The Back Flap

After having tried to write my thoughts about the JOHN CARTER movie, I’ve about given up. There is so much already out there on the web in the way of comment, most over the top both good and bad, and a lot less with anything really perceptive to say. Michael Sellers’ site, thejohncarterfiles.com, is probably the best place overall for a balanced view. His recent three-part series, soon to be an e-book, goes in-depth on the missteps and unfortunate decisions that were made concerning the marketing of the movie and why it was, in all likelihood, allowed to sink on its own by Disney’s promotions department.

Michael knows Hollywood, being an independent filmmaker himself, and he also has a strong love for the Burroughs canon. He manages to maintain enthusiasm for the movie while disagreeing about some of the structural components and creative decisions that drove it to its final form. I’d recommend that anyone so interested hie themselves over to http://thejohncarterfiles.com/2012/04/analysis-john-carter-the-flop-that-wasnt-a-turkey-how-did-it-happen-part-1/ and read Parts 1 & 2 of his article. Part 3 is there too, but it has been truncated by the fact that Michael decided to publish the e-book.

Sellers deals with the corporate take on the project quite well, and he’s very tolerant of Stanton’s creative impetus, saying, in answer to a number of comments, that some of the decisions were not the ones he would have made, but he respects Stanton’s right to make them. Many others are not so forgiving about the whole thing. I know that many, many fans saw the film, loved it, enjoyed it and want more of it. Then there are a wide range of fans who were disappointed, some virulently so, not just about changes to the story, but the misplaced emphasis on certain elements and the almost total disregard of others. Part of this anger comes, I think, from the realization that a movie like this, intended to be the flagship of a franchise, that does badly at the box office and is denigrated critically, has very little chance, if any, of ever seeing the big screen again. It’s frustrating to wait 40 years for film technology to develop to the point where it is possible to depict a living, breathing Barsoom, and then have it miss the mark.

Of course, supporters of the film will say that it didn’t miss the mark at all, and the disappointed will say that maybe half a loaf is better than nothing. And the vicious, who love to splatter their opinion everywhere they go will continue to clothe their, very often completely accurate, points in a language that will only infuriate and alienate their readers so much that all that can come out of any discussion is a rabid polarization of the “no, it doesn’t, yes, it does” third-grader argument variety. It would be nice if we could get beyond that someday, but the Popular Culture sites are still very juvenile, dominated by people who are much too enamored of their own cleverness or their own forcefulness. It happens on both sides and little but steam and vapor is generated by it.

In any case, all the criticism is out there: the medallion business is a senseless MacGuffin; Carter’s backstory and personality were shoehorned into the plot; a planet-crawling Zodanga was unnecessary and badly realized; super villain Therns cause more plot problems than they solve; the romance was stunted; and the search for the Gate of Issus was a showstopper, wasting time that could have been used on more dramatic and character-driven elements. That’s just some of them.

On the other hand: the production values were first-rate; the CGI of the Tharks was wonderful; the fliers were beautiful; the costuming was good…

The movie’s supporters say, “sit back and enjoy it! It’s a fun sci-fi romp!”

Its detractors say, “If only…!”

I don’t know if anyone out there remembers Richard Fariña, but the last couple of weeks had me thinking of his 1960s novel, “Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me.” Trouble on the server and some mishigas with files and what-not, had me wondering if I’d ever be able to post anything again. Everything is back up now and I’m feeling a lot better thank you.

There’s been a lot of back-and-forth in the ERB fan community about the promotion and reception of the Andrew Stanton “John Carter” movie. I want to put in my own two cents about it, but frankly, I’m still chewing it over. It was not the film I’d hoped for. I will be very surprised if it attains true “film classic” status. It will very likely remain one of those “cult” films that could-be-good, could-be-bad …

I think the writers could have done a much better job of interpreting the book, and to confirm my feelings I went back to re-read “A Princess of Mars” for probably the fifth or sixth time (not counting all the times I’ve looked up some detail of one kind or another in it). I looked at it with a much more mature eye this time, and although I still enjoyed it and appreciate it for its place in the canon of SF and Fantasy, I got a little better handle on the shortcomings, as well as the virtues, of Ed’s first novel. That is the key, after all. It was his FIRST novel. He was feeling his way along and spinning a tale that he thought was just as crazy, if not MORE crazy than all the other pulp tales of 1910 and 1911.

