Bill Hillman's

Weekly Online Fanzine
Volume 350


The Many Worlds of

"The master of imaginative fantasy adventure...
...the creator of Tarzan and...
...the 'grandfather of science-fiction'"

DANTON DORING

"The paintings of Danton Doring were done as tentative ideas for a moving picture script that Bob Clampett and I sold to a producer who had developed a unique and startling method of photographing insects with great clarity and of a quality far surpassing any previously done in that field up to that time."

"At the time Bob and I were working together on the John Carter of Mars animation project, Bob had seen the drawings that I had previously made for a Sunday page adventure strip, based on an idea that had long fascinated me - the concept that at our feet lies a world as wild, as bizarre, as vicious and as beautiful as any heretofore conceived in the wildest dreams of the science fiction writers -- an inconceivably vast world teeming with life and relatively unexplored."

"I had submitted these drawings to five of the largest newspaper syndicates in the country. As I recall, I received answers from all of them asking to see more of my work. Seven more pages were completed in record time, if not in quality. Anyway, one of the largest syndicates almost bought it. I realize now  that my artwork at the time was not good enough. I was without the experience to compete with the older, more talented and established artists."

"The idea and the writing still hold up. Someday I may take another shot at it. As for the motion picture script, it just quietly passed away like so many "good ideas" here in Hollywood, no doubt devoured by some of the insects that the script sought to portray."

"At the time the idea was novel in motion pictures and in comics. When I was younger I would naively worry that my idea would be "stolen". But as I grew older I realized that no story is novel."

"As Tarzan traces his lineage back to the fables of Romulus & Remus, and John Carter was predated by Jules Verne, there will never be another Tarzan of the Apes or John Carter of Mars, so likewise there will never be another Danton Doring. I know him too well, have listened to  him too long, and researched him too much, so I no longer worry about losing my priority in this field."

"Someday I'll write my novel or I shall take Danton Doring's incredible story to the grave with me."

John Coleman Burroughs in a letter to Russ Cochran
Volume 2 ~ ERB Library of Illustration
Copyright 1977