Burroughsania and others

[Whiskers]

Mike,

I've been chatting with Guy Lawley and Krzysztof Janicz regarding Tarzan and Lion and I remembered Burroughsania. I did a quick search and for those interested:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&l...+moorcock&sa=N

Anyway, I came across a reference I haven't heard before. Can you remember working on ERGO EGO?

"last fanzine, in 1962, was ERGO EGO, a collection of stories and poems rejected by various publishers"

I guess that would have been before New Worlds.

[Whiskers]

More interesting publications you've edited:

Outlaws Own, Liberal Party’s Current Topics and Book Collectors News and this too:

Following Terry Jeeves' tenure, Michael Moorcock took over as editor of VECTOR with its fifth issue in the autumn of 1959, having put out the single-sheet VECTOR EXPLANATION shortly before to explain the delay between issues

[Whiskers]

EDIT: Though I posted this chunk, I am seeking permission to post more of it elsewhere, because it has extensive biograhpical information about your career, which seems accurate. I suggest you go to the website and start from the start. It looks like really good stuff.

http://fanac.org/Fan_Histories/Then/Then_31.html

Excellent reading:


All material in THEN is copyright آ© Rob Hansen, 1988-1994.
The Early 1960s: SERCON RISING
Jones,

[Whiskers]

EVEN MORE STUFF ELSEWHERE:

BURROUGHSANIA
UK
MOORCOCK, MICHAEL

2 MAY/56 m Q 7 Single-sided
3 JUN/56 m Q 12 Single-sided
4 JUL/56 m Q 13 Single-sided
6 SEP/56 m Q 10 Single-sided
7 AUG/56 m Q 20
8 SEP/56 m Q 24
9 DEC/56 m Q 50
9.1 OCT/56 m Q 5 Numbered 9A, precedes No. 9. Single-side
10 JAN/57 m Q 22
11 MAR/57 m Q 20
12 APR/57 m Q 20
13 MAY/57 m Q 20
14 JUN/57 m Q 16
15 JUL/57 m Q 20
16 AUG/57 m Q 20
17 SEP/57 m Q 20
18 APR/58 m Q 18 CEASED?

[Whiskers]

Google rocks!

CON-SHOT
MOORCOCK, MICHAEL
UK
1 m Q 8 CEASED COMPLETE

[Whiskers]

ERGO EGO
MOORCOCK, MICHAEL
UK
1 SEP/62 m Q 12 CEASED COMPLETE

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EUSTACE
MOORCOCK, MICHAEL
UK
1 WIN/59 m Q 30 CEASED COMPLETE

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FANTASIANA
MOORCOCK, MICHAEL
UK
1 JUN/57 m Q 8 CEASES with No 3

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JAZZ FAN
MOORCOCK, MICHAEL
UK
7 MAY/57 m Q 10
9 /5? m Q 10

[Whiskers]

PERINDEUS
MOORCOCK, MICHAEL
UK
1 DEC/58 m Q 10 OMPA 19 CEASED COMPLETE

[Whiskers]

TYPO
MOORCOCK, MIKE & LINWOOD, JIM
UK
1 SPR/57 m Q 30 CEASED COMPLETE

[Whiskers]

VECTOR
BRITISH SCIENCE FICTION ASSOCIATION - VARIOUS EDITORS
UK

7 SPR/60 L A6 32 MICHAEL MOORCOCK

[Whiskers]

MICHAEL MOORCOCK: THE UNEXPLORED DIMENSION
by Andrew Darlington

"So it happened that two sleek minnows slipped from the slippery side of the great ship and trailed their tiny spirts of flame across the stars... and as these tiny ships curved onto their joint course, their pilots looked down the visible wake of the comet...".

In July 1992 the Giotto Space-probe intercepts the Grigg-Skjellerup Comet. But exactly 30 years earlier - the month that Telstar beams its first juddery live TV pictures across the Atlantic, Jet-Ace Logan is already flying into the heart of a comet to discover a terrible secret that would threaten to turn the world into a green hell of poisonous alien chlorine. The story is TIMES FIVE: A JET-ACE LOGAN SPACE STORY issued as a 64 page-graphic novel in the THRILLER PICTURE LIBRARY series, #418. The highly atmospheric and technically precise art is by Ron Turner, from a story - according to Ron, by "a young Mike Moorcock".

