Pulp Month Presents Tarzan Tuesday: The Imitators!

After Tarzan made his first appearance in the early years of the twentieth century, the popularity of the character took off like a sky-rocket. So it should be no surprise that the world of pulps and comic books wasted little time in converting that success to other forms with other, quite similar characters.

The pulp stand-outs were Ka-Zar (certainly more famous for later being part of the early Marvel Mystery Comics that also introduced Sub-Mariner and Human Torch) and Ki-Gor, Jungle Lord, star of the long running Jungle Stories pulp. A public domain character now, Ki-Gor has appeared in books published by Atlus Press and Wild Cat Books with comic and pulp anthologies from Moonstone Books coming soon.

But comics... comics were filled with Tarzan clones left and right. I am sure if you checked out a comics rack in the first half of the forties you could find half a dozen titles with jungle themes. Characters with names like Ka'anga and Wambi appeared, while early female star Fantomah was an insanely over-powered (and sometimes skull-faced) protector of the jungle.

Things really went up a notch following the debut of Sheena, Queen of the Jungle. The Eisner-Iger creation was one of the most popular characters of the thirties and forties, surviving until 1953. She spawned a pulp during that time (a feat rare among comic books). She returned in a short-lived TV series, a movie in the mid-eighties, and a very entertaining comic from Devil’s Due just a couple years ago.

Sheena spawned as many imitators as Tarzan. Characters like Zegra, Tiger Girl, Tegra the Jungle Queen, and Jann of the Jungle quickly appeared in an attempt to capitalize off the character’s popularity. One of these spin-offs, Rulah, Jungle Goddess, recently returned to fiction through Metahuman Press’s Timeline.

After the forties, the Tarzan clones became more sporadic. In France rival comic publishers created Akim and Zembla, both long lasting jungle lords. Marvel debuted a new Ka-Zar while DC dug back in to public domain Victorian fiction for the character of Rima. Parodies like George of the Jungle would also soon crop up. Wherever he appeared, the character of Tarzan seemed ready to appear in any number of variations in any place or time.

I suppose it is the mark of a truly defining character. Whatever the case, it seems Tarzan will live on, in one form or another, for a very long time to come.

Timeline 20: The Rise of Rulah Notes

I am going to be straight up with everyone here. I love Tarzan. It doesn’t even matter how many terrible reinventions or terrible actors play him, I love him. The entire concept of the jungle hero is something I truly love. And it’s not just Tarzan. I absolutely love the new Sheena material from Devil’s Due. I still miss Bruce Jones, Mark Waid, and Priest on Ka-Zar. I go to newspaper websites well out of my area just to read Phantom strips online. Heck, I love Disney’s Atlantis: The Lost Empire for its jungle hero Atlanteans. So it should come as no surprise after I say all that, that I wanted my own jungle hero. Generally, I try to use literary characters wherever I can to avoid pastiches. I didn’t want Torzo, Jungle King, or anything equally preposterous.

So, what should I see, while cruising Toonepedia. for info on more golden age heroes for Tales of the Living Legends, but Rulah, Jungle Goddess. A quick surf of my favorite public domain download site quickly found her first and subsequent appearances. All with art by the amazing Golden Age artist Matt Baker!


So my jungle hero choice was made clear, Rulah was the one for me.

My plans are to continue irregularly writing new Rulah stories for the foreseeable future, but I will cover more on that at another time. Before I could really start making original stories, I thought it would be best to adapt her origin story from the horrendously title Zoot Comics #7. I updated a few bits and tried to clean up the dialogue. I also took the time to explain why all these African tribemen spoke perfect English. And finally I inserted Tembo, a character that will play an important role in my stories for the next few years.

As to the means for Rulah’s new stories to appear. I will just say that an old sister site, dating all the way back to MHP’s days as a subsite, will be making its return in a big way come 2010.

Timeline 19: Origin of Mister Haunt Notes

Just like Claus vs Kong before it, The Origin of Mister Haunt is a re-purposed, revised, and reformatted story from my old Pulp Stories Monthly e-magazine. Unlike Claus vs Kong this one needed a rather large rewrite from its much earlier version, which includes about fifteen hundred additional words in all.

Mister Haunt is my quintessential pulp character in the Quadrant Universe. Over his next couple appearances (I have more waiting to be rewritten), you will see elements of the Shadow, the Saint, and Doc Savage all pop up on the page. That being said, I want to make sure Haunt is his own man, and as we learn more about the mysterious character, I think you will find he is truly different.

I hope everyone enjoys the first shot of Mister Haunt. Let me know if and when you want more.

Timeline 18 Story Notes

This one was a lot of fun just because of the characters and events involved.

The Tunguska Event actually occurred in the Tunguska portion of Siberia just over one hundred years ago. No one quite knows what lit up the night sky but seemed to cause absolutely no damage whatsoever. This story serves as something of my solution to that dilemma.

