i have a vague idea of how i'm going to go about making my edit of A Princess of Mars. I like John Carter as a concept but the stories are full of severely racist bullshit, because edgar rice burroughs was a racist shitbag. I think changing John Carter to a Buffalo Soldier is a pretty good change for starters.
So much of the early story in the original text is about how carter is from vIrGinNYuh and he's such a super guy that even the fucking slaves on the plantations just adored him. this all has to go. maybe he's helping them escape... the narrator who first meets him as a child before the civil war doesn't see him 'visiting his fathers (plantation) for a few months' but instead spends a few nights under his protection before being taken to the next place of safety on the underground railroad maybe? i gotta play with it a bit
If he's a buffalo soldier he wouldn't be serving in Arizona or whatever, so the location of his transmigration to Mars would have to be moved around a bit, but thats nothing special. He can get into a shootout and hide in a cave any old place. a lot of those regiments were deployed in regions that would become national parks later, so i'll just see if any have any cave systems nearby. Or make one up, who fucking cares.
i have homework to do
i gotta reread the original text too
make a handful of black and white illustrations, maybe paint a cover illustration, then print and bind the whole thing in red. sell digital copies for a buck or whatever, or free, who cares. public domain, baybee