Within the comet the two R. A. F. Space Command ships are lured into a bizarre alien spacecraft by its quintaped denizens; the earthmen "suddenly emerged into a large chamber into which machines periodically scooped great piles of litter from the scores of tunnelways that led into it. Yet it was not the rubbish that drew their attention ... it was the startling lack of it right at the centre of the floor". And there, in the huge chamber visualised by Turner's expressive line-work, is an unearthly machine; "the earthmen did not have to wait long, for a practical demonstration was forthc oming .... They heard the lump of piping clatter into the hopper. The machine hummed softly and glowed a gentle green, panting out quantities of greenish gas.... The machine hum died, and the mechanism coughed an abrupt cloud of fumes from its outlet, there was a rattle from the floor... and the astounded onlookers beheld five pieces of identically bent metal".

Jet-Ace Logan looks at the Matter Duplicator suspiciously, thinking "just imagine one of those things falling into the wrong hands, it would be worse than an H-Bomb in the hands of a 5-year old". While a devious scientist attached to the crew thinks "what a machine! What a wonderful thing to own! It could create wealth, power, any man who owned that could own the world. If only I could lay my hands on it". The dour and obdurate scientist's name, in what is perhaps a
wry piece of Moorcockian in-jokery, is Aldis.

TIMES FIVE is from July 1962, priced at just one shining shilling. It is one of two Mike Moorcock scripted Jet-Ace Logan Thriller Picture Libraries - the other, POWER FROM BEYOND (#442) comes from January 1963. But there's an unexplored dimension of other Moorcock stories published anonymously throughout the period, titles unsuspected even by devotees and completists. In all likelihood there are still more as yet unidentified or of disputed authorship, awaiting definite authentication. But it's a fascinating sub-genre of Moorcock's work rich with plots, themes and characters well worth academic investigation.

## # ##

"Motors purring, captains shouting orders, the rustle of the canvas gun-covers being drawn back, gay flags, flashing steel, flying cloaks of many hues; a Hatnorian War-Fleet rose rapidly into the sky". The typically extravagant sweep of bold scene setting from Moorcock's first published story cycle SOJAN THE SWORDSMAN conjures entrancing vistas of fantastic craft and rich costumes spiked with a bite of barbaric splendour, and although a teenage work, it's already recognisably Moorcockian. All the style elements are in place. An intriguing interview with the real Brian Aldiss (in THE SAVOY BOOK edit Butterworth/Britton) relates how Michael Moorcock declined an invitation to contribute an autobiographical essay to Aldiss/Harry Harrison's HELLS CARTOGRAPHERS project due to an excess of modesty, so perhaps this period will remain badly documented. But in this light the snatches of self-history in two other Savoy Books provide tantalising clues; the SOJAN anthology from 1977, and the more recent volume of interviews MICHAEL MOORCOCK: DEATH IS NO OBSTACLE by Colin Greenland. James Cawthorn's illustrations embellish the Sojar edition which is a valuably revealing collection of cut-and-thrust passages from the very dawn of Moorcock's career, his first stories ever to find their way into print. In fact Moorcock was only 16 when - in 1955, he produced the first drafts of his SOJAN THE SWORDSMAN and KLAN THE SPOILER text swashbucklers for his own fanzine. According to legend he submitted these tales to TARZAN ADVENTURES who accepted one for a June 1957 edition - and that by the following issues he'd been invited to become the magazine's editor!

Alongside these two embryonic efforts many other stories appeared between August 1957 (Vol. 7 #22) and September 1958 (Vol. 8 #23) in this long-extinct juvenile publication, many of which are now preserved in the Savoy volume.

