The Fantastical Dreams Of A Normal Bean!

I am always a bit astonished when I reflect on the impact of the career of Edgar Rice Burroughs. When he finally came to be a writer after trying nearly everything else, he found out he was quite good, at least good enough to draw in countless thousands if not millions of readers over the decades since his first work landed on the shelves in 1912. That work was Under the Moons of Mars and its author was one "Normal Bean". The story goes that Burroughs had signed the work "Normal Being", but his editor changed it for reasons unclear. A Princess of Mars (the title of the novel) was a blockbuster hit as the strange story of Virginian John Carter's first trip to Mars spilled out serially in the pages All-Story Magazine. ERB was inspired by the success to offer up another hero to the marketplace and this time he created an icon -- Tarzan of the Apes. The tide had come in for "Normal Bean" and he actually never looked back. He wrote book after book with stories set in places he created such as Barsoom, Caspak, Pellucidar, Amtor, Opar, and a myriad of others. 

I have been storing up ERB material for decades and I've read most of the canon at least once, though it's been more than a few decades since the last time. I'm sort of eager to tear into it all again and add to what I've read works that have become available since. So this year of 2022 will see the Dojo paying great heed to the work of ERB and to the countless adaptations of his work. Tarzan in particular has been a focus here at the Dojo before and we'll get around to him in due course, primarily though the great comic strips and comic books which were illustrated by great artists such Hal Foster, Burne Hogarth, Russ Manning among others such as Joe Kubert and Tom Yeates. But I want to begin my look at ERB with his first work and one of his most potent -- the John Carter books which inspired a movie over a decade ago now. 

And what else might well be coming for new year. Take a glimpse below for fifty plus probabilities. 

That's a ton of stuff and I hope to get around in some shape form or fashion to all of it eventually this year. But who knows what else will pop into my noggin between now and this time next year. Let all of us unite here at the Dojo to celebrate "the Master of Adventure" ERB, and a whole passel of other stuff as well. 

More on what's up this inaugural month of 2022 tomorrow.  Happy New Year my fellow "Normal Beans"! Next stop Mars!

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