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John Carter and Dejah Thoris

Upwards to Mars

In the early '70s I was totally immersed in Burroughs fantastic fiction from Tarzan’s jungle adventures to the imaginary civilizations of Venus and Mars . . . and beyond the farthest stars. Also around this time the fantasy art of Frank Frazetta was bringing the Burroughs stories to life for me.

I spent a lot of my weekends trying to imitate his style of painting -- not doing to well at it, but enjoying it all the same. It was around this time that a fan magazine devoted to the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs called ERBdom was available, even over here in England. So I wrote off to the editor and submitted my art, mostly based around the adventures of John Carter, an earth man who had been  taken to Mars by some strange force and then proceeded to have the most trilling adventures, which kept the reader totally immersed to the last page.

I was lucky enough to get a number of my works published in ERBdom, which if you have ever tried the same thing yourself, whether it be art, music or writing, can be hard work but a great feeling when it is published. Looking back at my efforts then it looks embarrassingly crude. A few examples of my published work at that time are found in the gallery below.

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GALLERY OF EARLY WORK IN ERB-DOM ~ 1973-1974

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At The Earths Core	John Carter and the Blood of Mars
Tale of Two John Carters	Tarzan Rescued

Tarzan the Fearless	Tarzan of the Apes	Korak the Unconquerable
Barsoom	Barsoom	Tarzan

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Into the '80s and certainly by the '90s more detailed picture work was being produced by the likes of Boris Vallejo, who is a master of fine detailed and 3D work that can reproduce reality itself.

In the '90s I did a number of Scifi works, some of which is shown below. The Star Trek work was used in the Bristol Starfleet Registry in 1992, as was the Keeper the Keeper, which was later used by Trek guru Bjo Trimble in a short story.
 

Kirk & Spock

The Keeper

In 2003 I had my first Internet published art at Science Fiction Weekly Issue 327 called Alien Relic -- a showcase for SciFi artists and related websites.

Alien Relic had the distinction of being a duplicate StoneHenge existing on a distant planet and being enjoyed by its inhabitants much the same as our version is.

Alien Relic

The last example of my published work is from the the 1956 "it's so bad it's good" classic by Ed Wood, Jr. -- Plan 9 From Outer Space created on my PC for a Vampire fan mag.

Plan 9

My future art will include a number of Burroughs-related work. It's like going back to the beginning once more as in John Carter and A Princess of Mars , this time painted using pixels rather than paint.

~ Paul Privitera 2007

BILL HILLMAN
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