Yet another ‘John Carter’ post

Okay, I’ve been on a string of John Carter posts of late because of the movie’s release. Here’s another one…

The game

Back in the 1970s, we used to play strategy board games. Around the same time, I had been reading Edgar Rice Burroughs‘ Mars series so I couldn’t resist buying the “John Carter: Warlord of Mars” game when Simulations Publications Inc. (SPI) issued it in ’79.

The game was designed by Mark Herman. Other credits include: graphic design by Redmond A. Simonsen; game development by Eric Goldberg; and cover illustration by Don Maitz.

There’s a 16-page booklet, The World of Barsoom, by Scott B. Bizar that gives an overview of Burroughs’ Mars.

As you can see by the photos (click to enlarge them), it doesn’t look very used. I remember playing it at least once.

Ever since then, the game has been tucked away in a box or, more recently, in a closet in a bookcase with pulps and pulp-related paperbacks.

Ah, well, back it goes.

A book (or two)

I haven’t posted as many John Carter entries as graphic designer Scott Dutton has. Dutton, of Edmonton, Canada, has quite a number on his blog at Scott Dutton Illustration & Design. His entries focus on the various illustrators who have taken pen or brush to paper to depict the warlord of Mars.

If you look on his eBooks page, you’ll find Return to Barsoom, a novel written by Dutton based on the Barsoom series. It’s a free book available in either ePub or MOBI formats.

Dutton attempts, among other things, “to reconcile ERB’s Barsoom (his name for Mars), with what we know about Mars in the real world. The juxtaposition of the two worlds I thought would help make Barsoom’s world more accessible to new readers, and for people who knew Barsoom the challenge to their assumptions would bring a freshness to their experience.”

(There’s also an ePub version of Burroughs’ original John Carter novel, A Princess of Mars, featuring the illustrations of Frank E. Schoonover from the A.C. McClurg & Co. book of 1917.)

A website

The John Carter Files has popped up to support the release of Disney’s John Carter movie, and encourage the studio to proceed with a sequel. The site is backed by independent filmmaker Michael Sellers‘ Q Media Assets.

You’ll find quite a lot of information about the movie, Barsoom, Burroughs, as well as photo galleries and videos from the movie. There’s also a page about the fan-edited trailer (embedded below) put together by Sellers and Mark Linthicum using previously released scenes.

Quite a bit better than the trailers actually released by Disney, wouldn’t you say?