Citrine is a name of my own choosing, but the Yellow Kid is a very real character. One of the first figures in comics, he debuted in the mid-nineties. That’s eighteen-nineties in case you were confused. He fell in to the public domain decades ago, and I really wanted to stake my claim on him as a precursor to the adventure heroes of the twenties and the mystery men of the thirties and forties. He is terribly under-utilized today with my only knowledge of his recent use was as a comedy bit in Joss Whedon’s six issues of Runaways.

The Doctor is not the same character as can be seen in the twenty-plus seasons of Doctor Who. I just wanted to say that, as the way he is presented in this story might make people think that. He is an immortal and he will play a very important part of the growing Timeline story and the origins of the Quadrant Universe, but he is not a time traveler. His full name will be revealed some time in the future.

So who will our young man grow to be? That is a question that I am not quite ready to answer. But I will get there eventually. And that story will not only tie in to yet another public domain character, but also in to an upcoming chapter of The Monastery. It all comes together eventually....

Read the story here.

Timeline 17 Story Notes

In The Summer of Love, we travel back to the sixties and introduce two important storylines of the Quadrant universe! First, we get the sixties/seventies super-team of the universe in an early incarnation: the Defenders of Democracy!

Plus, we have the introduction of Aphrodite, a character that will be recurring in a few of these Timeline stories as we bounce around the decades.

1967 was an interesting year in American history, and I doubt I have done it the justice it deserves. But the purpose of this story was two fold: introduce the Defenders as characters and set up a few of the growing conflicts in American history for the next few years afterward.

I really enjoyed this one... be sure to drop a few thoughts on me here.

Timeline 16 Story Notes

I wrote Claus vs. Kong a couple years ago where it was originally posted as part of the currently defunct Pulp Empire newsletter. I had lots of fun with it and have at least one planned sequel, so I thought I would bring it to a larger audience on MHP.

The story has been lengthened and cleaned up a bit, the lead character has went through a name change, and I freshened a few things up to set it in the modern day instead of the fifties. But otherwise, I think it remains a solid read. I actually conceived of it as a children’s book idea, and some day would like to see it take that form.

You will have to wait a year for the sequel, but let’s just say I plan to up the stakes.

Timeline, Epsilon, NaNoWriMo, and more

My apologies to my regular readers. Sometimes life and family get in the way of honest pursuits like writing and updating this blog. But hopefully I am back to stay as I get to work on several new updates over the next couple of weeks.

I will start with a couple updates on the site. I am slowly working towards getting pictures for all the contributing authors. I am also working towards reformatting the main site and possibly getting the first few books based on MHP works. More on that later.

Also, I am working on a new Timeline story for the week of Halloween. It will be the first to feature a setting that will interlink with other stories down the line.

Epsilon will probably go on hiatus following the conclusion of the Nephthys arc. I have more plans for the next arc, but I really need to take a break from one of my current works in order to get my current stories (as well as a few new ones) off the ground.

Finally, I have plans to participate in NaNoWriMo again this year. I am currently working up a plot for another Quadrant Universe tale with the working title Neo-Tokyo. It will be a fun litte piece of super-powered fiction with quite an anime influence to it. I am currently working on a few pieces of research to get the idea flowing a little harder. I am also taking suggestions on anime/manga with a super-powered flavor. I am currently rewatching Yu Yu Hakusho and rereading Akira and Getbackers. Your suggestions on any other quality manga/anime with a superhero flavor set in either modern or a near-future setting would be appreciated.

I am going to try to get a post up today or tomorrow with my thoughts on the first three weeks of Heroes soon as well. Fingers crossed, I will be back here soon!

Vacation countdown

I am finally getting a little further back in to the swing of writing while I am at work. Having the internet readily available at all times proves a little distracting, but I have finally finished Timeline for next month, started back on Living Legends, and plan on getting a little more Arc done before the end of the work week.

And it’s a short work week, as the wife, the kid, and I are on our way to Springfield, Illinois, to visit her family over a long weekend. This will be our only family vacation for the year as we save up for a Disney World vacation next year. Should be interesting to see the old haunts again; I haven’t been back in Illinois for a couple years now.

Moving Past the Flood

So the recovery process is slowly taking shape in the Cedar Rapids area and with it I’ve decided to try and move on to other things myself. Which means I am going to have to try to avoid the distraction of free use internet at the temporary call center at Mt. Mercy. Time to get back down to writing.

Tonight however I was far too exhausted to even put together a quality sentence let alone a paragraph or longer. So my plan now is to get back on track and finish the next Timeline tomorrow and Thursday if need be, and then go to work on some more Arc. We will see how far I can get in both this week. Hopefully a good day’s sleep will be able to help with both.

I will be taking down the Mean Streets blogspot page in the near future. My plan now is to integrate a revised version of the story on to the proper Metahuman Press. The blog format just was not working for me. I may experiment with it more later. We will see how that plays out.

