This Week's Oz Short Story

The final piece from the 2011 edition of Oziana is "Cryptic Conversations in a Cornfield" by Jeffrey Rester, with illustrations by Luciano Vecchio. This, everybody, is probably the definitive (and certainly lengthy) origin story of the Scarecrow. We see him from inspiration to creation to how he came to life to just moments before Dorothy comes along and I think you all know what happens after that. Yes, we see his purported origin from The Royal Book of Oz incorporated into this story, but that couldn't have happened if the Wicked Witch of the East hadn't had a hand in it first! Yes, it turns out, besides the Tin Woodman, she also has a hand in bringing the Scarecrow to life. It seems Mombi wasn't the only one Dr. Nikidik gave his powder of life to! But the Wicked Witch of the East used it on the Scarecrow before he had a face (thus explaining how he knew what was going on even before he was put on that pole, which was not exactly how it worked in Royal Book). Besides a whole mess of crows, the Scarecrow also gets some advice from the Foolish Owl, and a pair of ravens who may have come out of Norse mythology.

I'll be honest, this one just doesn't work for me. It is really long, for one thing. It needed a couple pages cut out to tighten things up. And it twists itself into pretzels trying to incorporate all known mainstream origins of the Scarecrow into one whole narrative. But in my opinion, the worst part is that there is a crow in it named Jim. Yes, L. Frank Baum (as Laura Bancroft) had a character named Bandit Jim Crow in one of his books, and I believe the inclusion of the character here (spoken of, but never making an appearance) is meant to be the same character. But in this day and age, when the term "Jim Crow" has all kinds of negative connotation, I question the need to include him in this story. In fact, serving in my capacity as a contributing editor to the magazine (albeit uncredited in this issue), I found my notes for this issue and made that same point way back in the day. I also noticed that many other comments I'd made, mostly having to do with typography or grammar, were also not acted on, so I wonder if the editor was even able to incorporate my thoughts.