A Tribute to Edgar Rice Burroughs
By Darrell C. Richardson Tarzan of the Apes first appeared as a novel in the October 1912, All-Story Magazine. It was Edgar Rice Burroughs' second published story and the third tale he had ever written. Previously Under the Moons of Mars had appeared serially in the same publication under the pseudonym Norman Bean. "Tarzan" was an immediate hit, and its publication in book form in 1914 started it's author on the path to fame and fortune. Today, Tarzan has established his durability and is more popular than ever. Through movies, radio, comic strip and television he has been introduced to a prodigious world-wide public, 291 newspapers in America bring Tarzan to 15,672,000 people; 28 foreign countries add millions more. There have been 364 Tarzan radio programs, 25 Tarzan movies have been made, featuring 10 movie Tarzans. Half a billion people have seen Tarzan on the screen. There have been 24 Tarzan books in all, with three more yet to be published. Even more popular with the fantasy reader is John Carter of Mars. Millions of readers the world over think of Mars as the planet Barsoom, populated by

(concluded on inside back cover)

It has come as a shock to millions of his readers, young and old, because they almost come to hope he was immortal, like his own fantastic creations. Edgar Rice Burroughs will always be considered as an outstanding example of what may be accomplished with the opportunities of the American way of life. He took merely his incredible imagination and with it earned a fortune of over ten million dollars. Burroughs never claimed that his stories had any great literary value. He was modest to a fault. An editorial in Fortune said that "some of his stories are not so hot, but they sell -- and argument that admits of no rebuttal." When asked about his rules for writing back in 1945, he replied: "In all these years I have not learned one single rule for writing fiction or anything else. I still write as I did thirty years ago; stories which I feel would entertain me and give me mental relaxation, knowing that there are millions of people just like me who will like the same things that I like." Therein lies his greatest achievement -- he has entertained and relaxed billions of people and the world is the better for it!

Promo Blurb:
Tars Tarkas and his green men, the red men of Helium, the headless Rykors, the Holy Therns, the Black Pirates, Thoats, Zitidars, Dejah Thoris and John Carter, Warlord of Barsoom. The last of the Martian series, Skeleton Men of Jupiter, was never completed.  The third popular creation in the Burroughs saga is the Pellucidar series featuring David Innes. Carson of Venus is another newer science fiction hero. In addition ao all these, Burroughs wrote at least three other books that stand out as classics of fantasy. And now the world has learned that Tarzan's creator is dead.

Captions:
"The cover of the Oct. 1912 All-Story, which was the first Tarzan illustration, and the first Tarzan Tale."

"Pictured below is the famous artist, J. Allen St. John, whose inspired pictorial representations of Tarzan and John Carter helped skyrocket Burroughs' stories to fame. The illustration is the frontispiece for Tarzan and the Golden Lion."

"The picture above is the last ever taken of Edgar Rice Burroughs. The group depicts (left to right) Vernell Coriell, Burroughs' grandson; Lex Barker, newest of the film Tarzans and (seated) Edgar Rice Burroughs."

Tarzan in Los Angeles: The Legacy of Edgar Rice Burroughs
 By David Silon ~ Literary Traveler ~ June 24, 2009 When considering which author I should investigate, I figured the best place to start is right in my own backyard. But since my apartment does not have a backyard, I would have to use someone else's backyard. So this brings me to the town of Tarzana in the San Fernando Valley just north of Los Angeles. What makes this place so unique among all other places on this planet, is that Tarzana is the only place named after a literary character deemed so by the author himself.

The author, of course, was Edgar Rice Burroughs, born in 1875 in Chicago, the son of a businessman. In 1919, he purchased, for the handsome sum of $125,000, 540 acres of land in the Valley at the northern edge of the Santa Monica Mountains from the estate of General Harrison Gray Otis, former editor of the Los Angeles Times, who had died two years earlier. The quiet and seclusion of the area were two of the main factors that drew Burroughs to this place. It was also only a short drive from the glamour of Hollywood. On the former Otis land, Burroughs built a large ranch house and named it after his creation that brought him so much success - "Tarzana Ranch" - located on one of the first hills that form the northern edge of the Santa Monica Mountain range. It was behind this house, that the 1929 film Rio Rita, starring John Boles, was shot. The landscaping, represented by trees of all types, which one can still see today, was the work of General Otis who had imported many rare species from various parts of the world.

This beautiful ranch home was the culmination of years of struggle and drifting. Back in 1911, after seven years of low wages, he was working as a pencil sharpener salesman in Chicago. In his spare time, he began reading pulp magazines during which, he was reported to have said:

If people were paid for writing rot such as I read in some of those magazines [then] I could write stories just as rotten. As a matter of fact, although I had never written a story, I knew absolutely that I could write stories just as entertaining and probably a whole lot more so than any I chanced to read in those magazines.

