The second story in Oziana 38 is "Bud and the Red Jinn, or Don't Always Look a Gift Horse Goat in the Mouth" by Jared Davis, with illustrations by Anna-Maria Cool. It seems many of the rulers of the nations outside of Oz get together and discuss matters without involving Ozma, for at the center of this is a get-together between Queen Zixi of Ix and King Bud and Princess Fluff of neighboring Noland. (Technically, it's a birthday party for Zixi, but at her age she doesn't want people to remember just how old she actually is, so she's just calling it the "Queen's Festival.") This is not a surprise, if you are familiar with Queen Zixi of Ix and their cameo in The Road to Oz. But then another guest arrives, Jinnicky the Red Jinn of Ev. Zixi and Fluff start talking about girl stuff, so Bud and Jinnicky go off and talk about their own interests. They get along great, and seem to be really in sync with each other. Good thing, too, because King Bobo of Boboland then shows up, and brings a present for Zixi that could cause some problems, including a possible war between Ix and Boboland! Fortunately, some fast thinking from both Bud and Jinnicky saves the day.
I don't want to go into detail, of course, so that you can discover this story yourself (yes, you can buy this issue), but Davis does a nice job handling the meeting between Baum and Thompson characters and making it work. And it's nice seeing something happening on the Continent of Imagination that doesn't involve half the celebrities from the Emerald City.
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This story came around while I was writing Outsiders from Oz. Editor Marcus Mebes needed another story and asked me to provide one. He already had the cover for the issue and noted that it contained two characters who were not represented in the stories: Bud of Noland and Jinnicky, so while it wasn't a requirement, there were two characters I had to work with.
Having them meet at a celebration for Zixi was a simple way to think of putting the two characters together. We of course needed some plot, so bringing in a low-level antagonist was an answer, and deciding to have a Bobo (who was basically unused since Rinkitink in Oz) who was a little stubborn when met with resistance seemed like a fun idea to use the character. I loved writing the bits with Alibabble. The story was written very quickly.
When Marcus saw how the story was going, he suggested the subtitle. I offered no objections.
I was a little surprised when I heard that none other than Anna-Maria Cool would be illustrating the story. I made two requests about the illustrations. I wanted Zixi to look like how Fredrick Richardson had drawn her rather than John R. Neill's picture in The Road to Oz. Bobo had only a couple pictures by Neill in human form and while writing it, I suddenly imagined the character looking like Alex Price in the Doctor Who episode Vampires in Venice, so a couple pictures of the actor in costume were sent to Anna-Maria for reference.
The story was also incorporated into the first volume of the Royal Explorers of Oz series and it's really my main contribution to the series.
Oh, yeah, thanks for the reminder: I forgot to mention how well I thought the story handled Alibabble, both as a character, and how Jinnicky and Bud managed him. Even though he can be a pompous and officious, he does have Jinnicky's best interests in mind.
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