BLOG WATCH: TROLLING FOR ERB IN THE BLOGS
The Gift of Knowledge: John Carter of Mars
BaytownBert.Blogspot.com
~ December 22, 2006
. . . The Middle East adventures were taking a toll on
me, so I went to Barsoom, Mars to battle four-armed green giants. It was
kind of amazing, really. Because of the difference in gravity between Earth
and Mars, I found I could jump 30 feet in the air. No one can tell a story
like Edgar Rice Burroughs and even though he has been dead for over 50
years, his books are just as good today, as they were when they were published.
My open admiration for the brave John Carter and his beautiful maiden,
Thuvia, kept me on Mars through thirteen consecutive books. You’ve got
to love science fiction. . . . More>>>
Drawing Dinosaurs with David Krentz
 LinesAndColors.com
~ December 21, 2006
David Krentz is a founding member of Ninth
Ray Studios, a concept and production art group that includes Iain
McCaig, Ryan
Church and other major concept artists. In addition to his work on
Disney's Dinosaur, Krentz has worked on titles like Fantasia 2000, Treasure
Planet, Spider-Man 2, The Ant Bully, John Carter of Mars and Eragon.
Krentz is also a dinosaur sculptor, and has a site devoted to his small
scale sculptures, of which he sells limited edition castings. His
main web site has galleries of his concept art and illustrations for
movies and games, as well as examples of his story boards from Dinosaur
and John Carter of Mars. There is also a nice gallery of six images
on the Gnomon Workshop page for the DVD, in addition to the stills from
the video. More>>>
Illinois Hall of Fame: Edgar Rice Burroughs
Illinois
State Society of Washington, DC ~ By Mark Rhoads ~ December 21, 2006
 Famous
American author Edgar Rice Burroughs
was the creator of Tarzan and other popular literary characters in the
early part of the 20th Century. Edgar was born in Chicago on Sept. 1, 1875.
He was the youngest in the family after two of five brothers died as infants.
His father was a former Union officer, Maj. George Tyler Burroughs and
his mother was Mary Burroughs. The family lived in a three-story brick
house at 646 Washington Boulevard on the West Side between Lincoln and
Robey Streets. . . . Edgar and his son were actually living in Honolulu,
Hawaii on the morning of Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941. They watched Japanese planes
attack US ships in the harbor from a hotel tennis court. At age 66, he
immediately volunteered for military service again as a sentry with Patrol
2, Company A, First Battalion to guard a warehouse on the wharf and worked
at various jobs including as a war correspondent for The Honolulu Advertiser.
In April 1942 Edgar again attained the rank of Major as a public relations
officer for the Hawaii Businessman's Military Training Corps. He wrote
about everything he saw on the day of the Pearl Harbor attack. After V-J
Day, Edgar moved from Hawaii to a small house Encino, California in September
1945. By this time another series of Tarzan adventure films were
being made starring Johnny Weissmuller. Edgar Rice Burroughs died in Encino
on March 19, 1950 at the age of 74. There are several good fan sites for
Edgar Rice Burroughs including The ERBzine.
Another very good source of information is the Tarzan
web site. More>>>
Dave
Hardy's Fire and Sword Blog ~ December 21, 2006
REVIEW: The Treasure of the Sierra Madre by B. Traven
Though it is better known as one of John Huston’s many
films, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is B. Traven’s masterpiece
adventure novel. B. Traven was a true mystery man, though scholars have
linked him with the pseudonymous Ret Marut, a German anarchist who published
a left-wing literary and political magazine during WWI. While Traven’s
identification with Marut is questionable, they both shared far-left politics.
Anarchist politics certainly infuse Sierra Madre. . . . Though not
an overly artful story, Sierra Madre is not a work of socialist realism.
It is an idiosyncratic work of propaganda, but with a respect for the demands
of art. The adventure novel genre tends not to spend too much time thinking
about the world it exists in (hence reams of self-righteous post-modern
literary criticism on Edgar Rice Burroughs and Rider Haggard). In
fact some would say it is the fantasyland of imperialism. While Sierra
Madre may not be as thrilling a yarn as Princess of Mars, anarchists
can claim a very respectable adventure novelist in B. Traven. More>>>
Rocky II ERB Trivia
The book that Rocky reads to Adrian is Edgar Rice Burroughs'
"The Deputy Sheriff of Comanche County."
