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Tarzan 101 | Tarzan of the Apes

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

If the entry for Tarzan of the Apes is typical, Griffin covers each novel in a way that's just about perfect. He starts with a synopsis of the plot, talks about the creation of the novel, and runs a checklist of adaptations (comics and movies, for example) of the work. Finally, he'll include a separate chapter or two about a topic suggested by the story.

The synopses are complete without spoiling the ends of the novels, but they do spoil some big events along the way. Something to be aware of if you haven't read them before. I won't talk about the plot of Tarzan of the Apes in this post simply because it's so familiar to me that I don't know what else to say about it, but I'll try to avoid any big revelations about plot as we continue on in this series. If I break that rule, I'll be sure to offer a spoiler warning.

In his notes on the creation of Tarzan of the Apes, Griffin offers some cool facts I'd never heard before, like how Burroughs considered Zantar and Tublat Zan as possible names for his main character. Or how Tarzan's English name was Bloomstoke for several pages before Burroughs decided to change it. There's also a bit about Sabor the lioness, who was a tiger in the original manuscript because Burroughs didn't realize that striped tigers don't live in Africa. (Griffin also explains how European explorers of Africa contributed to Burroughs misunderstanding and points out how Burroughs poked fun at himself for the error in later novels.)

There are of course lots of cover images, from various editions of the book to DC and Gold Key covers of adaptations.

Griffin includes two additional chapters related to Tarzan of the Apes: one on Burroughs' potential inspiration for the character and another on how to pronounce Tarzan's name. Burroughs was apparently very relaxed about how people said it, but would admit to how his family did it and - when pressed - finally settled on an official pronunciation: accent on the first syllable with the first a as in arm and the second a as in ask. He really, really didn't care how you did it though, especially if you were Maureen O'Sullivan and the studio's checks cleared.

Kill All Monsters motionless comic preview

While Jason's getting books and prints ready for Emerald City, I'm still working on the Kickstarter. Here's a very rough test to see how we might show off the comic for the campaign. It's sort of like a "motion" comic, only without any motion. We'll try to Ken Burns it up for the actual Kickstarter video (which will also have voiceover and footage of me talking about the graphic novel).

Like I said, this is very rough, but it's also kind of fun and - if you haven't had a chance to check out Kill All Monsters yet, either in the webcomic version or via Artist Alley Comics - a good taste of what the comic is like.

Kill All Monsters at Emerald City Comicon

Check out this rough of the next Kill All Monsters print that Jason's working on. It'll be one of a few that he'll have for Emerald City Comicon at table P-17. He's also going to be on the Graphic Novels and Motion Comics panel Saturday night, so if you're going to be at the show be sure to check that out.

Most exciting of all though is that he'll have print copies of Kill All Monsters, Volume 1: Ruins of Paris! It'll be a limited edition, print-on-demand run - not the official version coming out from Alterna - but it'll be there and people can buy it. And I'll be totally jealous if you do. I still have to wait a couple of months 'til I get mine.

Thessaly doesn't have strong feelings one way or the other about cephalopods

By Vera Brosgol.

Tarzan 101 | An Introduction

Last year was the 100th anniversary of the publication of the first Tarzan story and, frankly, I was disappointed by the lack of celebration overall. Especially by me, but I'll be happy to point my finger elsewhere as a distraction. Couldn't we at least have gotten a new Tarzan movie?

I'm mostly kidding. There was the Lord of the Louisiana Jungle documentary as well as a new series of novels to re-introduce the character to modern, young readers, so it's not like everyone was ignoring the event. But I wanted more and should have done more. Tarzan didn't get the celebration he deserves.

That is, until Scott Tracy Griffin's Tarzan: The Centennial Celebration came out. It's a massive, coffee table sized book that covers the entire history of the character, from his creation by Edgar Rice Burroughs to modern Internet fandom, with all the books, movies, and TV shows in between. And when I say it's coffee table sized, I mean that it's the size of a friggin coffee table. This thing is seriously huge. I'll try to show the perspective better in future posts.

Because, oh yes, there will be future posts.

The only negative thing I can think of to say about the book is that it was released in time for Christmas. That's understandable, but I would have loved to have had it earlier to enjoy all year long. Also, I got it about the time I was waist-deep in Scrooge and couldn't do it justice right then. I really, really wanted to, but I was swamped. So I started thinking about other ways to talk about the book.

Finally, it hit me that 2013 is the 101st anniversary of the first Tarzan story (in the October 1912 issue of The All-Story magazine, as Griffin's book taught me). What better year to do a series of Tarzan 101 posts about the history of the character? Each week for the rest of the year (Best Laid Plans caveats apply), I'm going to try to talk briefly about what I learned from Griffin that week. I won't spoil large sections of his book, but it'll be a way to give Tarzan the year-long celebration I wanted for him, even if it's after his centennial.

The Centennial Celebration starts with a couple of chapters on Burroughs himself: his early life and his writing career before Tarzan. There's not much to his pre-Tarzan career, just A Princess of Mars and an unpublished, medieval adventure. I love this quote that Burroughs gave an interviewer in 1929 about why he started writing. He was flipping through a pulp magazine to check the placement of some ads for the company he was unhappily running at the time and decided, "If people were paid for writing such rot as I read, I could write stories just as rotten."

Turns out, no, he couldn't.

Edward and Bela

I don't understand why everyone gives them such a hard time. Their movies may suck, but they're a great couple.

The Forbidden Island

This is exactly what I look like when I'm writing.

I hate when other people write posts like this, so I apologize, but I spent a heck of a lot of time writing actual fiction last week and want to stop and celebrate for a minute. I turned in a short story for a prose anthology that I'm looking forward to talking about more later if the editor doesn't hate it. Hopefully he won't because it's about a missing woman, a forbidden island, a sinister industrialist, and a heroic pilot. And I had a blast writing it.

We'll call it "The Forbidden Island" for now, because that's how original I am with titles. If it actually makes it to publication, I'll reveal more.

Mystery, Inc. hates cephalopods

From Scooby Doo, Where Are You? # 27.