Then he began to write, focusing primarily on the pulp market. His first story "Under the Moons of Mars" was serialized in All-Story magazine in 1912 and earned him $400 (today's rough equivalent of $7600).

Burroughs soon took up writing full-time, mainly in the science fiction/fantasy genre, and by the time the run of his "Moons of Mars" serial had finished he had completed two novels, one of which was Tarzan of the Apes which was published later that year, the first in his Tarzan series. As it turned out, Tarzan became a cultural sensation and he was determined to capitalize on its popularity in every way possible, mainly through Tarzan comic strips and merchandise. Experts warned against this, noting that these different venues would just end up competing against each other. Burroughs went ahead, anyway, and proved them wrong. His Tarzan character remains one of the most successful fictional characters to this day. Several more stories were written, besides the Tarzan stories, before he began his flirtation with Hollywood-- "The Gods of Mars," "At the Earth's Core," " The Lost Continent," "Sweetheart Primeval,"  "The Girl From Fariss," " The Oakdale Affair," and "The Land That Time Forgot."

His connection with Hollywood began back in 1917 when the Selig Polyscope Co. produced one of his earliest novels The Lad and the Lion. By 1918, Hollywood began to take an interest in his Tarzan serials and that year, Tarzan of the Apes was produced by the National Film Corporation of America. It opened on Broadway and was a huge success, becoming one of the first Hollywood movies ever to gross over $1 million. Apes was followed later in the year by The Romance of Tarzan.

Because of the success of these two films, Hollywood planned to produce more of his Tarzan stories. Subsequently, he and his family moved out to California and purchased the ranch that became the Tarzana Ranch. In 1923, Burroughs subdivided a portion of his land for homes and this subdivision became known as the Tarzana Tract growing into the town of Tarzana in 1928 when it was incorporated.

In 1923 the author set up his own company, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc., and began printing his own books which he continued to do throughout the 1930s. He and his family lived in the ranch house where he wrote, until about 1925 when the El Caballero Country Club was developed adjacent to the ranch property and, by agreement, the ranch house then became the clubhouse. (Burroughs would, eventually, build another house on nearby Mecca Ave.) On the newly-developed golf course, the Burroughs family would often play rounds of golf with their friends, and in 1927, the Los Angeles Open Golf Tournament was held there.
The next decade proved to be a difficult time for Burroughs. During the Depression years, the club went broke and he had to assume the mortgage, operating the club property as a public course, renamed Tarzana Golf Course, to help in the payments. However, he was unable to pay off the mortgage and ended up losing this property to the bank. During this time, he often fought the illegal poachers and hunters who often invaded his former homesite. By 1934, he found himself divorced. In 1936, he put his former homesite up for sale.

Burroughs was living in Hawaii when the attack on Pearl Harbor occurred, and subsequently enlisted as a war correspondent, becoming the oldest war correspondent for the US during WWII. After the war, he moved back to California and bought a house in Encino, just down the road from Tarzana Ranch where he died of a heart attack at the age of 74. During his lifetime, he had written almost 70 novels.

Tarzana Ranch still exists today. The surrounding town of Tarzana has become a chic town which forms a row of other chic towns along Ventura Blvd. that could possibly be compared to Beverly Hills. But Tarzana stands out from the rest as, chic, with a hometown feel to it, even though, the part of the town south of Ventura, is the abode of the super-rich, with estates as big as Monaco, not unlike the Ranch itself. The neighborhing houses are built in either Spanish, California tract, Midwestern, or European styles. After World War II, the El Caballero has been revived and is now situated in approximately the same place as originally. As for Tarzana Ranch itself, the property that cost $125,000 in 1919, is worth much more today. In 2004, it was sold for $3.5 million. As of this writing, the ranch is, once again on the market selling for $8 million.

I tried my best to pay a visit to the ranch house to get a feel of Edgar Rice Burroughs' life during his time there. Since I did not think anyone was living there at the time, I considered calling the real estate office to ask for a tour. But then again, since their whole purpose was to sell the ranch house, I did not think they would be too happy just to show this writer the property. So with my pen and notepad in hand, I walked along the edge of the estate, trying to find out where in the world the entrance was. But the challenge was, how to do that in a residential area without the residents or police becoming suspicious of me. It just so happened, no one really cared so I just went about the business at hand.

