June 9, 2011 3:50 am @SkipSpacer 

1.  Dynamite's WARLORD OF MARS (TM) is not licensed from ERB, Inc. The first 5 Barsoom novels are in the Public Domain.  Although in the public domain, apparently nobody applied for the trademark before them.  It's a different issue than copyright, and that's why ERB's name is not on the cover.

2.  Dark Horse has a license from ERB, Inc. to reprint classic comics based on ERB properties (doesn't matter whether they were published by Dell, Gold Key/Western, or DC or Marvel). We see a similar situation with IDW publishing reprints of Marvel's G.I. JOE and TRANSFORMERS material from the 1980s and 1990s. In the late 1990s Dark Horse also published new material based on ERB properties. 

3.  Presumably Marvel's new association with ERB, Inc. is a result of their being owned by Disney, who are the producers for the licensed movie adaptation (through Pixar) of JOHN CARTER coming in 2012.

Hope that answers all your questions, Skip.

June 8, 2011 12:13 pm Is CONAN an all-ages title? I know, it doesn't matter anymore, since Dark Horse doesn't rate their books. But the spirit of these things is in the blood and guts men's adventure pulp tradition.  I guess it's possible to do watered-down mythology too, it just isn't very interesting to me.

June 8, 2011 12:05 pm I'll probably be skipping this, then. Sounds like a sanitized version. Guess I'll stick with Dynamite. Nothing against all-ages titles, I read plenty of them. I'm a huge fan of anything from Bongo.

June 8, 2011 4:29 am Well, OK, I grant you that NEW YORK FIVE is an exception for Vertigo, but it started out under the now-defunct Minx imprint, and they didn't know where else to put it.

June 8, 2011 4:26 am @Heroville  ICON does not equal VERTIGO. All of Marvel's Icon titles are creator-owned, while some Vertigo titles are creator-owned and some are not.  Presumably, if a creator wanted to create an all-ages title under Icon, he could; while Vertigo is virtually defined by the "Mature Readers" label as well as the subject matter and tone.

June 8, 2011 3:28 am I am planning on dropping all monthly DC titles in September.  Not so much because of the reboot (which "isn't a reboot", according to DC's Bob Wayne in a letter to retailers last week), but because they are dumping 52 monthly ($3.99!) titles into the marketplace ALL AT ONCE!!  Don't get me wrong, I'm sure 20 or 25% of those books will be good, some of them really good.  But it's too rich for my blood.  I'll wait until the dust settles in a year and the bleeding-edgers have sorted out the lot of them, and pick up a few titles in trade collections.

June 8, 2011 2:52 am @Jdudley  

What makes you say this is aimed at kids?  I realize the goofy-looking cover art by Skottie Young (sorry, not a fan) could give that impression, but if the movie is even a slightly faithful adaptation of Burroughs' novel, there's sure to be a lot of bloody violence (swordplay has a tendency to draw blood) and near-nudity.  It was easy for Burroughs to get away with that stuff with a pulp audience. If the movie is an accurate depiction of what Burroughs describes in the books, that stuff BETTER be in there. Have yiur ever seen a Frank Frazetta painting?

June 8, 2011 2:41 am @kennyg  

Quote: It's nice to find a little community of Barsoom fans here! I wish I could find those old 70s comics. I think they were collected as a TPB by Dark Horse this year, but they were probably B&W instead of color.

Dark Horse reprinted both the DC John Carter stories ("Weird Worlds", in color) and the Marvel ones ("Warlord of Mars", in black and white). The latter is a thick tome, similar to DC's Showcase Presents or Marvel's Essentials, while the former is more of a standard trade collection.  Here are the links to the books on Amazon.com:

John Carter of Mars: Weird Worlds

John Carter of Mars: Warlord of Mars

June 7, 2011 7:29 pm Yes, JOHN CARTER: A PRINCESS OF MARS sounds as goofy as WARLORD OF MARS: DEJAH THORIS.

I thought the actual title of the upcoming Disney/Pixar film was JOHN CARTER OF MARS, though?  (Which is actually the title of the last book in the 11-book series ERB wrote, so that's confusing too, if the story is actually based on the first book, A PRINCESS OF MARS.)

If Disney/Pixar isn't using the words A PRINCESS OF MARS in the title, why not call the Marvel book JOHN CARTER, WARLORD OF MARS (it was good enough for Marvel in the 1970s)?  Or is the phrase "Warlord of Mars" trademarked by Dynamite Entertainment now?

June 6, 2011 5:42 pm And BATMAN INC. is only on hiatus while Morrison "works on other projects" (SUPERMAN - or is it ACTION COMICS? - and the previously-announced MULTIVERSITY?)  Volume 2 of BATMAN INC is a 12-issue series coming in 2012.

That just leaves RED ROBIN, then.  No word on Tim Drake yet.