TARZAN ADVENTURES had been relaunched by "Westworld" on the 8th April 1953 as a weekly 28-page vehicle for U.S. newspaper strip reprints. Never a major title in the LION, EAGLE or TIGER league, and now difficult to find, copies nevertheless still appear at intervals in the mail-order lists of specialist dealers, or for those who scour Book Fairs they sometimes turn up incongruously on antiquarian stalls alongside well-thumbed Annuals and musty hardback fiction. They boast occasional colour photo covers from then-current movies, Lex Barker in TARZANS SAVAGE FURY or TARZAN AND THE SLAVE GIRL both from 1954, but normally there are dramatic front pages illustrating the story inside, done by artists George Bunting or James Beach. The eponymous Tarzan serial is in monochrome and fills just over half of each issue, which are then padded out with such oddities as Buffalo Bill's Western adventures and "other interesting features".

But increasingly, using the rationale that Tarzan's creator - Edgar Rice Burroughs - also wrote the Martian John Carter fantasies which so enflamed Moorcock's juvenile creativity, there is a growing interplanetary content. And as Moorcock had already produced a fanzine on the subject - BURROUGHSANIA, he was eminently qualified for the editorial task despite his youth.

The TWIN EARTHS picture strip serial was an American newspaper reprint written with considerable imaginative flair by Oskar Lebeck with art from Alden McWilliams. The story involves a boy from Earth carried by Flying Saucers to the Moon where he is temporarily trapped within underground caverns, only to be rescued by robot "spiders", and eventually taken to the alien's home world which - like John Norman's Gor, occupies Earth's orbit but is located on the far side of the sun and is hence undetectable. More Moorcock related is Jim Cawthorn's original PERIL PLANET strip which runs through 1957. But I also recall reading short text stories featuring spaceman Skylon Dane and his journey to a distant planet to defeat an evil scientist whose rays dissolve bone-structure leaving his victims living breathing blobs of shapeless jelly. And another story about Earthmen visiting the ruins of the last Martian temple, only to trigger a self-destruct incendiary mechanism. Were these Moorcock stories? Probably not. He used his position as editor to publish the work of other S.F. writers, including a number of compact 1,000-word shorts from Sydney J. Bounds.

Moorcock's lay-out work for TARZAN ADVENTURES involved adapting strips from their American to their "Westworld" format, adding to and altering the narrative. But more significantly, the authenticated stories he fed into the weekly himself during the period of his regime were aimed at a juvenile audience, they are short, written in a racy no-frills style, and show few indications of Moorcock's later metaphysical preoccupations. There is an improvement in the writing more or less concurrent with the successful dates of their production, and a sophistication of the areas in which Sojar operates. But the basic prerequisites of action, simplicity, and a plot lasting no more than a handful of pages, are seldom challenged. The first exploit identifies "Sojan Shieldbearer" as a mercenary, an inhabitant of the double-sunned planet Zylor in the employ of Nornos Kad, Warlord of the Imperial Hatnorian Empire. Riding a reptilian myat, or piloting an airship, he does all the things one normally expects from a heroic barbarian sword-wielder. He rescues Il -That, princess daughter of a warrior king, he leads a counter-revolution against the tyrant usurper of the Hatnorian throne, and he puts down an unjustified rebellion against the empire.

Moorcock remains well within the stylistic restrictions of the genre, and well within his own limitations as an evolving writer. The history of Zylor is fleshed out in a story sequence SOJAN AND THE SEA OF DEMONS in which he destroys the Priesthood of Rhan who are bent on world domination. During the struggle he encounters the Lovecraftian-named Old Ones who explain that the Zylorians are survivors from Lemuria, the antediluvian continent of Earth mythology, and that the refugees have spread across the new planet devolving into rival kingdoms and tribes. In later Sojan stories caches of technological equipment and buildings left by these first Zylorians/Lemurians serve much the purpose as those left by the Yaksha in Moorcock's "Michael Kane" novel cycle of 1965, set on the planet Mars.

But as well as the Sojan mini-epics Moorcock also contributes tales featuring Dek of Noothar and his quests across ancient Mars for the Strange One's "Sword of Life"; and Rens Karto of Bersnol with his broadsword Blood-drinker. The latter was written as a result of a competition in which reader Richard W Ellingworth suggested "a plot for a story for TARZAN using Sojan as the central character, with the manuscript of SOJAN AND THE PLAIN MYSTERY as the prize". Richard received a co-writer credit for the tale, and presumably the "prize" too, the manuscript of the story which had appeared in issue Vol. 8 #9 (31st May 1958). If he still has that prize it will be worth a small fortune to a Moorcock collector now.!