I finally found the entrance around the corner on Mecca Ave. But at the corner of the block, outside of the ranch property, a new mansion was being constructed. In addition, the driveway leading up to the ranch house was being paved, and the entire area was cordoned off. In the distance, on a tree, was a big sign that read "Security Dog on Property." Of course, I saw no dog. Therefore, I proceeded up the driveway. Then I saw the dog and he did not look too friendly. So I decided to change my mind and not go up the driveway after all thus keeping a respectable distance between me and the ranch house and most of all, the dog. But even from this distance, I could see a little bit of the house - a huge 2-story, built in the Spanish style, and its coloring was a light beige. It was most unfortunate that I could not go inside of the building, but perhaps, if there is a future sequel and if circumstances permit . . .

How Avatar Has Changed Pixar's John Carter of Mars
We Come From The Future site: io9.com
Now that Avatar has raised the bar thanks to its cutting-edge visual effects, the folks at Pixar are taking notice. Their next big picture is the other-worldly epic John Carter of Mars, and Avatar just changed the game for them. In an interview with Collider actor Mark Strong discussed how Avatar made everyone at Pixar sit up and take notice, mere days before they go into production in January.

Strong, who plays Matai Shang, the God-like ruler over the Fern people who spends his time being ripped and keeping tabs on the Universe, shared his thoughts on how Pixar's Andrew Stanton is ready to dominate James Cameron's Avatar with their own mo-cap/live action scifi film.

I mean it's "Avatar" type territory, and I think the point I was making before [is that] these Pixar guys are always wanting to be in the vanguard. They want to be leading from the front. They're giving the public stories that the public don't even know they want. I mean a story about a fish? A story about an old guy keeping his house? On paper, these must seem like, you know, how on earth are you going to carry those things off. Talking toys? Come on. But they... I think Andrew said they're in the business of giving the public what they want before they know they want it. So I can totally imagine he's gone to see "Avatar" and that'll just set the cogs whirring in his brain and the twinkle in his eye because he'll just want to surpass it, no question.

James Cameron Versus Pixar — it doesn't get much better than that. Sure Pixar, will have to upgrade their live action assimilation, since the Toy Story humans still reside deep in the uncanny valley. But story wise? Pixar, hands down. It should be interesting to see what they pull out.

As for Strong, he's signed on to make the entire John Carter movie trilogy that Pixar has planned as the heroes nemesis, if it beats Avatar, that is.

Al Bohl's Tarzan Documentary in the News
Doubling Up: Filming Louisiana 
Country Roads Magazine

Al and Allison Bohl

How cinematic trickery transforms our beloved Louisiana into something else—and often somewhere else. 
Nowhere else is this better exemplified than in the 1917 version of Tarzan of the Apes, which was partly filmed in Morgan City. It was a watershed moment not only for Louisiana film history, but also national cinema, as this Tarzan feature was among the first movies ever to gross more than a million dollars at the box office. The Atchafalaya swamp served as Tarzan’s jungle and more than three hundred locals were hired on as extras—read: cannibals—for a daily rate of $1.75 each. 

The original Tarzan flick left such a footprint, in fact, that Bossier City producer Al Bohl is working on a documentary set for release in 2011. He says the silent motion picture is a fascinating story “with more layers than an onion.” Live apes were used for the shoot and many were left behind when the film wrapped—that nugget alone got Bohl hooked. He says his documentary, entitled Tarzan: Lord of the Louisiana Jungle, hopes to not only find out if there were really monkeys running around the bayous, but also if a real lion was killed on screen (a popular myth). 
 

 

1933 Foster Tarzan Sunday at Russ Cochran's Auction

Russ Cochran offered the 1933.01.29 Tarzan Sunday page
by Hal Foster in his online auction, December 10, 2009. 
The story is called “Brother of the Beasts,” and 
he shares his enthusiastic insights about the piece.

I have always loved this particular page because of the two drawings of Tarzan it contains. The header strip, showing Tarzan sitting calmly with a monkey, a gazelle, and one of his tribe of apes, and across the page, Numa the lion and Sheeta the leopard. And Panel #10, shows Tarzan being led to his "test" and presumably his death, where he has been sentenced by the Egyptian priests to prove his brotherhood with the beasts by swimming across a river teeming with crocodiles. The rest of this handsome page is filled with the pageantry of the Egyptians, including the High Priests, the Princess Nikotris and the Prince Tutamken. All of this long and important story by Hal Foster was sparked by the real-life discovery of the tomb of "King Tut," as he was called.