Tarzan
and Jane Video at MySpace
Tarzan Riddle
Q: Tarzan and the animals went to the river to take a
bath. Tarzan removed his clothes. All the animals laughed at Tarzan. Tarzan
asked "Why"? A: The animals told him "Your tail is in front"
John Carter Factoid
Jeff's
GameBlog ~ December 7, 2006
I've been doing some research on the Bronze Age of Comics,
because that period is basically my personal Golden Age. So I was over
at mega-resource comics.org when I came across the page for the John Carter
Warlord of Mars series. It only ran 28 issues, which makes collecting it
seem a lot less daunting than one hundred issues of Marvel Two-in-One.
Anyway, I was blown away by this factoid about the John Carter comic:
The entire series (with few exceptions) takes place between
the third and fourth paragraphs of chapter 27 in Edgar Rice Burroughs'
novel A Princess of Mars.
Was Tarzan his Cousin?
Genea-Musings
Site ~ November 21, 2006
Chris
Dolley posted on his blog about his relationship with Lord Greystoke
through Edith Sigurson in "Tarzan: My Long Lost Cousin." It's funny and
informative at the same time.
Tarzan: My Long Lost Cousin
. . . I'd traced my family back to the tiny village of
Betchworth, relatives were on every page of the parish register. . . I
wasn't exactly related to the Royal Family. I was related to Tarzan. For
those who find this hard to believe, here's the evidence: In 1105, in Hook
Norton, Oxfordshire, Robert d'Oilli, constable of Oxford Castle married
Edith Sigulfson, daughter of Lord Greystoke. And we all know who Lord Greystoke
is. My only problem was proving the link between the Norman baron whose
father fought with William at Hastings ... and the illiterate brickworkers
living in 1760 Surrey. But I'd seen Alex Haley's Roots. Could I produce
my own book Branches - one man's search to prove his link to the King of
the Jungle?So began my hunt to find Kunte Cnut and Chicken Godgifu. Or
failing those, Cheetah.
It's pretty well documented that the origin of the Dolley
name is via D'Oyley and d'Ouilly. And I've even visited the village in
Calvados where the name comes from (It's called Pont D'Ouilly now and before
that Ouilly le Basset) But that vital medieval link still eludes me. Maybe
I should try Africa? A Royal Postscript: just to show how close I was to
finding a royal ancestor (other than the King of the Jungle) Edith Sigulfson
was Henry I's mistress and bore him a son, the Baron of Okehampton. So
royal blood flows in a cousin, several bastards removed. More>>>
Jungle Fever
Blinkit
Blog ~ November 24, 2006
A few weeks back my mind wandered to memories of watching
the 1960s TV version of Tarzan with Ron Ely. Ely was famous for doing his
own stunts in the show, despite numerous injuries. According to Wikipedia,
there was no harm done: he's alive even today. In my part of the world,
we watched it in reruns a few years after it first aired, but it was hugely
popular at my elementary school. The famous Tarzan cry echoed across the
schoolyard for months, and it made me want a chimpanzee as a pet. And I
wanted to swing on vines, except that the Ponderosa pines and firs in the
mountains around me had none. The show also led me to reading the original
Edgar Rice Burroughs novels, which were far grittier and violent than the
show or almost any of the movies. There are also far too many of them (two
dozen by my count), as Burroughs swung on the vine of his original apeman/nature
boy idea one too many times. The original Tarzan of the Apes novel is kind
of interesting, and I liked the later novel about the lost outpost of the
Roman Empire, but it goes downhill from there, with Tarzan meeting little
people, lion people, leopard people, people from the centre of the earth,
and more lost cities and empires than you'd think would fit even in the
dark recesses of Edwardian Africa. It seemed the only person Tarzan didn't
meet in the jungle was Jane Goodall. But give credit to Burroughs: he apparently
was the first multi-media cross platform guy, spinning his fiction into
a lucrative empire of comics, movies and merchandise. This decades before
Harry Potter. What's more, Tarzan wasn't even his only fiction. He wrote
tons more books about Mars, science fiction, Westerns and history. Me writer,
you market.