I’ve got more to say on this but for now I’m just glad that I’m back in business.

The All-Story headpiece for ERB's first story. Art by Fred W. Small.

IN CASE you missed it, February 2012 marks the 100th anniversary of that most famous swordsman of two worlds, Captain John Carter of Virginia.

In the February, 1912 issue of “The All-Story” magazine, volume 22, number 2, on page 193 (the pages being numbered in sequence by quarterly volume), appeared an introduction (an “editor’s note”) to a story that would have a far-reaching effect on fantasy adventure for the next 100 years:

“Relative to Captain Carter’s strange story a few words, concerning this remarkable personality, are not out of place.

At the time of his demise, John Carter was a man of uncertain age and vast experience, honorable and abounding with true fellowship. He stood a good two inches over six feet, was broad of shoulder and narrow of hip, with the carriage of the trained fighting man. His features were regular and clear-cut, his eyes steel gray, reflecting a strong and loyal character. He was a Southerner of the highest type. He had enlisted at the outbreak of the War, fought through the four years, and had been honorably discharged. Then for more than a decade he was gone from the sight of his fellows. When he returned he had changed, there was a kind of wistful longing and hopeless misery in his eyes, and he would sit for hours at night, staring up into the starlit heavens.

His death occurred upon a winter’s night. He was discovered by the watchman of his little place on the Hudson, full length in the snow, his arms outstretched above his head toward the edge of the bluff. Death had come to him upon the spot where curious villagers had so often, on other nights, seen him standing rigid — his arms raised in supplication to the skies.”

“Under the Moons of Mars,” subtitled, on the contents page, as “the romance of a soul astray,” was serialized in the next five issues, through July, 1912 and led directly to the All-Story publication of “Tarzan of the Apes” in October of the same year. It would not be seen in book form as “A Princess of Mars,” until October 1917, five years later. Though it was published under a pseudonym since Burroughs didn’t want to be thought a complete nut-case, after the enthusiastic reception the story garnered he was only too eager to publish “Tarzan” under his own name.

The “Mars series” of 10 novels and one novella has inspired artists and writers from Otis Adelbert Kline and Robert E. Howard through Leigh Brackett, Ray Bradbury and S. M. Stirling. It gave birth to Flash Gordon, Star Wars and Avatar to name but a few. There had been other “visits to Mars” stories written previous, but none of them combined romance with adventure in such vivid and non-stop action. Criticized by some readers, those who seem to have a hard time with early 20th century writing, as “Victorian” or “old-fashioned,” the John Carter “Princess” trilogy still holds up and the three books bowl right along into an intense climax in the final pages of “The Warlord of Mars.”

Various attempts to film some kind of Burroughsian Mars adventure have been made since as far back as Bob Clampett and John Coleman Burroughs’ pitch of an animated feature in 1936. From the 1970s through  but the upcoming release of Andrew Stanton’s “John Carter” in March, 2012 marks the first time this 100-year old story will be seen living and breathing on the screen. Burroughs and Barsoom fans await the movie with both excitement and trepidation.

Early reports from those who have seen advanced screenings are encouraging and suggest that, though he might not have read the magazine version, Stanton and his collaborators, Mark Andrews and genre fiction enthusiast Michael Chabon, have managed to invest the film with, not only action and spectacle, but a bit of the “romance of a soul astray” in a way that modern audiences can relate to.

