#Thuvia Maid of Mars

[pulpsandcomics2]

Thuvia, Maid of Mars

[chernobog13]

Frank Frazetta's cover for Thuvia, Maid of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs.

[omercifulheaves]

Thuvia, Maid of Mars Art by William Stout

[tomoleary]

Michael Whelan “Thuvia, Maid of Mars” by Edgar Rice Burroughs (1979) Source (Whelan’s Bluesky)

“Detailed pencil study of Thuvia and the 8-legged Martian lion in the pose of the cover painting. In the upper right margin is a delicate line drawing of her face in profile as she turns to look over her shoulder.”

“I had to be careful with Thuvia, as everyone on Barsoom goes nude, and yet full-frontal nudity was unacceptable for the cover. By turning her away from the viewer, I thought I had this problem solved, but Lester Del Rey had me add the G-string. The rest of the painting is in acrylics, but I did that G-string in gouache in case I ever get the urge to wipe it off.”

[geekynerfherder]

'The Banth' by Frank Frazetta.

Interior illustration from the 'Thuvia, Maid Of Mars' / The Chessmen Of Mars' omnibus edition paperback, books 4 and 5 of the 'Barsoom / Mars' series written by Edgar Rice Burroughs, published in 1973 by Nelson Doubleday.

[stone-cold-groove]

Thuvia, Maid of Mars cover illustration - 1969.

[gloriousmonsters]

society if instead of just grabbing the generic rapey villain ball jav had gotten to be thuvia and carthoris' weird third wheel for the rest of the book

[crisisofinfinitemultiverses]

Thuvia, Maid of Mars by Frank Frazetta (1974)

[fear-planet]

Thuvia, Maid of Mars. Art by Michael Whelan.

[pulpsandcomics2]

Thuvia, Maid Of Mars by Gino D'Achille

[chernobog13]

Michael Whelan's cover for Edgar Rice Burroughs' Thuvia, Maid of Mars, the fourth novel in the Barsoom series.

Whelan stated that he originally did not paint any clothes on Thuvia, keeping with Barsoomian tradition. Someone at Del Rey/Ballantine Books (the publisher that commissioned these covers) objected to the nudity. So Whelan used a quick daub of transparent gauche to cover her up. Whelan said the gauche would be easy to remove, if he were inclined to do so, without damaging the rest of the painting.

[spacenoirdetective]

Barsoom art by Robert Abbett

From top to bottom: A Princess of Mars, The Swords of Mars, Llana of Gathol, Thuvia: Maid of Mars

[tomoleary]

J. Allen St. John “Thuvia, Maid of Mars” (1920)

Source

[geekynerfherder]

'Headless Body Moved' by Frank Frazetta.

Interior illustration from the 'Thuvia, Maid Of Mars' / The Chessmen Of Mars' omnibus edition paperback, books 4 and 5 of the 'Barsoom / Mars' series written by Edgar Rice Burroughs, published in 1973 by Nelson Doubleday.

[midnighttraindemo]

thuvia, maid of mars by edgar rice burroughs

first pinnacle books printing, 1953

[gloriousmonsters]

Thuvia scraps >:3

Also Leave No Trace?

Alright! For those who don't know, I am a semi-conflicted fan of the Barsoom series, a pulp sci-fi/planetary romance in the 1910s ->. It has some fascinating/fun ideas and characters I love, but especially as the series goes onward it varies wildly in quality.

One of the greatest victims of quality dips is the first novel not focused on the original main characters--Thuvia, Maid of Mars. Thuvia was a side character with a fascinating premise--she'd been a slave in Barsoom's 'heaven' (actually a multi-era religious scam run by Therns--white supremacists, because you can't even escape those on Mars) for thirtyish years, and clearly had a ton of trauma and knowledge banked up from that, so a book focused on her should have slapped... but aside from a few moments, she's just turned into a bland copy of the original FMC for the duration of her book.

One of my most 'idk if this will ever happen in significant capacity, but I will THINK about it' projects is just. rewriting/writing novels spinning off the ideas of the Barsoom series, and Thuvia's novel is the only one I've written bits of so far. I have a huge fondness for her, and she's such an interesting character to examine religious/emotional/sexual trauma through. speaking of

It's Him, in the shadows.

It can't be. She knows it, but that doesn't banish the specter--no matter how many times she replays the memory in her head, wearing it as thin as old silk. The twitch of the gun in her hand, the twitch of her finger that had depressed the button. His mouth open to say something else, something that she'd never know. The crack of the explosion, the hole it had ripped in His face. The convulsive shudder that worked its way through her body, emerging as the word that had hissed from her mouth. Beast.

Not a god. Gods didn't bleed. Gods didn't die.

But in a way He hadn't died, had He? He was still with her. Every man whose face she couldn't see. Every hand that touched her unexpectedly. Every shout from far away enough to become distorted to her ears. The bed that was too soft, because the nights she shared His bed had been worse than the nights she slept on the floor. The way certain men saw her now--saw her and knew, somehow, or that was how it seemed. The apathy and fear that alternately bound and hobbled her--that bound her now, frozen to the spot, merely staring at the stealthy motion in the shadows. Not screaming, not backing away.

Simply watching for the gleam of yellow hair, the flash of a gem.

leave no trace under the cut because this is long enough already :P

goddd i love this one even though it hasn't quite taken shape enough to devote my attention to. rough blurb

--

It follows Luz Schreiber, a new Girl Scout troop leader who's driving some of her new troop to an event in another state when her car hits some spikes in the middle of the woods, then is fully disabled when she turns her back. There's no reception and nothing around for miles... except, she realizes, an summer camp site that's been abandoned since some lunatic beheaded a kid there decades ago. Still, it's the only shelter available, so they head there to hole up as they try and plan how to outsmart their unseen enemy, which the girls whole-heartedly believe is the killer from the camp, back for revenge.

Luz has enough to deal with, trying to keep them safe as they encounter more traps and near-fatal attacks. She doesn't know how to tell them, or if she should tell them something that might make them scatter, put them all in danger--that she knows their theory is wrong. That she was the lunatic who beheaded someone at camp decades ago.

--

If you're familiar with Sleepaway Camp, yes, this is inspired by Sleepaway Camp, although my Angela-derived character only committed one, semi-accidental murder. If you don't know Sleepaway Camp, the villain is a quiet weird girl named Angela who's revealed to be trans at the end of the movie for shock value, after getting naked with a boy she then kills, presumably, we're supposed to assume, for reacting badly.

The one scene I've written so far, which I'd post except it's 2 pages and i can't excerpt any part neatly lol, is Luz reflecting on her version of that incident--wherein the boy she revealed herself as trans to attempted to drown her in the lake, and she wound up killing him in self-defense. I absolutely love the gimmick I did with it, which is that Luz has his life flash before her eyes as she's drowning instead of her own--as in, she sees how events will unfold, how he'll get away even without jail time and get married and have a good life while she's completely erased from history, and it's deciding no, fuck that that gives her the strength to fight back.