The stories, and the Cawthorn or Lumley maps and illustrations, make few attempts to strive for contrived effect; but in the Sojan series lies the basic groundwork for all the Swords & Sorcery cycles to come. SOJAN AND THE SONS OF THE SNAKE GOD (in Vol. 8 #12 - 21st June '58) for example, is a complete capsule novel in less than 2,000 words in which - as the page-head blurb declares "Sojan Is once again playing a lone hand against death". Sojan the mercenary prevents a war by infiltrating and destroying the Cult of Rij the Snake God.

In a way the young Moorcock's stint in the editorial chair of TARZAN ADVENTURES is a dry run for his later NEW WORLDS regime. With the same absolute conviction and missionary zeal he transmutes a modest little periodical into his own image, into a vehicle for his own energies, aspirations and enthusiasms. I acquired a trove of some hundred TARZAN issues at a Jumble Sale shortly after the event. I read those classic muscle-rippling Tarzan spreads by Burne Hogart with his trademark anatomic al exaggerations, and enjoyed the fantasy element of the heroic Jungle Lord's encounter with the grotesque Ononoes, villainous creatures resembling huge severed heads propelling themselves on their hands. But I - for one, particularly read and loved the changes Moorcock had wrought, long before I learned to recognise the name responsible.

In ESCAPE FROM VENUS - one of his lesser novels, Edgar Rice Burroughs writes "when I was young I used to dream of living an adventurous life, and it may be that those youthful dreams more or less shape one's later life". There's a demonstrable truth to Burroughs' pulp assertion in the contagion of "youthful dreams" he passed on to Moorcock which in turn were passed on to yet another generation, shaping my life - among others.

Despite - or because of his creative innovations, Mike Moorcock recalls (in an introduction to his WARRIORS OF MARS) how he left TARZAN ADVENTURES "under a cloud", and indeed the title folded soon after, in November 1959. But the Cawthorn connection was to survive into NEW WORLDS and beyond. While in the meantime there were new connections; soon "I was writing floods of hack work for Fleetway and getting sometimes 70 or 80 pounds a week ... I think it was the autumn of 1960, when I was working for the SEXTON BLAKE LIBRARY .. that I bumped into a colleague at Fleetway Publications, Andy Vincent, who was an old friend of Harry Harrison's (who was also freelancing for Fleetway at the time). Andy told me he was meeting Harry and Ted Carnell in the Fleetway foyer and suggested I went along. As I remember, that was where I first met Harry". The ensuing Ted Carnell connection led to Moorcock's NEW WORLDS regime. While Harry Harrison was scripting RICK RANDOM Space Stories for Fleetway's SUPER DETECTIVE LIBRARY; illustrated by Ron Turner.

Moorcock's period with the long-established monthly SEXTON BLAKE series led to his first novel, a mildly James Bond-ian non-SF romp called CARIBBEAN CRISIS published in 1962 as by "Desmond Reid". Reid was probably a house alias as there are other titles credited to the name, at least as early as the 1958 HIGH HEELS AND HOMICIDE. The confusing use of publisher-owned house names was common practice at the time, so it's highly unlikely that all material published under the Desmond Reid banner is undiscovered Moorcockiana. A similar obfuscation exists in other areas of Fleetway's labyrinthine fiction factory.

In the Colin Greenland interviews Moorcock describes in detail how he scripted KIT CARSONS PERILOUS RIDE, a Western adventure for the monthly COWBOY PICTURE LIBRARY #337 (In 1961), how he wrote sports stories - including one of the SKID SOLO motor racing serials and admits he "could have" written a picture script called GIANTS IN THE NIGHT about a Professor Lancing and an invasion from space. There is also work done for LOOK & LEARN dramatising historical events - a life of Alexander the Great, another about Constantine, both of which are illustrated by Don Lawrence. The work was done at an incredible pace. He describes how a 64-page Mounted Policeman Comic Library edition - DICK DARING AND THE HIRED GUNMAN, "was done overnight. Started Tuesday evening, delivered Wednesday morning, because Wednesday was pay-sheet day. That would have earned me about a hundred quid, which in 1959 was good money for one night's work".