There will be elements of the film for us old-timers to complain about, of course. I still can’t seem to let go my disappointment of Stanton’s choosing to make the thoats, war-horses of both green and red men, look more like water buffalo instead of the dragon-like steeds that Burroughs describes. And if John Carter can find time in the movie to shave his prospector’s beard, why can’t he cut his hair as well? In the books Carter always describes himself with “close-cropped” hair. With fifty years of Burroughs-related art, scholarship and discussion about every detail of the books, you’d think that Stanton and his designers would at least check the record before going off on a tangent.

Be that as it may, the bones of the story will still come through, I’m sure. Carter will teach the Tharks about friendship and help to open peace talks through the strength of his love for the incomparable Dejah Thoris. There will still be swordplay, battles, fliers of all sizes, evil villains and a love that spans two worlds.

Perhaps this spring and summer will evoke some of the excitement that the six parts of “Under the Moons of Mars” created for the adventure seeking souls who picked up “The All-Story” at a newsstand 100 years ago and were so captivated that they imitated it for years to come.

For some of us old timers, it’s hard to believe that it has been almost 50 years since the “Burroughs Boom” of the ’60s. In 1962 both Don Wollheim at ACE Books, and Jack Biblo & Jack Tannen’s Canaveral Books began reprinting ERB titles that they believed to be in public domain. For the first time in their lives young Baby Boomers were able to readily find Burroughs’ Mars, Pellucidar and Venus tales, along with a few of the non-series titles, on the news stand and new bookstores rather than in antiquarian bookshops and the musty basements and attics of their grandparents.

In November, 1963, after a year of reprints, Canaveral began to publish true first editions of stories that had either only been available in magazine form or had been found in the archives at Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. after Ed had died. Their premier hardback first edition was the complete set of chapters that made up the final novel of ERB’s inner world, Savage Pellucidar. The first three parts had appeared in 1942 in Amazing Stories, but the last was not published until 1963. This hardback edition was the first time all four parts of the novel were printed together.

Through some mixup at Ziff-Davis, or in Ray Palmer’s office, the painting by J. Allen St, John intended to illustrate the third part, “Tiger Girl,” in Amazing Stories of April, 1942, was used as a cover on the March, 1942 issue of the sister magazine Fantastic Adventures, which contained another Burroughs tale, “War on Venus.” Thus the artwork publication preceded the story.

When Canaveral published the hardback edition they illustrated it with all the line drawings that St. John had done for the magazine publications but missed the chance to reunite the misplaced cover artwork with the final novel. This lapse was pointed out in Caz Cazedessus’ fanzine ERB-dom #14 (October, 1965) and he printed a recreation (artist uncredited) of the St. John cover, in black and white, with title lettering based on that used on the ERB, Inc. edition of Back to the Stone Age, to be used as an alternate dust jacket. Finally published in color on the back of ERB-dom #26 (June 1969) with art by G. M. Farley and a change to the author name lettering, that mockup was designed as a partial wraparound to be inserted in front of the Canaveral dj. The spine included the “doodad” symbol that was used on all the ERB, Inc. editions.

In 1999 while at the Burroughs Bibliophiles “Dum-Dum” in Tarzana, California, showing my first dust jacket replicas, I was asked by Pete Ogden, editor and publisher of the fanzine ERBANIA, to create a new alternate jacket from a fresh scan of the Fantastic Adventures cover. As a new element, I was also to use the front flap blurb text that Ed himself had written and which had been found in his papers after his death. I decided not to use the Burroughs’ symbol on the spine because I felt that it was really intended for those editions published by Burroughs himself. I did, however use a St. John illustration from the magazine publication to match the ERB, Inc. layouts. I reset all the type in the original fonts used by Canaveral and replicated the rest of the layout exactly. The only change I made was to do a colorized version of the photo of ERB on the back cover. The Savage Pellucidar alternate is really the most complete and accurate dust jacket for the book.