King Tutankhamun's tomb was discovered in the Valley of the Kings and was the richest Egyptian tomb ever discovered. The discovery started with an American businessman, Theodore Davis, who found a cache of funeral items which seemed to indicate they were from King Tut's tomb. Then, in 1907, Tutankhamun's seal was found on burial items found in a pit in the Valley of the Kings. Davis disregarded this evidence, but Egyptologist Howard Carter thought these items were important and Carter went to his friend Lord Carnarvon to finance the expedition. Carter and Lord Carnarvon were given permission to dig in 1914, but the first World War interrupted them and Carter did not start his dig until 1917. In November, 1922, Carter found the sealed door to the tomb and called upon Lord Carnarvon to join him in Alexandria. Carnarvon and his daughter, Lady Evelyn Herbert, quickly left for Egypt to arrive in Luxor on November 23rd. Once they reached the Archeological spot, they were met by Howard Carter and his assistant, A. R. Callender. When they opened the tomb, they found gold objects of inestimable value, seen first by the light of a candle held by Carter through a small hole in the door of the tomb. In his book, Howard Carter tells the story:

"We were firmly convinced by this time that it was a cache that we were about to open, and not a tomb. The arrangement of stairway, entrance passage and doors reminded us forcibly of the cache of Akhenaten and Tyi material found in the very near vicinity of the present excavation by Davis, and the fact that Tutankhamun's seals occurred there likewise seemed almost certain proof that we were right in our conjecture. We were soon to know. There lay the sealed doorway, and behind it was the answer to the question."

"With trembling hands I made a tiny breach in the upper left-hand corner. Darkness and blank space, as far as an iron testing-rod could reach, showed that whatever lay beyond was empty, and not filled like the passage we had just cleared. Candle tests were applied as a precaution against possible foul gases, and then, widening the hole a little, I inserted the candle and peered in, Lord Carnarvon, Lady Evelyn and Callender standing anxiously beside me to hear the verdict. At first I could see nothing, the hot air escaping from the chamber causing the candle flame to flicker, but presently, as my eyes grew accustomed to the light, details of the room within emerged slowly from the mist, strange animals, statues, and gold - everywhere the glint of gold. For the moment - an eternity it must have seemed to the others standing by - I was struck dumb with amazement, and when Lord Carnarvon, unable to stand the suspense any longer, inquired anxiously, "Can you see anything?" it was all I could do to get out the words, "Yes, wonderful things."

Four months later, Lord Carnarvon died after a mosquito bite became infected. A month later, George Jay Gould died after visiting the tomb. This led to the belief of a "curse" on the tomb, for anyone disturbing the mummy of the King. "Cursed be those who disturb the rest of a Pharoah. They that shall break the seal of this tomb shall meet death by a disease that no doctor can diagnose." Sir Arthur Conan Doyle theorized that the causes of death were a fungus, sealed in the tomb, but this was never proven.

Howard Carter, the man who first opened the tomb, died in 1939. Universal's classic horror film The Mummy was released in December 1932, with many sequels. The huge world-wide fascination with the treasures in King Tut's tomb has fueled stories of "the Mummy's curse" which persist to the present day.

For more information on the piece contact Cochran by email at Russ@RussCochran.com.

Sniff test to preserve old books
The test could help to preserve treasured books and documents.
By Victoria Gill ~ Science reporter, BBC News
BBC News ~ November 12, 2009 Old books 
The key to preserving the old, degrading paper of treasured, ageing books is contained in the smell of their pages, say scientists. Researchers report in the journal Analytical Chemistry that a new "sniff test" can measure degradation of old books and historical documents. The test picks up and identifies the chemicals that the pages release as they degrade. This could help libraries and museums preserve a range of precious books. The test is based on detecting the levels of volatile organic compounds. These are released by paper as it ages and produce the familiar "old book smell".

The international research team, led by Matija Strlic from University College London's Centre for Sustainable Heritage, describes that smell as "a combination of grassy notes with a tang of acids and a hint of vanilla over an underlying mustiness". "This unmistakable smell is as much part of the book as its contents," they wrote in the journal article. Dr Strlic told BBC News that the idea for new test came from observing museum conservators as they worked. "I often noticed that conservators smelled paper during their assessment," he recalled. "I thought, if there was a way we could smell paper and tell how degraded it is from the compounds it emits, that would be great." The test does just that. It pinpoints ingredients contained within the blend of volatile compounds emanating from the paper. That mixture, the researchers say, "is dependent on the original composition of the... paper substrate, applied media, and binding". Their new method is called "material degradomics". The scientists are able to use it to find what chemicals books release, without damaging the paper. It involves an analytical technique called gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. This simply "sniffs" the paper and separates out the different compounds.

Chemical fingerprint
The team tested 72 historical papers from the 19th and 20th centuries - some of which they bought on eBay - and identified 15 compounds that were "reliable markers" of degradation. "The aroma is made up of hundreds of compounds, but these 15 contain most of the information that we need," said Dr Strlic. Measuring the levels of these individual compounds made it possible to produce a "fingerprint" of each document's condition. Such a thorough chemical understanding of the state of a book will help museums and libraries to identify the books and documents most in need of protection from further degradation. The information could also be used to fine-tune preservation techniques. The method, the researchers say, is not exclusively applicable to books, and could be used on other historical artefacts.