Empire/ERB/Weird Worlds News

Not much to say, but that's okay. So I'll jump in.

First up, for those collectors out there Hasbro is helping celebrate the 30th anniversary of The Empire Strikes Back by releasing the Vintage Collection, a new batch of action figures using the original packaging that Kenner used. From a nostalgic point of view it brings back many memories of those figures and how cool the packaging was. And for another nostalgic piece, here's a TV commercial promoting the Darth Vader carrying case http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DX9TFQlc7UQ. How many of you didn't have this?

Next up and again thanks to Mike for the info, the website io9 has posted a piece on the influence of Edgar Rice Burroughs at http://io9.com/5616081/how-edgar-rice-burroughs-became-one-of-the-twentieth-centurys-biggest-scifi-authors. It's an interesting read and they also announce they will be reviewing the complete 11 books Barsoom series. I will link to those when they come up as well as be revamping my own previous reviews in the upcoming weeks so new reviews might be slim. UPDATE Aug. 21: Well here's the first three updated reviews for A Princess of Mars http://jcomreader.blogspot.com/2009/08/princess-of-mars-or-john-carter-of-mars.html; The Gods of Mars http://jcomreader.blogspot.com/2009/08/gods-of-mars-john-carter-of-mars-book-2.html; and The Warlord of Mars http://jcomreader.blogspot.com/2009/08/warlord-of-mars-john-carter-of-mars.html. I'll follow up the remaining books in a few days.

Finally Dark Horse has posted up their own page for the upcoming John Carter of Mars: Weird Worlds book http://www.darkhorse.com/Books/17-652/John-Carter-of-Mars-Weird-Worlds where you can also pre-order it. Have a great weekend!