After I’d finished it, I took a copy to Danton Burroughs at ERB, Inc. to get his permission to sell it. He was very excited about it and noted with satisfaction that I had included the proper copyright notice for the blurb text. Later I sent a copy to Dick Lupoff who had been the editor at Canaveral in the 60s. He too was pleased and told me, “I wish we’d been able to turn out a jacket like this back in Canaveral Press days.”

Biblo and Tannen didn’t have the resources to publish their books with full color dust jackets. They were excited about their venture and they did the best they could with what they had. We still have to thank them for bringing greater attention to the art of Roy Krenkel and Frank Frazetta and for making these first editions finally available to Burroughs fans everywhere.

In a few e-mail exchanges with Edgar Rice Burroughs scholar Robert R. Barrett, a couple of speculations about the art for Tarzan at the Earth’s Core have arisen. One is about the status of the original painting, the fact being that none of the original art for any of the Metropolitan Books has ever shown up on the collector’s market. This seems to confirm that these pieces are “lost” in that they do not exist in the artist’s or author’s estates or in acknowledged collections. J. Allen St. John sold all of his Burroughs-related art in the 1950s and this painting was not seen at that time. The piece may have been given away to a Metropolitan employee, or it might have “disappeared” after the color separations were made.

The other speculation is that, unlike most of the paintings St. John did for the A.C. McClurg & Co. editions, the lettering for this painting was probably done separately, “on paper” and added during the printing process. This idea is based on the fact that the artist only charged $250 (!) for the whole package which was less than the $300 he usually charged McClurg for a frontispiece and wraparound jacket job on which he did the titling directly on the painting. It was easier for him to do the lettering separately, money was scarce after the 1929 Crash, and he probably had to negotiate with Metropolitan since they were used to using their own in-house artists.

It may be that this painting still exists in the attic of some private home somewhere. We can only dream. . .

Here are three photos showing the progression of restoration from the first scan through the “forensic” stage. All rebuilding is based on what is revealed as the art is digitally adjusted.

The first detail is from the scan of the actual dust jacket, showing the halftone rosettes that have to be smoothed out through the descreening process. Brushstrokes are visible through the screen.

This second detail shows the same section after some descreening and level adjustments to bring up the contrast and color.

The last detail shows the sharpened restoration of brushwork. This is still preliminary and will be checked over numerous times to bring out more detail such as the highlights on the top edge of Tarzan’s cheek bone.

Click on each image to get an even closer look.

After finishing the jackets for “Tanar of Pellucidar” and “A Fighting Man of Mars” last year, I’ve returned to T@EC. One of the problems with this particular jacket, for me, is the heavy screen that was used to make the halftone. Much of the image is soft and descreening to eliminate the halftone rosettes only makes the painting even fuzzier than usual. I had two different scans from Metropolitan jackets that were badly sunned on the spine and missing pieces, and a copy of the jacket as it was used on the ERB, Inc. edition which has a couple of discolored horizontal streaks running across the top and about one quarter of the way up from the bottom. I finally picked up a beautiful mixed edition (Grosset & Dunlap binding on Metropolitan signatures) of the book with a bright jacket last summer at the Burroughs convention in Chicago.

After the usual descreening, rebalancing of the color and level adjustments I still wasn’t satisfied with how the art was looking. This is, after all, one of the most exciting paintings that St. John ever did of the Ape Man in action and it is also a lost painting (as far as we know), not one that is available for close examination or reproduction. I’d really like to see this as a large, 16×20-inch print. It will need some special work — as George McWhorter referred to it, “art forensics.” So, I’m going over it as tightly as I can to sharpen it up, basically repainting it stroke for stroke. I can’t go into detail about how I’m doing this right now, but it’s a slow process and I’ve put up some preliminary work on the Facebook page. I’ll put up an even more astounding section of the restored art on this blog real soon (I promise) and you’ll see where I’m going with this.

I hope it gets you as excited about it as I am.

