ERBzine: Edgar Rice Burroughs Tribute SiteErbzine.com Homepage
Official Edgar Rice Burroughs Tribute and Weekly Webzine Site
Since 1996 ~ Over 10,000 Webpages in Archive
Volume 0050



Those Burroughs Kids Pt. 1
Compiled by Bill Hillman

 Dedicated to Joan, Hulbert and Jack Burroughs


Jack and Hully the Pulp Story Writers

Thrilling Wonder June 1939: JC & H Burroughs - Man Without a World

Thrilling Wonder Stories, June 1939 - Vol. 13 #3, Whole No 18
Editor: Mort Weisinger   132 pages - Price: 15 cents
Cover Art: Howard V. Brown
Contents
Novelettes
The Man Without a World     Hulbert Burroughs & John Coleman Burroughs
Robot Nemesis               Edward E. Smith (as Edward Elmer Smith, Ph. D.)
The Ultimate Catalyst       Eric Temple Bell (as John Taine)
Novellas
Dawn of Flame               Stanley G. Weinbaum
Short Stories
Moon of Intoxication        (Earl Binder and Otto Binder) (as Eando Binder)
No More Friction            David H. Keller, M.D.
Passage to Saturn           Jack Williamson
Stolen Centuries            Otis Adelbert Kline
 







THRILLING WONDER STORIES February 1940
Contents:
The Lightning Men by John C. Burroughs & Hulbert Burroughs
Doom Over Venus - Edmond Hamilton
Day of the Titans - Arthur K Barnes
Secret of the Cyclotros - Jackson Gregory Jr
The Thing from Antares - Myer Krulfeld
True Confession - F Orlin Tremaine
The Great God Awto - Clark Ashton Smith


AMAZING STORIES January 1941

J Allen St John (front cover)   Frank R Paul (back cover)
Contents:
John Carter and the Giant of Mars - Edgar Rice Burroughs (mostly JCB)

The Invisible Wheel of Death Don Wilcox
Mystery Moon Edmond Hamilton
The Armageddon of Johann Schmidt Arthur T Harris
Hammer of the Gods John York Cabot
Skidmore's Strange Experiment David O'Brien


Startling Stories: September 1941 - John C. & Hulbert Burroughs ~ Cover: Rudolph Belarski

Startling Stories, September 1941- Vol. 6 #2, Whole number 17
Editor: Oscar J. Friend - 132 pages - Price: 15 cents
Cover: Rudolph Belarski

Contents
Novellas
The Bottom of the World  by Hulbert Burroughs & John Coleman Burroughs
Novelettes
Death from the Stars        A. Rowley Hilliard
Short Stories
No Heroes Wanted            Robert Moore Williams
Prisoners in Flatland       Frank Belknap Long



Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia of Science Fiction:
John Coleman Burroughs
(1913-1979) US illustrator and writer, the younger son of Edgar Rice BURROUGHS and actively involved in his father's productions. He illustrated 13 of ERB's titles, and drew the weekly comic strip John Carter of Mars from Dec 1941 to its termination in 1943. This strip has been reproduced as John Carter of Mars. JCB's sf novel, Treasure of the Black Falcon (1967), features undersea adventures and ALIEN contact.


John Coleman Burroughs
John Coleman (Jack) Burroughs (February 28, 1913 - 1979)
John Coleman Burroughs Tribute Site
JCB did over 125 illustrations for ERB Inc. books. He also delved into comic book art (most notably John Carter of Mars) and even the "fine arts."

He is author of Treasure of the Black Falcon (Ballantine, 1967), co-author with brother Hulbert of three pulp SF stories (see above), co-author with wife Jane Ralston of a mystery story, and collaborator with father ERB on John Carter and the Giant of Mars for a Whitman Big Little Book which he later expanded for publication in Amazing under ERB's name.

During the '50s and '60s, JCB's oil paintings of Indians, Mexicans, western landscapes, etc. were sold at an art gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico and remain in many private collections. Most of these and many fantasy paintings have never been published. He was handicapped in his later years by Parkinson's Disease.


