My 2002 e-mail to the editors of the National Post, Canada's national newspaper, dragged my observations on the influence of Edgar Rice Burroughs into a dispute that had been making international headlines. I received numerous follow-up phone calls from Toronto at my university office. They requested book cover illustrations and more info on ERB's stories.

I immediately e-mailed art from The Lad and the Lion and The Beasts of Tarzan as well as contact information for George McWhorter - curator for the ERB Memorial Collection in Louisville. This resulted in a front page story in the Saturday, November 9, 2002 edition of the  Post: The headline:

"Boy and beast on a boat? Oldest idea in the world"

was accompanied by a colour reproduction of John Coleman Burroughs' dust jacket painting for THE LAD AND THE LION lifted from our ERB C.H.A.S.E.R. Online Encyclopedia.
The story also went on to quote Bill Hillman of Brandon Universlty and George McWhorter of the University of Louisville and authorities on literature and copyright.

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Sarah Schmidt ~ National Post
Saturday, November 09, 2002
http://www.nationalpost.com/home/story.html?id={3A7EE136-A2F5-4457-A00C-AAB6A90F67FB}

"It appears the plot of a boy on a boat
with a beast is nearly a century old."

Fans of Edgar Rice Burroughs are shaking their heads at Brazilian author Moacyr Scliar's accusation this week that Montreal's Yann Martel stole the premise from him for his Life of Pi book.

Burroughs, the famed creator of Tarzan, told a similar story in his The Lad and the Lion in 1914.

Inspired by archetypal religious imagery of people cast adrift with animals, most notably in the tale of Noah's Ark, and the literary tradition of the special bond between child and beast, as in Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book, Burroughs devoted a long chapter of his book to the boy and the lion drifting for years aboard a derelict boat.

Mr. Scliar's novel Max and the Cats, the story of a Jewish boy and a panther on a lifeboat, was published in 1981.

Mr. Martel's Life of Pi, the story of an Indian boy and a tiger on a lifeboat, has won this year's Booker Prize.

Mr. Scliar this week accused Mr. Martel of abusing his "intellectual property." He mused about taking legal action but then decided against it.

Besides The Lad and the Lion, Burroughs also wrote of a man-animal maritime adventure in his 1914 novel The Beasts of Tarzan. In this story, Tarzan, stranded on an island, survives with the help of a panther and an ape before the group escapes on a boat.

"It's ridiculous to say you can copyright ideas in literature. What hasn't been said? What hasn't been recycled?" said Bill Hillman, a professor of education at Brandon University and a Burroughs expert. "Certainly Burroughs came up with just about any combination you could think of with man and beast."

Burroughs, author of more than 20 Tarzan novels, always maintained that the concept of an original literary idea defied logic.

"Burroughs himself said that there's nothing new under the sun and the best we can to is put new clothes on old ideas," said George McWhorter, curator of the Burroughs Memorial Collection at the University of Louisville.

His own blunt admission did not stop the accusations of  plagiarism levelled against Burroughs, whose Tarzan books have been translated into more than 50 languages,  have sold more than 20 million copies and have served as the basis for many movies.

Some of his contemporaries accused him of  "stealing from Romulus and Kipling,'' Dr. McWhorter said.

"I guess we should also accuse Kipling of copying Romulus,"  Dr. McWhorter added mockingly.

Mowgli, Kipling's central character in The Jungle Book,  written in 1894, was raised in the wild by wolves, just like the legendary founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus, who myth says were abandoned as infants and saved by a female wolf.

Marcus Boon, a professor of contemporary literature at  York University in Toronto, said the spiral of accusations illustrates the absurdity of laying claim to an original idea in literature.

"These are sort of fundamental images and narratives  within human culture," Dr. Boon said of the image of a person cast adrift with animals.

Dr. Boon said examples of the "ubiquity of the man-animals-raft image" in literature and film include French author Alfred Jarry's Exploits and Opinions of Dr. Faustroll,  Pataphysician (1898). The story ends with the main character sailing away in a boat with a chattering ape.

Werner Herzog's 1972 classic movie Aguirre:  Wrath of God, which tells the story of a 16th-century expedition in Latin America, ends with the main character on a boat with monkeys.

As is common in the literary world, Mr. Martel disclosed long ago that he was inspired by Mr. Scliar's plot in Max and the Cats, translated into English in 1990.  "Books are constantly referencing other books," Dr. Boon said. "I'm sure Scliar's book has resonance with other books."

Carys Craig, a copyright specialist at Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto, said the law accepts this long-standing practice.

"It's essential that people be free to develop upon  and free to share ideas -- and that's a goal of copyright law....

