My life has been crazy busy lately. How busy? I read "Fortune Favors the Wogglebug" by Paul Dana with illustrations by Dennis Anfuso from the 2023 edition of Oziana a couple of weeks ago, but I'm only getting around to writing it up now! It seems the Ozites took the death of L. Frank Baum pretty seriously. Who would tell their stories now? Professor Wogglebug takes possession of the magic telegraph, because Dorothy is sure that she won't use it again, and he's interested in it. The Professor is ruminating about how he would like to have the books written, with a lot more puns (he did manage to sneak a couple of chapters into The Emerald City of Oz), and how the telegraph symbolized that dream for him. Then, much to his surprise, a message comes in over the telegraph, from a writer with the initials RPT who also loves a good pun&ellips;
This is a fun little behind-the-scenes look at how the Oz stories came to be published in our world, and why the tone changed from one author to the next. (I wonder, did the Patchwork Girl correspond with John R. Neill? Who were the sources for the other writers after World War II?) We also get a little look inside the Professor's head.
Only one more story to go in this issue! I'm not quite sure when I'll get to it, but things have eased up a lot, so probably soon.
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