny Sheffield as the orphan adopted
by Johnny Weissmuller's Tarzan and Maureen O'Sullivan's Jane. When a stamp
commemorating the 50th anniversary of motion pictures was issued, Oct.
31, 1944, someone made this first-day cover and used four of the stamps,
with the cachet highlighting "Tarzan Finds a Son!," which had been released
five years earlier.
The last cover is another first-day cover for the motion
picture stamp, with a design showing an outdoor movie screen up against
an Army transport plane. Troops in out-of-the-way locations were often
entertained after the sun went down by being shown movies in such unusual
locations. And no doubt they sometimes saw Tarzan movies, but probably
not "Tarzan Meets Frankenstein."
To see more covers by John Colasanti, check out his facebook
page: https://www.facebook.com/JvcCachets/
Image may contain: 2 people, text that says '0 USAC FOREVER
JVC'19 THEATERS LOWEEN NIGHT TARZAN meets FRANKENSTEIN'
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Is there really a Tarzan Lego, or Lego set, or
are all these I see online just assembled from other Lego pieces
and sets by other people to represent the ape man and Jane? There's
a tutorial video on youtube showing how to create Tarzan and Jane
using parts of other figures. If anyone knows if there's really a
licensed set, please advise. If not, Lego is missing a good bet.
But one thing we know for sure: There are postal covers
showing Tarzan and Jane Lego style, as in this one placed on a cover
by the late Dalene Thomas, Colorado, who was a big fan of Legos and
even designated some of her covers, featuring photos of Lego scenes,
as a "Brick Builder Cachet."
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Nanski Drewski of Massachusetts put Bolgani the gorilla
on a cover to drive off the tiger cub on the stamp, as the animal doesn't
belong in Tarzan's Africa. This was a stamp in the Postal Service's semi-postal
program, priced a few cents above the normal first-class rate, with the
extra money donated to funds to save endangered species. At least $5.5
million was donated from sales of the stamps.
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Stan Lee, Marvel 'Comics maestro, passed away Nov. 12,
2018, and was honored on at least three "In Memory" covers postmarked on
the date of his death.
Lee's Marvel published the Tarzan comic, issues 1-29,
from June 1977 to October 1979, and published John Carter, Warlord of Mars,
over the same time period. In addition, there were three Tarzan King-Size
Annuals and three John Carter King-Size Annuals.
. Marvel also published two Tarzan comics as tie-ins
with the movie, "The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes," and came out
with a Marvel Magazine with the story of "The Land That Time Forgot."
When Lee died, Donnie Mangus, Tennessee, drew his own
portrait of Lee on his cover with his "Celebrity Death Date" postmark and
also used two stamps from the Marvel Super Heroes issue of 2007.
I made a cover with a picture of Lee, stickers showing
a couple of his characters, and two Marvel Super Heroes stamps.
Dennis Gelvin, Olympia, used his cover to present a brief
history of Lee's accomplishments along with a stamp issued in 2018 celebrating
The Art of Magic.
When Marvel’s Stan Lee died, Donnie Mangus, Tennessee, drew
his own portrait of Lee on his cover with his "Celebrity Death Date" postmark
and also used two stamps from the Marvel Super Heroes issue of 2007. In
the 70s, Lee’s Marvel published several Tarzan and John Carter comics and
a special magazine retelling of Burroughs’s “The Land That Time Forgot.”
I made a memorial cover with a picture of Marvel’s Stan Lee,
stickers showing a couple of his characters, and two Marvel Super Heroes
stamps. In the 70s, Lee’s Marvel published several Tarzan and John Carter
comics and a special magazine retelling of Burroughs’s “The Land That Time
Forgot.”
Dennis Gelvin, Olympia, used his cover to present a brief
history of Lee's accomplishments along with a stamp issued in 2018 celebrating
The Art of Magic. In the 70s, Lee’s Marvel published several Tarzan and
John Carter comics and a special magazine retelling of Burroughs’s “The
Land That Time Forgot.”