Otherwise, it is the usual fun and games. I will continue to try and update this blog on a regular basis. I think with the access at the call center I should do a lot better.

That’s all for now. Later days all.

Random chunks of thought spewed on to the internet

Yeah, it’s been a bit since I actually threw out a nice little post about what’s up in my little world. My wife and I have been enjoying a week of blissful quiet as our darling daughter is now spending a week at Grandma’s house for her spring break. I love having these visits a few times a year because they really give me a breather from the whole parenthood thing. Sometimes you just need time away from the rugrat, y’know?

Her absence has given me some extra free time and I have used it to finish crafting the next Timeline story. I am really proud of this one as it plays off African myths to introduce the second major African hero in the Quadrant universe (after Bagheera in Epsilon). He is a fella named Sagai (Swahili for spear) and he will be a player in a few of my stories in the near future starting with the aforementioned Epsilon. I already have my next time line project in the works. It will be a ongoing story introducing heroes in the dark days of the early 90’s, where metahumans were hated and feared by all. It will be a connected epic, and every other Timeline will continue the 90’s saga. I’m not sure what story I will follow that one up in, but after Sagai (in April) and the 90’s (in July) I will have some time to think about it.

I have a new Living Legends and a new Mean Streets both up today. Living Legends is coming along nicely and you can expect it to start kicking in to the action phase in the next few months. Mean Streets has had a couple short chapters of late, but 3.4 amps things up and starts the build towards bigger and better things.

Having the laptop at work is given me way more time to write and now that I am gaining a nice lead time on my current stories, I am also hard at work on finishing Champion City book one and book two, hopefully by summer’s end. Expect a book edition of volume one while the second volume will find its way up on Metahuman Press. I also have plans to get My Name is Charon back with a new storyline and another new series that started its life as a submission to the Shadowline create a superheroine contest. More on that later.

Speaking of that contest, the five finalists have finally been announced, and I have to say I am a bit disappointed. None of them seem like the kind of characters I am going to have a lot of interest in. Hope is probably the most intriguing concept, but even it seems somewhat flat. I submitted four projects to this contest and I would rate at least three of them more innovative than these. Color me disappointed I guess. Anyone who wants can vote on that link, but you got to join the site to do so. I don’t really know if its worth the effort IMHO (although I probably will just to continue my support of indy superheroes).

Well, enough ranting for now. I will try to keep the personal and project updates a little more frequent if possible, but you know me. I suck at this regular blog stuff.

Back on track

All right, after a less than stellar January I am trying to get my writing, my reading, my blogging, and my life back on track. Everything has pretty much settled here again (thankfully) so the time should be fine for it.

Anyone who read Timeline this last week should be happy to know that the story’s conclusion will be coming on Wednesday as I wrap it up. Living Legends will come the next week, and Epsilon the week after that. I am a busy sort...

You know what true evil is: the Wrestler application on Facebook. I could suck up hours playing this thing, but thankfully I can limit the number of matches I fight at once.

Anyway, I am working on a bevy of projects: Epsilon, Living Legends, Charon, Champion City, the next Timeline story, and Arc. And all may fall by the way side for a few weeks if I can score a top 10 spot in the Shadowline Superheroine contest. Fingers are crossed until Monday.

That is it for now. Back soon, I promise. Really.

New story up at Metahuman Press

Well, despite all the time I have invested in the glory that is Divine Divinity, I still have found time to post my special Halloween story and debut of a all-new character from the upcoming revised and expanded Champion City.

My Name is Charon features an all-new dark hero that walks the streets of the ever-dark Shadowside, just on the outskirts of greater Federation (a.k.a. “Champion City”). Charon is one of my favorite creations of the last year or so, and he should help a great deal in expanding the development of the Quadrant Universe over the next year or so. Be sure to check the story out, and as always stop by here or the forums to let me know what you thought of it. I also would love thoughts on the logo for the story, as well as all the others I have debuted over the last month.

I have plans for a new Charon story or two over the next year, although I expect them to post at more random intervals, as Timeline will start updating quarterly next year as the new “fifth week“ title for 2008. (For those who don’t know, fifth week refers to the final week of the four months of every year that have five Wednesdays in them.) I have plans to debut several all-new characters, many of which will play parts in various other projects, both prose and comic, that I have in the works right now. I haven’t decided exactly what four stories to use first but here are a few names to look forward to: Captain Mettle, The Challenge Squad (who were already featured in Timeline 1962: UFO), Newgen, Rocketman, The Aviator, Uplift (featuring Wave and hints to the origins of Epsilon), The Robot, Defenders of Democracy, The Natural, Freakman, The Westar Kid, The New Minutemen, Geneva, Dr. Cosmic, and several more. This is one of the projects I have been moving towards for several years, so stay tuned for more information about the first of these projects, which will debut on January 30.

That’s all for now and for the month of October, where I have finally started to get my blog posting skills back up to par. Everyone enjoy the rest of their Halloween!