The other day Leland was geeking out about the upcoming movie based on a series of science fiction books called something like "Jimmy Carter, President of Mars", by William S. Burroughs. When we were kids we were huge fans of those books and used to draw those characters all day. At some point I said something totally self-important like, why am I working for a living when movies like that need production designers to stand around eating craft service and hitting on PA's. After considering that for a second he called me a homo, said that I never could even draw Tars Tarkas right, knocked me down, took my lunch money, and got Lisa Schlavin from 7th grade homeroom on the phone so they could laugh about what a joke my career is. True story.
FYI, Tars Tarkis is not to be confused with Tars An, which is a completely different series of novels by the same author. Tars An is a postmodern story of existential horror, which asks the question: What if a wild man of the jungle had to go around with his whole life being narrated by late-period Phil Collins music, and he hardly ever got to do anything, mostly because Rosie O'Donnel thinks she's funny. Not for the faint of heart.
1 comment:
Ah, the timeless beauty of Tars Tarkas. I think every one of us adolescent sci-fi geeks tried a hand at drawing him, b ut the Thark anatomy has thwarted many of the great fantasy illustrators, so what chance did I have at age eleven?
Rich Corben's Green Men are pretty good, if a bit beefy, but I go with Kenin O'Neill's depiction, seen briefly in THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN Book 2.
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