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Post by deuce on Mar 4, 2017 19:06:47 GMT -5
Barsoomian panthans by Mike Hoffman:
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Post by deuce on Mar 6, 2017 11:14:32 GMT -5
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Post by ChrisLAdams on Mar 6, 2017 11:31:43 GMT -5
Those apes looked cool 'n all - still... a part of me wishes they'd used Whelan's apes for inspiration.
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Post by deuce on Mar 10, 2017 0:00:37 GMT -5
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Post by johnnypt on Mar 10, 2017 8:31:13 GMT -5
Happy 5th anniversary! The book is extremely inside baseball, but you're not reading it if you don't want to know what happened. It is astonishing to look at all that happened and not come to the conclusion that somebody seriously wanted this film to tank. A Disney film with absolutely no toys in the toy stores before opening day? However, I think the short version is not even a battle between rival studio heads, but simply Disney just bought Lucasfilm and didn't need another space based franchise, a decision that as of today is certain reasonable considering it's basically been paid back after just two films. You'd wish that with all the Star Wars, Marvel and Pixar money washing about that there would have been room for a trio of John Carter films, but that's not the way business works. Warner Brothers can't really greenlight a Tarzan sequel to a film that made over $350 million worldwide because its budget was almost $200 million, so you can't blame Disney for not sinking another third to half a billion dollars into a franchise that likely won't make it back. Better to pump out the cash cows (which have generally been high quality films).
I said back then that if the film ends up occupying a place in popular culture just below Flash Gordon, it'd be in good shape. It's not there and may never get there, but it gets played enough on TV for me to believe it gets enough of a positive reaction for those channels to keep putting it on the schedule. Compare how it gets scheduled on TV to the 2011 Conan film, where and when it runs and how often, and you'll see the difference. Just watched it again the other day and if we never get another John Carter film, this'll do just fine.
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Post by deuce on Mar 12, 2017 14:11:11 GMT -5
A while back I mentioned Brian Wood's John Carter: The End. The other day I read through the second issue at my local comic shop.
Hoo-boy.
The art is --- brace yourselves! --- the same kind of scratchy, sketchy indie art style which makes every character look sickly that we complained about on his Conan run. And it doesn't feel like anything ERB ever wrote. The language is far too contemporary. "Warzone", "bioweapon". I wouldn't be surprised if someone used a smart phone or called in a drone strike. It was the second issue, so I couldn't figure out why a very aged John Carter and Dejah Thoris (is Wood unaware that Barsoomians usually live a thousand years or that Carter is immortal?) are living on Saturn's moon Titan. Nor do I care.
Is it too much to ask that Wood have some basic familiarity with the franchise he's writing for?
Wood is a master at alienating fanbases, apparently. I really wish he'd just stick with his personal franchises -- which I don't read and have no desire to. [* Note: I read a little bit of his "Vikings" series -- I thought it was crap. Don't try to sell me on it.] Anyway, this is obviously not his first rodeo. Despite what you may've been told at the time, Wood always intended to take Conan totally down the emo road. He also hand-picked those crappy artists just to piss off old-school Conan fans. Forget the Conan you thought you knew. Time for us to get woke! I have this from a reliable source. Wood is only comfortable writing postmodernist crap and "deconstructing" old icons to leave more room for his own pallid, intersectionalist creations. He's incapable of seeing that people from other times/places might actually think differently from his 21st century view and be "immune to his consultations". There is more in heaven and earth, Horatio... Apparently, Wood is driven to "challenge" us to "re-envision" our beloved heroes and "reimagine" things in a whole new boring/repellent way. I used to think Arvid Nelson was bad, but Arvid's's more of a confused dilettante than a true saboteur like Wood. At least this thing is so totally out of the real continuity that only morons would take it seriously.
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Post by deuce on Mar 23, 2017 19:18:04 GMT -5
I like this one from Mark Schultz...
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Post by deuce on Mar 30, 2017 15:44:03 GMT -5
A look at how close ERB's description of the "moons of mars" in A Princess of Mars agrees with what we think we know now: mathscinotes.com/2013/05/how-big-is-phobos-when-seen-from-the-surface-of-mars/Also, a good one from NASA: www.nasa.gov/exploration/whyweexplore/Why_We_27.htmlReading the NASA article, one realises that much was still unknown about the moons when Burroughs wrote APoM. The mere existence of Deimos and Phobos had only been revealed just 35yrs before. It would be somewhat analogous to compare that to what we knew about Pluto in 1965 -- which wasn't all that much. I've seen "Hard" SF guys try to slam ERB over this and I point out that he was within plausible parameters in what he described. There was still a lot of wiggle room and uncertainty in 1912. Art by John Coleman Burroughs
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Post by deuce on Apr 19, 2017 8:24:04 GMT -5
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Post by deuce on Apr 25, 2017 13:13:48 GMT -5
Frank Cho...
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Post by deuce on May 25, 2017 12:58:51 GMT -5
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Post by Von K on May 27, 2017 10:23:26 GMT -5
Some awesome pics there Deuce, thanks.
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Post by deuce on Jun 8, 2017 13:09:51 GMT -5
Amazing Stories Annual, July 1927 This thick 128-page annual contains one new story, The Master Mind of Mars, by Burroughs, and a sampling of stories that had appeared in earlier issues of the monthly Amazing Stories. The 100,000 copy print-run sold out so Gernsback followed it with Amazing Stories Quarterly, beginning with the Winter 1928 issue.
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Post by deuce on Jun 9, 2017 22:44:55 GMT -5
In honor of Mars Day 2017, a rare Bernie Wrightson illo...
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Post by deuce on Jun 10, 2017 14:06:58 GMT -5
As was revealed in the ERBian scriptures, today is the 50th anniversary of Mars Day... I met him in the Blue Room of the Transoceanic Liner Harding the night of Mars Day—June 10, 1967. I had been wandering about the city for several hours prior to the sailing of the flier watching the celebration, dropping in at various places that I might see as much as possible of scenes that doubtless will never again be paralleled—a world gone mad with joy. There was only one vacant chair in the Blue Room and that at a small table at which he was already seated alone. (...)
--- Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Moon MaidKAOR!
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