I’m excited for Disney’s John Carter. Some lucky fans got be see a Q & A with director Andrew Stanton hosted by Geoff Butcher of Hero Complex. What I share with director Andrew Stanton is our early love of Edgar Rice Burroughs John Carter began with Marvel comics*. Stanton tells why the pre-teen boy in all of us can relate to John Carter of Mars.
“When you’re 10 or 11 years old, and you’ve discovered girls, but they haven’t discovered you yet, and you’re reading about this ordinary guy that’s suddenly extraordinary on another planet, he’s got the coolest best friend, the coolest pet, and he’s winning the heart of the most beautiful girl in the universe, that’s like a checklist of everything you’ve ever wanted,” Stanton told the audience.
“My gateway drug was the Marvel comics of John Carter,” Stanton said. “My friends were drawing these four-armed creatures with tusks, and I said, ‘What are those?’ And they said, ‘Those are Tharks. This is Tars Tarkas,’ and then they threw the comic book at me. … By the time I was in high school finishing [the books], my girlfriends would call them my romance novels.”
Watch the entire interview here.
The legendary Marv Wolfman and Gil Kane created John Carter: Warlord of Mars back in 1977 for Marvel comics and ran for two years. I remember collecting these along with the Star Wars Marvel comics and my first Uncanny X-Men books.
Marvel is publishing new comics based on Edgar Rice Burroughs tales as prequels and sequels to the upcoming movie.