Yes, the “social network” got me. We will see just how well this works, but there’s no point in staying away from something that has the potential of bringing more Burroughs fans and collectors to the site. I’ll be making different updates on this blog and on the new FB page, so if you’re already on FB look for the Recoverings page, “like” it and add it to your favorites. Thanks.

First I want to thank all of you who have continued to drop by here even though it looks like nothing is happening. Since summer, a long series of events have kept me off-balance and scrambling for time. Without going into too much tedious detail, let me say that part of it had to do with the demise of my previous printer and the difficult decision to change from dye-based ink to pigment. That, and a house remodeling project that took entirely too long and which required me to keep track of a lot more details than I thought I would have to. In spite of all that I did manage to complete three of the four Metropolitan dust jackets, even though I’ve decided to hold one back so I can make it even better. More on that later

LONGER LASTING PRINTS
The printer issue is certainly worth writing about, since it involves a definite upgrade to the quality of output I can offer. My previous inkjet, an Epson 1280, offered very high resolution printing and the kind of brilliance and saturation of color that only dye inks, up to now, have been able to give. I was thrown into a quandary when it died because I was finding it harder to get paper of the size (17×22) and weight (7 mil) I’ve used for years that would work with dye-based ink. I was being forced to move to roll paper instead of sheets and my fear was that the curled paper would be difficult to flatten for shipping. Paper weight is an issue because more and more inkjet paper is only being offered in “photographic” and “art print” weights of 10 mil. and more. Those papers are too heavy, in my opinion, to work well as book jackets. Papers suitable for commercial digital printing are hard to come by in small quantities and are not rated for use with Epson printers.

After much research and back-and-forth, I decided to get an Epson R2880 which, though it used pigment inks and rolled paper, had the addition of a “Vivid Magenta” to liven up the reds occurring in many the jacket titles, and it purported to handle purples much better than previous pigment printers. i have to say that I’m very happy with the new printer and the new Epson UltraChrome K3 inks. The colors are richer and the ink is less prone to drying in the nozzles between print sessions. Resolution is higher than the 1280, but you probably won’t be able to tell that with the naked eye. I still prefer to print on sheets rather than use the roller attachment, so I’m hand-cutting whatever I need from the roll. I can still get two regular jackets from one 16.5×22 inch sheet.

The most important aspect of this is that now my jackets are all rated for even longer life, up to 108 years! This counts as archival in my book since most of the original McClurg dust jackets are showing color casts and shifts now that they’re in the 90- to 75-year range. You still have to protect your jackets from direct sunlight and scuffing, but that’s what Brodarts are for.

Of course I’ve never had a problem with the older jackets fading over the last 10 years, and I’ve never gotten complaints from any of my customers about it either. I’ve got them on my collection, in the front room which gets plenty of light, and they still look as good as the day I put them there. If anyone ever has a problem with fading or color shift on Recoverings dust jackets, he should contact me immediately and arrange an upgrade.

I’ve been diligently working on setting the type and finalizing the art on three of the Metropolitan jackets: “Tanar of Pellucidar,” “Tarzan at the Earth’s Core” and “A Fighting Man of Mars.” Most of the cleanup for the cover illustrations and titling has been done over the last year. Several reference copies were used to make up for the poor condition that these particular jackets seem to be in in some of the collections I’ve seen. For “Tarzan and the Lost Empire” I’ve got quite a bit more work to do so that won’t be ready for a couple of months. More on that below.

All three use wraparound illustrations and each one incorporates a mix of fonts on the flaps. The flaps are typical in that they promote the book the jacket is for on the front flap and the other Burroughs books from Metropolitan with review quotes on the back flap. As far as I can tell Metropolitan Books, New York, never published any other than the four Burroughs’ books. There was another Metropolitan Books in Portland Oregon, but they only published a few titles in 1934 and 1935. However, one of those had illustrations by Mahlon Blaine who ended up living in an apartment over Biblo and Tannen and doing illustrations for the Canaveral editions of ERB’s books in the 1960s. Small world, eh?

