Edgar Rice Burroughs Podcast: Episode 3

ERB Podcast: Episode 3

Jess Terrell, Scott Stewart and I discuss ERB's dinosaur-filled trilogy of stories "The Land That Time Forgot," "The People That Time Forgot," and "Out of Time's Abyss." Click on the link above to listen or download.

There's also a video version: 

The Next Episode COMING ATTRACTIONS poster:

Edgar Rice Burroughs Podcast--Coming Attraction Poster

Cover Cavalcade

I've always loved the covers Roy Krenkel did for ERB's "Land That Time Forgot" trilogy.

Tarzan and Yet More Dinosaurs

Russ Manning was one of several superior artists who (along with Hal Foster, Burne Hogarth and Joe Kubert) has provided fans with some excellent Tarzan of the Apes comics, both in comic books and in newspaper strips.

In 1974, Manning wrote and drew four Tarzan graphic novels that were published in Europe. Two of these were finally printed in the U.S. in 1996 and, though now out-of-print again, are available from the used book market.

These particular two graphic novels are Tarzan in the Land That Time Forgot and its direct sequel Tarzan and The Pool of Time.  

These tie the Jungle Lord together with Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Caspak trilogy, which by itself is a fantastic idea. During his lifetime, Burroughs had Tarzan visit Pellucidar, but (though he added details that implied all his stories were set in the same universe), he never got around to sending the Ape Man to Caspak (or Mars or Venus or into the past or future. Gee whiz, Edgar, what were you doing with your time?).

Caspak has always been one of my favorite Lost World settings. This hidden and volcanically heated continent, located near Antartica, is a savage jungle filled with prehistoric monsters, cave men and a brutal race of winged men called Weiroo. As Manning's first story opens, Tarzan has been asked by a young man to travel with him to Caspak to rescue his girl friend, Lyla Billings. Lyla's mother (a character from Burroughs' original trilogy about Caspak) came from that lost world, and Lyla is, perhaps unwisely, returning there to find out about her roots.

What follows is a fast paced adventure, involving one beautifully-drawn action sequence after another. The first story contains numerous captures, escapes and fights, ending with a massive battle involving both men and dinosaurs, while the second story picks up immediately afterwards as the action moves to the skull-strewn city of the Weiroos.

Manning was an excellent writer as well as a skilled artist. His portrayal of both Tarzan and the land of Caspak are very faithful to Burroughs' original stories. The plot is well-constructed and action-oriented in a way that carries the story along in a very convincing manner. Perhaps most importantly, Manning makes good use of the supporting characters, letting each of them have their moments without ever forgetting that we're all reading this mostly because we want to see Tarzan kick some butt.

But mostly it's the art that makes everything work. Everything from the humans to the

Neanderthals to the Weiroo to the dinosaurs just look too cool for words. Manning had an excellent sense of composition, keeping his "camera" moving from frame to frame in a way that kept the action moving fast while still allowing us to understand what is going on.






I've reviewed quite a number of comic book stories involving dinosaurs over the last couple of months, haven't I? Well, that's to be expected. As the ancient proverb tells us: "When you've tired of dinosaurs, you've tired of life."

My money's on the pterodactyl.

Here's a super-cool illustration by master artist J. Allen St. John. It's from a 1924 book edition of Edgar Rice Burroughs classic story.

One really neat thing about it is the design of the pterodactyl. It's hardly a model of scientific accuracy, but it looks "just right" all the same.

The Land That Time Forgot

There were many brilliant storytellers whose work was published in the pulp magazines during the first half of the 20th Century---Dashiel Hammett, Robert E. Howard, Ray Bradbury, Walter Gibson, Lester Dent and many more. One of the most successful, both commercially and in terms of telling enthralling stories, was Edgar Rice Burroughs.

Burroughs is, of course, best known for creating Tarzan. He also gave us tales about Mars, Venus and the underground world of Pellucidar. In his stories, courageous heroes commonly rescue beautiful women from certain death, battle evil men and an assortment of wild animals, alien monsters and prehistoric creatures.

If I had to name a favorite Burroughs story, though, it would be The Land That Time Forgot trilogy, first published in three successive issues of Blue Book magazine in 1918.

This breathless tale introduces us to the lost continent of Caspak, located in remote waters near Antartica. The hero of the first book, Bowen Tyler, stumbles across it accidentally while commanding a German U-boat that he and some British sailors had captured. Low on fuel, Tyler takes the sub through a subterranean passage to enter Caspak, which is surrounded by steep cliffs and otherwise inaccessible.

Once in Caspak, Tyler and his mixed crew of British and Germans (and, of course, a beautiful woman with whom Tyler falls in love) are forced to work together as they run up against a plethora of dinosaurs and other hungry prehistoric creatures, as well as tribes of ill-tempered cavemen.

The action races on non-stop as additional characters are introduced. A friend of Tyler's--Tom Billings--attempts to fly over the cliffs into Caspak via airplane, but crashes after a dogfight with a pterydactyl. In the meantime, Bradley (one of the British sailors who entered Caspak with Tyler) is seperated from the rest of the group and captured by the Wieroo, a race of winged men who live in a city built from skulls.

It's all great fun, with battles, kidnappings and escapes coming one after another. Burroughs does an excellent job of gradually introducing the bizarre biological rules that govern Caspak's life forms, building up a self-consistent world that easily allows us to suspend disbelief. The Land That Time Forgot is pure escapism, representing the work of a master storyteller at the top of his game.