A BRIEF CHECKLIST OF THE PUBLISHED
ARTWORK OF JOHN COLEMAN BURROUGHS


Visit the John Coleman Burroughs Tribute Sites at:
ERBzin-e 714


Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.
THE OAKDALE AFFAIR AND THE RIDER (1937)
  Wraparound jacket and 5 interior illustrations

BACK TO THE STONE AGE (1937)
    Wraparound jacket and 7 interior illustrations

THE LAD AND THE LION (1938)
    Jacket illustration and 5 interior illustrations

TARZAN AND THE FORBIDDEN CITY (1938)
    Jacket illustration and 5 interior illustrations


CARSON OF VENUS (1939)
    Jacket illustration and 6 interior illustrations


TARZAN THE MAGNIFICENT (1939)
    Jacket illustration and 5 interior illustrations

SYNTHETIC MEN OF MARS (1940)
    Jacket illustration and 5 interior illustrations

THE DEPUTY SHERIFF OF COMANCHE COUNTY (1940)
    Jacket illustration, 1 interior & 22 small chapter sketches

LAND OF TERROR (1944)
  Jacket illustration (28 drawings not included in book)

ESCAPE ON VENUS (1946)
    Jacket illustration and 5 interior illustrations

TARZAN AND "THE FOREIGN LEGION" (1947)
    Jacket illustration and 5 interior illustrations

LLANA OF GATHOL (1948)
    Jacket illustration and 5 interior illustrations


WHITMAN PUBLISHING COMPANY (BLBs)

JOHN CARTER OF MARS (1940)
    Cover and interior illustrations
TARZAN THE UNTAMED (1941)
    Cover painting and interior "flip-page action" sequence
TARZAN THE TERRIBLE (1942)
    Cover painting and interior "flip-page action" sequence
INSPECTOR CHARLIE CHAN (1942)
    Cover painting and interior "flip-page action" sequence
SHADOW AND THE GHOST MAKERS (1942)
    Cover painting and interior "flip-page action" sequence
TARZAN AND THE GOLDEN LION (1943)
    Cover painting
TARZAN AND THE ANT MEN (1945)
    Cover painting

MISCELLANEOUS PUBLISHERS

Hi-Spot Comics #2, (1940)
    12 page "David Innes of Pellucidar" comic strip
The Funnies #34-56 (1939-1941)
    152 pages of "John Carter of Mars" comic strip
JOHN CARTER OF MARS (1940, Dell Pub. Co.)
    Illustrations taken from John Carter of Mars comic strip in
    The Funnies #34-39
THE BOTTOM OF THE WORLD (1941)
    Startling Stories, September 1941, 7 illustrations
   JCB co-author
JOHN CARTER OF MARS (Sunday Newspaper Strip)
    December 7, 1941 - March 28, 1943
    69 half page formal strips (They appeared in only 4 papers)
    Chicago Sun (#1-52), San Francisco Chronicle (#1-64)
    Columbus Citizen(#12-69), Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette
    (#16-69)
DAVID INNES OF PELLUCIDAR (1968, House of Greystoke)
    Included: 54 pages, 28 illos for Land of Terror, B/W
    reprint of 12-page David Innes comic strip from
    Hi-Spot #2 and 20 pages of additional David Innes
    comic strips that were intended for comic book
    publication, but were never used.
JOHN CARTER OF MARS (1979, House of Greystoke)
    The Sunday Strips are reprinted here in black and white,
    also three additional unpublished strips #70-72 and
    unpublished back cover.
DOUGLAS AIRCRAFT WWII TRAINING MANUALS
NUMEROUS CARTOONS OVER THE YEARS

Perhaps it would be of interest to elucidate on the "John Carter of Mars" comic strip panels drawn by my husband, John Coleman Burroughs, in 1942. My facial features were drawn and I posed in a swim suit and Martian harness for the body proportions and positions. Never has it been known that I also drew all of the backgrounds and buildings, did all of the coloring and all of the lettering, and very much enjoyed the project. My love to all.
              --- "Dejah Thoris" (Jane Ralston Burroughs) Irvine, California 
JOAN BURROUGHS
TARZAN, JANE ALIVE & WELL
Transcribed from a 1972 newspaper release
APPLE VALLEY, Calif. (AP)
Two former swingers, Tarzan and Jane, have been leading a quiet married life together since 1928.

James H. Pierce, the oldest-living screen Tarzan and first radio Ape Man, was the only Tarzan discovered by the character's creator, Edgar Rice Burroughs.

Burroughs' daughter Joan Burroughs Pierce, who played Jane on the radio serial, liked her father's choice and married him on his birthday, Aug. 8, in 1928.

