The Wonderful Blog of Oz

Happy birthday to me!

2012-01-21T22:06:00.000-08:00

No, I'm not being egocentric here (I hope), I just wanted to thank all of my Oz friends for today's birthday wishes. I also wanted to mention that the newspaper my wife now works for ran a "Happy Birthday" ad for me in yesterday's paper. It's a free service they offer to family members. It had a scarecrow and a balloon. Do they know me pretty well already there or what?

Today's Oz Comic, Movie Crossover Edition

2012-01-16T05:23:00.000-08:00

You know, today's Off the Mark comic could be a useful way to explain how Oz in The Movie was real after all. Or, you can just think of it as a funny crossover with a more recent popular movie...

Today's Weird Ozzy Autocorrect

2012-01-09T17:49:00.000-08:00

Damn You Auto Correct is a site I never thought I'd cite in this blog. But guess what turned up today? (Fortunately, this is one of the much safer for work DYAC posts than others. Don't go trolling around at others if you are a sensitive reader. For that matter, this one may not be quite right for the squeamish...)

Oz Dessert of the Year (So Far)

2012-01-08T06:40:00.001-08:00

I know I've talked about Cake Wrecks here before. That's the site that shows off weird or mishandled or otherwise not-quite-right professionally decorated cakes. And I know I've also had some of Jen's Sunday Sweets here before. So why do I bring this up? Because today's Sunday, and there's a new Oz cake in today's column, that's why. (Good grief, I've been doing this blog long enough, I suspect most of you know what it's about by now, and that I'd include only one hundred percent grade A prime Oz content.) The rest of those cakes are pretty sweet, too, in more ways than one.

Today's Oz Comic

2012-01-02T20:28:00.001-08:00

And we've hit the first Oz comic strip of 2012! Today's Tundra is pretty darned Ozzy, if not necessarily true to the characters. (Note for those of you not looking at it today: Scroll back a few days, clicking on the right arrow, until you hit the comic for January 2. Trust me, you'll know it when you see it. Also, this may not work if you don't have Flash. If I remember, I'll see what I can do about getting another version up later, once it's archived on the Tundra website.)

Many thanks to my Oz friend Sharon for alerting me to this one.

The latest Oz reading

2011-12-27T08:22:00.000-08:00

As promised, I reread The Royal Historian of Oz now that the comic book series has been collected into a graphic novel. Yup, it still works in a collection. In fact, I think it works much better if you can read it all at once (or over a couple of days like I did) instead of having to wait a month for each chapter, as I did when the series first came out (and then had to figure out how to read issue #5 on my computer, delaying the ending even more). The extras are great, too, including a complimentary introduction by Eric Shanower, and David Maxine's interview with writer Tommy Kovac at this year's Winkie Convention (to be sure, I was at that interview, anyway, but having a record of it, in the context of the book, is great). Ah, but perhaps the best part is an excerpt from Jasper Fizzle's Oz novel, Nervous Nelly in Oz. There are an awful lot of current Oz "writers" who need to read this and take it to heart as the way to not write Oz — or just about anything else, for that matter! No wonder the Official Oz Society wanted to stop him from publishing new books!

Today's classic Oz Comic, Political Division

2011-12-26T17:35:00.000-08:00

A local institution is leaving the area. David Horsey has been a political cartoonist for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer for thirty years now, and he's one of the best. Heck, he's won two more Pulitzer Prizes for editorial cartooning than I ever will! But ever since the P-I went to online-only publishing a few years ago, it seems he hasn't put out as much. So perhaps it was inevitable that he would move on, and today he announced on his blog that he was leaving Seattle and heading for a new job at the Los Angeles Times. So, good for him!

But why do I bring this up in an Oz blog? Well, go take a look at his blog and scroll down a bit. I suspect you'll understand why when you see the second cartoon in this look back at his career. I just want to add that Horsey also contributed to one of the more unusual and tangential books in my collection, a 1984 collection of political cartoons about the then-President called, appropriately enough, Reagancomics. As you can see, David Horsey drew the cover.

"Wicked" in Dutch

2011-12-23T08:23:00.001-08:00

It just occurred to me that Wicked has been open in the Netherlands for a few weeks now, and I haven't celebrated by posting highlights of the show! So here's an early Christmas gift:

And it took me the longest time to find one that wasn't just a bunch of still photos put together to a muffled sound recording taken during an actual performance. I really like Chantel Janzen's Galinda during "Popular", she obviously milked that for all she could.

Famous People Go See "Wicked"

2011-12-21T16:24:00.000-08:00

A new series! Number one: Mark Evanier.

UPDATE: It turns out that Mark wasn't the only star there.

The latest Oz movie watching

2011-12-18T11:48:00.000-08:00

With Dorothy of Oz coming out next summer, and Oz: The Great and Powerful following in spring 2013, you'd think there wouldn't be an Oz movie out right now. And you'd be wrong — sort of. I'd heard about The Way and how it was inspired in part by The Wizard of Oz, and thought I'd try to go go see it when I go out to my folks' place for Christmas. However, I found out that it was playing right here in the small farming community I now call home! I was surprised, as I didn't think this small word-of-mouth kid of movie ever played out here. But I was off to see The Way!

