Fantastic swordsmen hate cephalopods

By Jack Gaughan [The Golden Age]

Tarzan 101 | Tarzan the Magnificent

Celebrating Tarzan's 101st anniversary by walking through Scott Tracy Griffin's Tarzan: The Centennial Celebration.

Like some of the other Tarzan novels, Tarzan the Magnificent (no relation to the film of the same name) was actually two different novellas. In this case, they'd even been published in two different magazines. Argosy published "Tarzan and the Magic Men" in 1936, about a couple of Amazon tribes led by powerful sorcerers who control their subjects with huge, supernatural jewels. Griffin speculates that Burroughs got the idea from the novel Trader Horn, which features a woman who uses a large ruby to control an African tribe.

In 1937, Burroughs' sequel to this story appeared in Blue Book, titled "Tarzan and the Elephant Men." It has Tarzan following one of the jewels back to Cathne and Athne, the cities from Tarzan and the City of Gold.

In Magnificent, Burroughs describes Tarzan's eyes as being able to "reflect the light of a summer sea or the flashing steel of a rapier." Griffin takes advantage of this to offer a supplemental chapter on "Eyes of Gray," a character trait that Burroughs gave all of his leading men and a lot of supporting characters as well. Tarzan had gray eyes, as did his father and son. So did La of Opar, John Carter of Mars, David Innes of Pellucidar, and Carson Napier of Venus. Griffin lists a total of 25 Burroughs characters with gray eyes, noting that Burroughs "rarely described any other color." In fact, Carson's started out blue in Pirates of Venus before Burroughs changed them to gray in the third novel.

Tarzan 101 | Tarzan and the Forbidden City

Celebrating Tarzan's 101st anniversary by walking through Scott Tracy Griffin's Tarzan: The Centennial Celebration.

I don't know if it's totally fair to say that Burroughs was out of ideas in 1937, but it certainly seems that way. The plot that became the unremarkably titled Tarzan and the Forbidden City was neither particularly original nor even Burroughs' to begin with. It began life as the script to a radio serial called "Tarzan and the Diamond of Asher," written by Rob Thompson and reworked into prose by Burroughs. It features standard Tarzan tropes: a lost treasure, greedy outsiders looking for it, a plea for Tarzan to help those outsiders, yet another Tarzan lookalike, and a hidden civilization with a couple of generic, feuding kingdoms, arena battles, and human sacrifices. At least they also manage to throw in Paul D'Arnot, a dinosaur, a sea serpent, and a shark.

When Argosy serialized the story, they had a couple of editors rewrite it, adding a prologue about a red star as a plug for Argosy's distributor, the Red Star News Company, and renamed it "The Red Star of Tarzan." Burroughs restored his version for the book collection, Tarzan and the Forbidden City.

One remarkable thing about Forbidden City is that it's the first Burroughs novel to be published in American, mass-market paperback format. Griffin talks about that in his supplemental chapter, "The Paperback Revolution," which covers the decline of pulp magazines and the rise of cheap paperbacks. Burroughs was against the cheaper editions at first, fearing that it would cut into profits on his reprint volumes, but eventually came around and licensed Forbidden City (retitled Tarzan in the the Forbidden City) as an abridged version available in bus station and airport vending machines.

Review All Monsters | Pop Culture Hound and Comics Bulletin

There were a couple of reviews last week that I want to point out, but first let me thank Joseph Mallozzi and my pal Jay Mac, who gave shout outs to the Kickstarter from their blogs as we wrapped up.

Chris Thompson and Taylor Lilley of the Pop Culture Hound podcast talked about the book and made me cheer, especially when Taylor said that he's not a kaiju fan, but was won over by the story anyway. Both gentlemen talk about the cast's diversity and how they felt like that worked organically as part of the story without our calling extra attention to it, which was exactly how we hoped it would be. The Kill All Monsters discussion begins around the 25:00 mark, but be sure to stay tuned for Chris' fantastic interview with Gabriel Hardman about his new comic, Kinski at Monkeybrain. It's a wonderful podcast and I'll be tuning in for future episodes.

Nick Hanover at Comics Bulletin wrote a great review too. He says that starting the story in the middle of a long fight is "a bold move, sure, but May's got fight scripting down pat and with a partner like Copland, he knows he can trust the action." He also notices that "May wants you to feel for the humans who have to deal with these creatures, since this is a story not about a first attack, but about a world after monster defeat."

Thanks to Chris, Taylor, and Nick for reading and sharing thoughts on the book!

SpringCon killed all the monsters

SpringCon was great. For those who aren't familiar with it, it's the larger of the two Minnesota conventions put on by the wonderful folks of the Midwest Comic Book Association. FallCon is a one-day show in October, but SpringCon runs Saturday and Sunday, usually in May. The Minneapolis/Saint Paul area has a great comics scene and the MCBA goes out of its way to treat creators like royalty, so there's always a lot of participation. Both conventions are fantastic, family-friendly shows and highlights of my year.