* * *

For the rest of the story see:    http://www.nationalpost.com/home/story.html?id={3A7EE136-A2F5-4457-A00C-AAB6A90F67FB}

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THE FRONTPAGE STORY GENERATED BY OUR ERB PROMOTION
PROMPTED THIS FOLLOW-UP STORY IN THE OTTAWA CITIZEN AND NATIONAL POST

Catch a tiger by the tale
Boys and beasts were storied long before the latest literary dust-up

http://www.canada.com/ottawa/ottawacitizen/story.asp?id={FBA658CF-888D-4406-B654-3244DB9A1E65}
Paul Gessell
The Ottawa Citizen
Tuesday, November 12, 2002

Presents

THE LAD AND THE LION
An all new web comic in the ERB, Inc. subscription lineup

The Lad and the Lion, written in 1914, is an adventure story by Edgar Rice Burroughs®. The story was first published as a three-part serial in the All-Story Weekly. The Lad and the Lion is also the first story by ERB to be adapted to film – a five-reel, black and white, silent movie released in 1917. As of now, this film is officially missing from any archive. Do you have a copy? The Lad and the Lion didn’t appear in book form until the film was remade as The Lion Manin 1937 – 20 years later. The Lad and the Lion was also the first book edition published by ERB’s own publishing firm, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.
THE STORY Plotters moved toward the assassination of an old King and his grandson and heir, Michael, in a remote European Kingdom. But the old Monarch was wise and saw what was coming. Before he was killed, the King arranged for Prince Michael to be spirited away on a ship. But, there was a shipwreck and the injured Prince is swept overboard. Climbing aboard an empty lifeboat, with his memory gone, the Prince is rescued by a mad, epileptic old man piloting a tramp steamer. Also aboard – a caged lion. For years the old man kept them prisoner on his ship – beating the Prince and torturing the lion.

Meanwhile, on the ship, Michael befriends the lion and they eventually break free as the lion pays his tormentor back, in the ultimate way, for the years of mistreatment. Michael and the lion eventually land ashore on the Northern African coast, where they live and hunt together in the wild, at the margins of the jungle and the desert. Encountering a band of Arabs, Michael meets and falls in love with Nakhla, an Arab princess, but her father does everything he can to keep them apart.

Prince Otto – the King’s brother and one of the conspirators who murdered the old King – becomes King. But he and his son are disliked by the people. Jealousy and wealth intersect in the Kingdom as power plays and marriages of convenience are the norm – where no real love exists for any of the conspirators who have seized power.

The day comes when Michael regains his memory and realizes who he is. Will he announce his survival – taking his rightful place on the throne of his Kingdom? Subscribe to our new web comic strip, and be thoroughly entertained by the twisting adventure that only Edgar Rice Burroughs can create.

The Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. Team
James Sullos | President | Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.
PO Box 570277 | Tarzana CA 91357 | 818.344.0181
www.edgarriceburroughs.com

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THE LAD AND THE LION TEAM WRITER: Martin Powell
Martin Powell has been a professional writer since 1986, having written hundreds of stories in numerous genres, for Disney, Marvel, DC, and Sequential Pulp/Dark Horse Comics, among others. Nominated for the prestigious Eisner Award for his work with Sherlock Holmes, he has written for some of the most popular characters in the industry, including Superman, Batman, Popeye the Sailor, and Tarzan of the Apes. He's also the author of many children's books and is co-creator of the acclaimed Halloween Legion, with illustrator Diana Leto. Powell's The Tall Tale of Paul Bunyan won the coveted Moonbeam Children's Book Award for Best Graphic Novel of 2010.

ARTIST: Tomas M. Aranda
Tomas M. Aranda studied at the School of Art in Huesca, Spain in the specialty of Graphic Design. He finished his studies in Barcelona at the Comin in the Joso School.  He found his passion for and dedication in the development of comics. Thomas is a teacher of Comic and Manga in Joso Comic School. He has done drawings for television pages, covers and cartoons; short stories for erotic magazines for Editorial Megamultimedia; artist for Comicon Agency, Plano International, Dude Comics; inking of Conan The Conqueror for Marvel Italy; comics on line with animation in flash for Wanadoo Comics; pencils and inks for illustrations for MTJ Publishing; several files for game characters for New Fantasy Games; concepts and storyboards for TV spots for Saatchi & Saatchi; artist in short story for anthology for "Once Upon a Time Machine" for Dark Horse Comics; and many, many more.

LETTERER: Oscar H. Gonzalez
Oscar Humberto González Montoya was born in Colombia, South America. After graduating from a technical industrial high school he became very interested in the comic book field thanks to a few comic books from Image Comics, D.C and Marvel that he found in a small magazine store. In Oscar’s country there are no comic book stores. You may find a couple of comics here and there but they are pricey.

In 2013, he met Pablo Marcos, a renowned comic book artist, who has been a role model, a teacher and tutor in drawing and comics illustrations. Mr. Marcos has been sharing his knowledge with Oscar and Oscar in turn shows him digital coloring at Pablo’s studio. Oscar considers the encounter with Pablo Marcos the opportunity of a lifetime. He feels honored with his support. Pablo first asked Oscar to color some of his personal art then introduced him to the company Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. to color the series Pablo is working on today.

Visit Edgar Rice Burroughs' Comic Subscription page
www.edgarriceburroughs.com/comics