![]() FRANK FRAZETTA BARSOOM SERIESThe Burroughs series still has fans but for mainstream audiences they hardly know the name Tarzan, let alone John Carter of Mars. FRANK FRAZETTA BARSOOM MOVIEThe average movie goer is going to see all the science fiction that has arrived on-screen in the last 40 years. Burroughs and those serials influenced George Lucas to create Star Wars and even later James Cameron’s monster hit, Avatar. FRANK FRAZETTA BARSOOM SERIALThis book series directly influenced almost every science fiction endeavor after it like in the 1920s and 1930s, serial heroes like Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers. The Barsoom series was the first real on-going science-fiction book series. Now if you take into consideration, John Carter’s first adventure on Mars was written 65-years before Star Wars then you can see just how far Barsoom has influenced popular culture.īefore Burroughs, you had Jules Verne’s From the Earth to the Moon, HG Wells The Time Machine, RLS’s Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Mark Twain’s Connecticut Yankee. I was first transported to Barsoom by the incredible artwork of book covers, Frank Frazetta’s paintings, glossy hardcover books and eventually the work of legendary comic artists Gil Kane and Carmine Infantino on Marvel Comics “John Carter Warlord of Mars.” When I lived overseas I couldn’t always get my hands on superhero comics so I turned to kung fu magazines and pulp novels instead. How many authors do you know that turn literature upside/down not once but twice in one year? What is even more incredible about Burroughs is he published his novel A Princess of Mars and Tarzan of the Apes both in the same year. This story of man meeting aliens and fighting for freedom on some distant star was written in 1912. This long sweeping saga follows Carter on many adventures as he rights the wrongs of the planet Barsoom and truly becomes a Warlord of Mars.īurroughs Martian Saga was vastly ahead of its time. In the story, John Carter fights for freedom with his ten foot stoic alien named Tars Tarkas and the beautiful princess Dejah Thoris to which the whole first novel in the John Carter saga is dedicated to. That world we all know as Mars was given a new more mystical name by Burroughs, that of Barsoom. Tarzan was Burroughs staple novel but the second most important character in his cannon of characters and adventures was that of Captain John Carter, a swordsman and militia cavalryman who had given up hope on his life until he is accidentally transported to another world and realizes that life is worth fighting for. I was always captivated by Burroughs rich storytelling and when you take into consideration how long ago they were written they took incredible risks.īurroughs in some circumstances was another Jules Verne struggling to bring fantasy and science fiction to a wider audience. His ‘Tarzan of the Apes’ has left a mark on me I haven’t been able to shake since I heard Ron Ely make that infamous jungle call in landmark 1960s and 1970s TV series. Frank Frazetta's landmark painting left an impression on my life.Įdgar Rice Burroughs is probably one of my favorite authors of all time. ![]()
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