So here’s the typographic tally for the three of the four Metropolitan’s I’m finishing up:

•  TANAR (1929) uses Cloister Bold for the flap copy, with Cloister Bold Italic for the names of the newspapers in the review quotes on the back flap. Both flaps use Cooper Black in the titles mixed with Cloister italic for the prepositions “of” and “and.” “By Edgar Rice Burroughs” is set on  two lines on both flaps in Cloister Bold Italic and Cloister Bold. “Author of. . .” lines are set in either Lino De Vinnne or Old Style No. 21. These seem to be the only fonts which have the curved start of the stem on the lowercase p. Very noticeable in the review quotes is the use of what Mac McGrew calls “modern” quotes (I could also describe them as reversed close quotes or reversed apostrophes) where the left quote glyphs have stems hanging from the ball rather than coming up from the ball (reversed 9s instead of 6s). Cloister was designed with these in it’s metal form as available from Linotype, Monotype and ATF, but for some reason they’re not found in any of the digital versions. Not even the LTC version from P-22, usually so accurate in their designs. What a shame! I hope someone corrects this oversight some day soon. In the meantime I’ll just make my own adjustment.

•  TEC (1930) uses Bodoni for most of the text, with Poster Bodoni (or Ultra Bodoni) for the title promo on the front flap. The publisher’s name is set in Cooper Black on the bottom of the front flap. On the back flap there is a promotional paragraph about ERB, set in Bodoni italic, along with reviews for “Tanar of Pellucidar” and “Tarzan and the Lost Empire” set in Bodoni and Bodoni Italic. The titles of those books are set in Cooper Black as is the publisher’s name. Not a lot to remark about, typographically, on this jacket.

•  FMM (1931) uses an Old Style font for the text copy. All OS fonts are difficult to identify because of overall similarities and only slight variations. Combine that with the  variations from point size to point size of the metal types and you see the primary difficulty I’ve had with this project from the very beginning. However, one clue points to Linotype Old Style No. 1 as the likely font: the calligraphic g in the italic. This kind of g has a left-facing bowl and a tail that sweeps down to the left as we would expect in handwriting or lettering. Hence, “calligraphic.” Most of the OS faces have a “two-story” g in their italic fonts. There are a few other Old Style fonts that have this g but the final distinguishing mark is the lower case p which retains the starting of the bowl’s stroke on the left overlapping the stem. This is typical of the Caslons and different from some of the other Old Styles like De Vinne or Lino Number 21 which show the curved serif at the top of the stem itself. The titles of the books promoted on the front and back flaps are all in Cheltenham Bold, a display face often seen on the A.C. McClurg jackets as well. On the front flap “A Fighting Man of Mars” is set on three lines in all caps. On the back flap there are two promos: “TARZAN  at the Earth’s Core,” and “TANAR of Pellucidar,” with “Tarzan” and “Tanar” widely spaced in all caps to fill the column width. Under those title displays, the words “By Edgar Rice Burroughs,” in two lines, are set in what appears to be Caslon No. 3 Italic and Regular, respectively. At the bottom of each flap the publisher name and address, “Metropolitan Books, Inc., 150 Nassau Street, New York” is set on two lines in Caslon Bold Condensed, all caps, with the exception of the “nc” in “Inc.” which uses small caps.

Though “Tarzan and the Lost Empire” was the first book that Metropolitan published, in 1929, it is a different sort of animal than the other jackets in that it is all line art. A much more graphic treatment than the paintings we’re used to from J. Allen St. John at McClurg. Burroughs wanted Metropolitan to use St. John, but they had their own house artists and wanted to keep costs down. In doing a restoration of TLE I’m working on pulling out the line art and actually laying it over the color block so that it will have the cleanest possible look. I’ve had a chance to get acquainted with the art as it was printed by Grosset and Dunlap and, subsequently, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. and getting a better idea of what might have happened with it in production. But that’s another story for a another time.