Zipping Through Costa Rica
PersonaNonData
~ November 24, 2006
The zipline tour lasts about 60 mins. and I think I got
to platform 10 thinking we were done. I was already impressed with the
length of the tour but, as a parting gift, Selvatura offers something they
call the “Tarzan Swing.” Tarzan has no redeeming or scientific value and
is designed only to make you scream like an idiot as you step off a small
platform and free-fall 30 feet over a ravine. It is really a mini bungee
jump. Again, the fearless Mrs. PND went first. Not ever having bungee-jumped,
the sensation of nothingness as you fall forward is exhilarating and terrifying
at the same time. This wasn't even that high--and I would do it again.
When we got back to the hotel, the desk clerk asked in reverent tones,
“Did you do the Tarzan?” I think she was impressed, although she might
have been worried about my age...More>>>
RGK: The Art of Roy G. Krenkel edited
by J. David Spurlock and Barry Klugerman
Book-A-Day
#134 Blog ~ November 27, 2006
Before this book, I knew of Krenkel just as "that guy
who painted like Frazetta before Frazetta." Now, I think of him as "that
guy who was completely unprofessional." Both are not entirely true, but
what the hell... I should explain: Krenkel was older than Frazetta, and
broke into book publishing (doing Edgar Rice Burroughs books that Ace's
Don Wollheim thought were in the public domain) slightly before Frazetta.
Also, they were friends, and part of the same circle. And they were both,
initially, very influenced by the early 20th century illustrator J. Allen
St. John.
Second: several of the essays in this book mention that
Krenkel had no phone, was hard to reach, was very reluctant to part with
his paintings, and had to be coaxed into accepting commissions at all.
If that all doesn't add up to "unprofessional" for a cover illustrator,
I don't know what does. There's a lot of good art in this book -- Krenkel's
line work is particularly interesting -- but it's not organized in any
way, and there's no way to trace his work over time. The various essays
included are also very scattershot, and don't really explain Krenkel or
his art well. I'm afraid that this book was created for people who already
know everything about Krenkel, and just want a nice book collecting his
best stuff. I hope all of them have already bought it; the rest of us would
have liked a book that actually presented Krenkel and said something about
why we should care about him. More>>>
The Sky People
The
Old Coot Blogspot ~ November 2006
I was about ten years old when my sister brought home
two utterly fascinating books. Thuvia, Maid of Mars featured wild adventures
and weird beasts on the dried-out sea bottoms of Mars, which was called
Barsoom by the natives. . . . I'd never read anything like these books
before, and I was hooked immediately. They were written by someone named
Edgar Rice Burroughs, and I started looking for everything I could find
by him. . . . There were other books, too, by other authors. There were
Tarzan clones, of course, some more, some less, close to the original:
Bomba, Jongor, Kioga. And there were other planetary romances, set on an
old, dry Mars and a young, wet Venus, like Barsoom and Amtor. More>>>
|
LOS
ANGELES -- Warner Bros. studio is teaming up with U.S. producer Jerry Weintraub
to bring Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan back to the big screen. Director
Guillermo del Toro is currently in negotiations for the new Tarzan flick,
the Daily Variety reported Friday. Del Toro (Pan's Labyrinth, Hellboy)
grew up reading Spanish-language translations of Burroughs' books and feels
that the classic themes are still compelling, the trade paper reported.
Del Toro believes that there is new ground to cover in the Tarzan mythology
by turning back to the original Burroughs prose.
Also,
the writer of "Master and Commander: Far Side of the World" and "Happy
Feet," John Collee, is negotiating to write the screenplay. Weintraub's
Jerry Weintraub Productions banner will produce the film, Variety said.
Tarzan has already starred in a number of live action and animated films,
as well as radio and TV shows. Del Toro said he feels classic themes are
still compelling, and that there is new ground to cover in the Tarzan mythology.
"I'd love to create a new version that is still a family movie, but as
edgy as I can make it," Del Toro said. "There are strong themes of survival
of a defenseless child left behind in the most hostile environment." However,
del Toro won't be able to get to work on his new Tarzan until after he's
done making Hellboy: The Golden Army for Columbia Pictures. Filming on
the sequel, which deals with the fairy world launching an invasion on the
world of man, is scheduled to get underway next year for a 2008 release
date.