Before I respond to this fanfic post, I happen to be watching "Mysteries of the Universe" on Science Odessy, on PBS. What a show. This is the kind of stuff which makes you realize how you are pretty much ERB material, no matter how smart you thought you were. No profession intimidates me, intellectually, except these physicists. Some of this stuff, relativity, quantum mechanics, and so forth, is just so hard to obtain a complete understanding of which lasts ten minutes after the end of the TV show, that I just shake my head and pick up a Tarzan. Whew. These arguments between Einstein and Bohr about quantum mechanics, where all these physicists would gather together, were just amazing. Einstein lost, too, in this one. What brains these guys had. They're just a different species than I am, I guess. Give me my ERB, and my barbarians any day.

I don't think there is any resolution, good or bad, about fanfic and who we write about. It simply comes down to what any individual likes. Some enjoy the ERB characters so much that they want to bring them to life, and be a part of the process at the same time. This is terrific, for them.

Some of us prefer to keep those characters pure in our minds, as we read in ERB's words, and enjoy new characters, unique, imaginative, and unfettered, for our stories.

I don't see either postion as objectively superior to the other. This is not an objective matter at all, except legally with one trademark. It is purely subjective and personal.

(Now the program is talking about black holes. I'm glad I'm taping this)

I can certainly understand either position; nor do I regard my own position as carved in stone, because our subjective feelings can change. It would take some changing for me, however, to write about an ERB character. However, many obviously love to do it. We're simply different, in this as in undoubtedly numerous other tastes.

I am perhaps less likely to read fanfic about ERB's characters, and certainly about Tarzan, than I would be original stuff; just as many on this list would be less likely to read about an original character than they would fanfic about ERB's characters. This is just a fact of life, and what makes life endlessly interesting, and everyone unique.

People should do what gives them pleasure.

Tarak