Predictably details of this period remain confused and questionable. It seems he scripted for TIGER's long-running OLAC THE GLADIATOR series vividly set in ancient Rome. Early episodes are credited by Brian Leigh; but which are by Moorcock? Sometimes powerfully descriptive passages in the narrative boxes suggest his style - particularly during Atilla the Hun's barbarian incursion into the empire in a late 1959 story, but that's guess-work. Often short filler stories for annuals were done by series non-regulars, and Olac was featured in TIGER ANNUAL's through most of the 1960's. Perhaps Moorcock's contribution lies here? Then there are two - or possibly three DOGFIGHT DIXON titles confirmed as Moorcock originals published under the THRILLER PICTURE LIBRARY banner; researcher Ian Covell reveals that any tales featuring this air ace "set in World War II are not by Moorcock", while "those including zeppelins have a good chance of being by him". There's a further vagueness concerning titles such as MIKE BLADE & THE ATOM WRECKERS (TIGER 31st August to 14th December 1963), DANNY JONES: TIME TRAVELLER (TIGER 22nd February 1964 to 28th January 1967) and AFRICAN SAFARI. Moorcock - or not Moorcock...?.

It's tempting to read these strips now with hindsight; to see in the 18th Century inventor of the time -clock which schoolboy Danny Jones later fishes from the local pond ("it was no ordinary clock, it told the time in centuries. Whoever set its hands was transported back into the past ...") as early evidence of Moorcock's fascination with English scientific eccentricity. Through its use Danny meets Dick Turpin, visits the Colossus of Rhodes and the Ice-Age Giants, and sails with Black Bart the Pirate. While it's not difficult to read the story with Bond clone Secret Agent SSA-B Mike Blade - in a adventure involving a mechanical dragon (DOCTOR NO ...?) and the bad guy's domed city which rises from the sea off Hong Kong (THE SPY WHO LOVED ME ...?) and imagine it to be the missing link between CARIBBEAN CRISIS and JERRY CORNELIUS. Probably - regarding the scant evidence, to do so is over-fanciful. Perhaps the full intricacies will never be resolved. Moorcock allegedly contributes to BUSTER, BIBLE STORY, EAGLE, ROBIN HOOD and VALIANT; often in complex ways - "sometimes I used to sell the outline, then pass the job on to another writer. Barry Bayley and I worked like that. I was good at doing the initial spiel that would get the idea accepted".

There were a mass of projects; in an interview published in VORTEX #1 James Cawthorn recalls "around 1958 Mike Moorcock and me tried to sell a BOEWULF strip story, with no luck", adding ruefully "Marvel have done one recently, I believe". And as Ian Covell concedes "we are 99% certain that some stuff sold to the comics was never actually drawn or used ... but they may have been!. It's great, but aggravating fun".

ZIP NOLAN, the Highway Cop created by the hugely prolific Frank S. Pepper, ran as a weekly picture series in LION for many years. But during a spell of illness when Pepper was unable to work, it's known that Moorcock stepped in to contribute one-off Nolan adventures. Working out exactly which plots come from Moorcock's furious typewriter is an impossible epic quest - despite some tantalising clues leaked to Colin Greenland. But even accepting the popularity of Zip Nolan's high-speed motorcycle exploits the themes more obviously suited to Moorcock's burgeoning talents are those with a fantastic dimension. Running simultaneously through LION are the chronicles of KARL THE VIKING. These stories from the Dark Ages are scripted by respected SF author Kenneth Bulmer, while the blonde Norse voyager is exquisitely and authentically illustrated by Don Lawrence - famous for his much-reprinted THE TRIGAN EMPIRE. Karl's world of barbarian adventures, terrible supernatural adversaries and journeys into uncharted continents is an area exactly attuned to Moorcock's preoccupations; and he and Lawrence work together to produce a single Karl picture strip for the 1965 LION ANNUAL, a highly atmospheric GHOST OF THE TIDELESS SEA. It would be intriguing to see further such collaborations, but instead Moorcock and Lawrence initiate a new character for LION.