My wife's out of town for a friend's college graduation, so David and I hung out together all weekend. David made the second issue of Hulkasaurus, his series of mini-comics about his own giant monster, and I had several copies of Kill All Monsters left over from C2E2. KAM did very well and I sold out early on Sunday. A surprise hit for me was Hunt the Winterlands, a fantasy anthology of prose stories that I contributed to a year or so ago. I've had it at a few shows since then and sold some copies, but it sold like hotcakes this time.

David sold most of his copies of Hulkasaurus #2. A couple of other friends of mine were also exhibiting with their kids who also did very well all weekend. It's great to see children getting into making art and comics so early, and even greater to see the local community support them so much.

David had an iguana puppet at his table, which is the model for a giant monster in Hulkasaurus, so he had a great time using it to attract people to the table. Or just playing with friends:



As usual, we sat near Grant Gould who's always amazing with kids. He and David did an art trade, with Grant's drawing one of David's favorite characters and David's drawing something Grant had mentioned earlier: a dinosaur/scorpion hybrid.



Otis Frampton was on the other side of our table nearest me and I had a great time getting to know him a little better. He's a super-talented artist and was also really welcoming of David. My good friends Jessica Hickman and Darla Ecklund were nearby as well and David and I shared a couple of meals with them.

I also enjoyed finally getting to meet Ron Marz, who was visiting an MCBA show for the first time, and Trevor Von Eeden, who is - no lie - the sweetest person in comics. I had the privilege of being in the audience at San Diego Comic-Con last year when he received the Inkpot Award. Getting to hear him accept it and talk about his career was a highlight not only of that panel, but of the entire convention for me. Getting to tell him so yesterday was a highlight of this weekend. Comics people are the best people.

In addition to talking to people - and I know I'm leaving out so many of you; I'm sorry - I bought a bunch of comics of course and a couple of pieces of art, including this Godzilla silhouette by Jennifer Menken.



One final memory of the show was how humid it was. We had unseasonably hot weather at FallCon a few years ago and it was appropriately dubbed SweatCon. This year, I thought that MoistCon would be appropriate until the torrential rains started coming down on Sunday and it turned into something more like HurriCon.



Not that that "dampened" anyone's fun. It was a great time and thanks again to the MCBA for hosting!

Rebecca and Molly Cunningham hate cephalopods

Happy Oz Day!

Today was L. Frank Baum's birthday in 1856. My son is celebrating in the best possible way.

Tarzan 101 | Tarzan's Quest

Celebrating Tarzan's 101st anniversary by walking through Scott Tracy Griffin's Tarzan: The Centennial Celebration.

Edgar Rice Burroughs was fast approaching the age of 60 when he started writing the story that would become known as Tarzan's Quest. In a supplemental chapter called "Tarzan Immortal," Griffin notices that immortality and a fear of old age were becoming recurring themes in the novels Burroughs wrote in his 50s. From The Master Mind of Mars to Lost on Venus, characters looked for ways to beat aging and death, with one heroine thinking, "How ghastly! Oh, I should rather die than be like that. Old age! Oh, how terrible!"

While Burroughs wrote Tarzan's Quest, he divorced his wife (they'd been married for 34 years and had been childhood sweethearts before that) and announced his engagement to a 30-year-old woman a couple of weeks later. He was late to his mid-life crisis, but he made the most of it.

That's all important, because the themes of youth and immortality are major ones in Tarzan's Quest. Originally titled "Tarzan and Jane," the book is actually two stories that merge at the end. Tarzan and the Waziri tribe are investigating a series of disappearances of young women, while Jane is traveling with some friends in a plane that crashes. Jane's friends are looking into rumors of an eternal youth forumla that's supposed to be held by a lost tribe deep in the jungle, but they aren't all on the same page about it. Though Jane proves herself a capable guide through the jungle, the party fights among itself and there's eventually a murder.

When the story was serialized by Blue Book starting in 1935, it was called "Tarzan and the Immortal Men," but Burroughs' secretary suggested Tarzan's Quest for the hardback collection and he took her advice.

It's never been directly adapted for film, but two movies have borrowed elements from it. Tarzan's Magic Fountain features outsiders who come to Africa looking for a youth-elixer, while Tarzan and the Lost Safari features a diverse group of travelers who crash in the jungle and have to be led out (though by Tarzan, of course; not Jane).

Tarzan's Quest wouldn't be the last time that the ape man was exposed to an eternal youth formula. Just to be sure, Burroughs gave Tarzan a second dose a few books later in Tarzan and the Foreign Legion.