"To me, he looked like Tarzan," Mrs. Pierce, 64, recalls, "very trim and well-muscled and  his face looked like Tarzan as my father imagined him to be -- gray eyes, something of a Roman nose, and a beautiful smile."

Now, Pierce, 72, does his swinging with golf clubs, rather than grapevines. Standing 6 feet 4, Pierce wears glasses and his hair has turned white, but both his step and handshake still are firm.

Pierce was the fourth of 15 screen Tarzans and the last from the silent era. About his movie role, Pierce says, he's "not an actor at heart -- I was in it for the money. I never was hung up on the fact that I was the world's greatest actor... I was passable. I could do my job, what I had to do that was it."

His silent Tarzan film, Tarzan and the Golden Lion, was a box-office flop. It was released in 1927 when theaters were converting to sound, and it was difficult for silent films to get theater bookings.

"There wasn't too much dramatic acting available in the script or in the people," Pierce says.

The female characters needed only to react, and even Boris Karloff, making his screen debut as a tribal chieftain had little chance to act.

"It was kind of a hurry-up production," Pierce says. "The director was always a dollar short and an hour late trying to keep on schedule and keep within the budget, so they were always in a hurry. You didn't have time to rehears, you didn't have time to redo anything."

For $75 a week in pre-inflated dollars, Pierce was both star and stuntman, taking risks by doing dangerous stunt work.

One scene required the hand-over-hand crossing of a 60-foot-deep canyon on 30 feet of rope camouflaged with vines. The vines started twisting, but Pierce managed to crawl back to safety so studio technicians could attach wire hooks to his wrists before attempting to cross again.

Tarzan and the Golden Lion was filmed at a studio owned by Joseph P. Kennedy. Pierce wrote Sen. Edward Kennedy last year asking if he knew where an existing print was available, but none has been found.

Pierce was discovered by Burroughs at a party. He had been a star football center at Indiana University before  his movie career began.

In 1932, Burroughs organized and narrated a Tarzan radio show, casting his son-in-law and daughter as the principal characters. The 15-minute serial, broadcast three times weekly, lasted for 364 episodes. It was the first sustained "canned" show -- on discs rather than tape -- in an era when live radio was the norm. Although some predicted failure for that reason, the show ran from 1932 to 1934.

"It was a beautiful love story," says Mrs. Pierce. "It was a clean story. There was no obvious sex, just pure love."

She recalls that years ago self-styled censors who believed Tarzan and Jane were living in sin tried to have the books barred from the libraries. However, the censors overlooked the fact that the Ap[e Man and Jane were married by Jane's father in the book The Return of Tarzan," Mrs. Pierce said. "They thought they were living in sin, which would be perfectly acceptable now, but it wasn't considered proper 15 to 20 years ago," she says.

The radio show ended in 1934 because the producers wanted to replace a pregnant Jane, and Tarzan quit. Pierce returned to films, but his strong identification with the Tarzan character proved a hindrance when seeking other roles.

His height also created a problem, Pierce says, because the average height of leading men in the 1930's was about 5 feet 6. Western star Fred Thompson asked for Pierce because he wanted big men to beat in fight scenes.

Richard Dix also liked Pierce but was of average height, so "I would have to sit down or dig a hole in the ground or stoop" in scenes with Dix, he said.

Because he could only get infrequent roles in films, Pierce left Hollywood to join the war effort as a commercial pilot and instructor at government flying schools.

But Pierce was unable to pursue the flying career he had envisioned because private flying changed so much during World War II. He then got a broker's license and sold real estate until his retirement in 1966.

"I have no regrets," Pierce says about his life. "I'd go the same route again the same way... Everything I did fitted into the pattern of what I could do and wanted to do at the time. I never was tied down to anything. I was sort of a free soul: do what I wanted to, when I wanted to, where I wanted to."


See the Joan Burroughs and James Pierce gravesite in the photo gallery at:
 www.erbzine.com/mag13/1385.html
 


BILL HILLMAN
Visit our thousands of other sites at:
BILL & SUE-ON HILLMAN ECLECTIC STUDIO
ERB Text, ERB Images and Tarzan® are ©Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.- All Rights Reserved.
All Original Work ©1996-2006/2010 by Bill Hillman and/or Contributing Authors/Owners
No part of this web site may be reproduced without permission from the respective owners.