Introducing the protagonist MAROC THE MIGHTY, the serial THE HAND OF ZAR begins 3rd October 1964 and is set in the time of the Crusades. John Maroc, an outlawed Crusader, gains superhuman strength when he acquires a magic amulet, which he finds many opportunities to use on his long trek home from Africa. The second story - THE RED KNIGHTS OF MORDA, was re-edited into a 1985 EAGLE PICTURE LIBRARY #9, recounting Maroc's Spanish conflict with armoured adversaries led by the evil wizard-like Satana from his subterranean fortress protected by a dinsaurian moat-monster. The fast-action blood-thirsty plot moves well, and the art embellishment is perfectly executed with well observed castles and tournament scenes, although the resolution of each grotesque crisis is rather predictably done by "mighty arms, possessed of giant strength gained from the magic armlet on Moroc's right wrist". Maroc even supports the toppling main pillar of Satana's collapsing stronghold long enough for his allies to escape, before the entire mountain edifice is consumed by the poisonous lake.

The series continued into mid-1966, pitting the Crusader against the Hawkmen, Gigantos, and the Lord of all Evil. The introductory saga is eventually reprinted from 14th November 1970, but by then Moorcock has emerged from his prolific and highly accomplished Fleetway hackdom....

Picture strips based on Moorcockiana continue. Durillet's stunning Melnibone fantasy-scapes, Mal Dean's innovative and iconoclastic International Times JERRY CORNELIUS strip, and Jim Cawthorn's epic visualisations of STORMBRINGER and JEWEL IN THE SKULL in Savoy Books volumes, are all destined to become collector's items, expanding the concept of what "comics' can achieve. But they are novel adaptations, not original scripts.

In retrospect Michael Moorcock sums up his picture strip years by admitting that "doing too much text was always a weakness of mine ...".

## # ##

Meanwhile - in TIMES FIVE, Aldis' greed has been manipulated by the quintapeds allowing him to smuggle a Matter Duplicator back onto the R. A. F. ship, but while escaping with his ill-gotten technology his inept piloting skills result in the machine being jettisoned over the Brazilian rainforest, which have apparently survived into 2062! Discovered there by a disillusioned revolutionary trio led by Antiga Guzman "it did not take the rebels many minutes of experiment to divine its function. They made guns, ammunition. They multiplied dollar bills, but unfortunately these all had the same serial number". Then they duplicate themselves into identical armies which soon besiege South American cities simultaneously, "and as more armies and arms were mass-produced, a great mass of deadly chlorine spread slowly and evilly over the landscape, choking animal life to death, rotting all vegetation, yet not harming the strange "manufactured" men". After exploding the alien spacecraft Jet-Ace Logan descends into "a green and empty world" to locate and destroy the Matter Duplicator, and "as the machine died, so did all its products of evil". Even Aldis shakes Logan's hand in gratitude. "Slowly the Earth soaked back the chlorine that it had been called upon to produce, and the sky became clear and blue ... marred only by the scar of the receding comet...".

- Andrew Darlington

Produced with much gratitude to Mike Butterworth & Dave Britton of SAVOY BOOKS, Steve Holland, Ian Covell, Ron Turner, Frank S Pepper and Michael Moorcock.

Books quoted in the text:-
SOJAN by Michael Moorcock 1977 (Savoy Books ISBN 0-7045-0241-0)
MICHAEL MOORCOCK: DEATH IS NO OBSTACLE by Colin Greenland 1992 (Savoy Books ISBN 0-86130-087-4)
Details from SAVOY, 279 Deansgate, Manchester M34 4EW, England

[Whiskers]

After like 5 years, we've finally hit some paydirt. :-)

[Marca]

Berry I keep meaning to send you the scan of the cover of the single Burroughsania I have. I did try scanning more pages but the pages started to separate from the staples and I didn't want to risk it coming apart altogether. :(

There was a reproduction of the cover of Ergo Ego in the old Savoy/Cawthorn illustrated adaptation of Jewel In The Skull - I used to have this but unfortunately sold it a few years ago at a fairly low point in my life. Now I wish I'd kept it (and a few other MM related items). There was also a reproduction of a Book Collector's News page in Rick Bilyeu's Tanelorn Archives bibliography.