John Carter of Mars

In 1972 I escaped the fear, confusion and banality of puberty by spending hours on end reading Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter of Mars series.

















I am reminded of this by the passing of Frank Frazetta. My only break from marathon reading sessions was to copy the Frazetta's illustrations on the ERB book covers. I doubt my copies were very good, but drawing them, at 14, did give me the opportunity to obsess over things that I desired, but absolutely didn't have; physical strength and half naked girls.
I also recall being fascinated by Burroughs' use of post-death and astral projection to get John Carter from planet Earth to Mars. Neat trick.

TWELVE years had passed since I had laid the body of my great-uncle, Captain John Carter, of Virginia, away from the sight of men in that strange mausoleum in the old cemetery at Richmond.

Often had I pondered on the odd instructions he had left me governing the construction of his mighty tomb, and especially those parts which directed that he be laid in an open casket and that the ponderous mechanism which controlled the bolts of the vault's huge door be accessible only from the inside.