First off, I can tell you that is is a good movie, and I really enjoyed it on that level. The story is about Tom (Martin Sheen), a California eye doctor who's not having a good relationship with his adult son, Daniel (played by Sheen's real life son, Emilio Estevez, who also co-wrote the script and directed). When Daniel dies in a small town in France, Tom goes to recover his body, and impulsively decides to undertake the pilgrimage that Daniel had barely started. The Camino de Santiago is eight hundred kilometers from St. Jean Pied de Port, France to Santiago, Spain, and it's not easy to do on your own, so Tom meets up with all kinds of characters along the way, from all over the world. He eventually settles in with Joost from Amsterdam, Sarah from Canada, and Jack from Ireland, and they help each other in more ways than one. It's much more of a character study than a story, and all four of them have their own issues to deal with.

But is it Ozzy? I can honestly say, not really. To be sure, one can draw parallels between Tom's three companions and Dorothy's new friends she met on the way to the Emerald City. They even meet Jack in a hayfield, not very dissimilar to Dorothy's meeting the Scarecrow. But it's not a true parallel to The Wizard of Oz. There is no outright equivalent to the Emerald City, the Wizard, or the Wicked Witch of the West. And the themes and ideas in The Way (and, for that matter, The Wizard of Oz) are universal enough that they don't have to have come from any particular source. In fact, if Estevez hadn't mentioned The Wizard of Oz as an inspiration in interviews, I would probably have never made the connection from just watching the movie. (Of course, if Estevez had never mentioned The Wizard of Oz, I wouldn't have heard about The Way in the first place, and wouldn't have had any special desire to see it.) So as a movie fan, I say go. But as an Oz fan, I can tell you to take a pass if you want to. But I'll be curious to see the extras on the DVD release.

The latest Oz reading

2011-12-11T06:51:00.000-08:00

The comics order came this past week, so you know what that means, don't you? Oz comics! There wasn't a huge lot this month, so I'll be brief:

Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz #3. Yes, Eric and Skottie, usual bang-up job, probably get another Eisner, blah blah blah. But this issue sees the first big change Shanower has made in any of his comic adaptations of the Oz stories, and it's a good one. Dorothy's explanation of Ozma looking in on her, that doesn't take place until the book is nearly over? Here she gives it in the Mangaboo country, which therefore starts a ticking clock of the countdown to when Ozma will spot them and start a rescue. Genius! Oh, and also in this issue, they get to the Valley of Voe. But no encounters with bears yet. (And the cover for issue #4? Wow! That's an aspect of walking on water Baum never considered.)
Fables #111. Yeah, yeah search for the new North Wind is over, yada yada. Meanwhile, back in the Pan Ozian Empire things are really, really NOT looking good for Bufkin the flying monkey. Let's just say this issue ends on a cliffhanger (and if you're paying attention to that cover, you can probably guess what it is). I would wonder how he's going to get out of that, but watching Doctor Who cliffhangers for decades now makes me think there will be a way.
I haven't read it yet, but the collected edition of Tommy Kovac's The Royal Historian of Oz also came, and I am really looking forward to it. Not only does it have all five issues of the comic (including the never-before-published-on-paper chapter 5), it has an introduction by Eric Shanower, an excerpt from one of Jasper's Oz stories (so I guess we really can judge just how bad of an Oz author he is), the common here's-how-I-turn-a-script-into-the-finished-page feature, and a transcript of Tommy's talk at this year's Winkie Convention.

It takes two!

2011-12-07T08:13:00.001-08:00

Hey, my fellow Oz fans, can you spare two dollars? Good! Because the L. Frank Baum/Oz museum in Baum's home town of Chittenango, New York, needs some help to keep its doors open. All they ask for is two dollars from as many people as possible. So, not only will I be sending in my two dollars soon, I'm also passing the word along. Here's the web page with all the information. Send in your two dollars, then pass the word along!

The latest Oz reading

2011-12-07T06:12:00.000-08:00

I finally got around to reading Victor Fleming: An American Movie Master over the past few weeks. Yes, my non-reading life has been busy, and this is one big book. But that's fitting for a larger-than-life subject like Fleming. Of course I knew he directed Gone with the Wind and some other movie that also came out that same year, but this book really put that in perspective, and 1939 was just a small part of his career. He started off as a cameraman and cinematographer in the very early days of Hollywood, then was drafted into the army during World War I. He pioneered the use of film in gathering intelligence, then was selected to be Woodrow Wilson's cameraman during the Paris peace talks. After returning to civilian life, he returned to Hollywood and became a director, where he worked with some of the biggest stars of the silent era. Transitioning to sound, he continued to crank out all kinds of films, never becoming pigeonholed in one genre like so many others. He inspired Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, and Gary Cooper in developing their screen images. He was also extremely popular with his leading ladies, having love affairs with Clara Bow, Bessie Love, and Ingrid Bergman, among others. He was also MGM's most successful director in the '30s, having hits with Captains Courageous, Test Pilot, Treasure Island, and Bombshell, among others, and made uncredited contributions to The Great Waltz. Yet in his afterword, author Michael Sragow claims that Fleming is all but forgotten because he died in 1949, before the general public became enthralled with movie nostalgia and celebrated those early film pioneers who were still alive at the time. Surprisingly, this is the first book-length study of Fleming's life and career, whereas two other directors on The Wizard of Oz, George Cukor and King Vidor, have had several books written about them.

In case you haven't already figured out my reaction, I found this a fascinating read, and I'm just sorry that I didn't have more time to devote to it. Having said that, however, I wouldn't necessarily recommend it to Oz fans, just because there's not a lot of Oz content in it, as the making of The Wizard of Oz is only one chapter. And a lot of that material will already be familiar to many Ozmologists. However, if you're interested in how Oz fit into Fleming's career as a whole, or are just interested in Hollywood history, or his pioneering work as a military cameraman and his role in the peace talks, I heartily recommend this book.

Today's Oz Comic

2011-11-27T05:57:00.000-08:00

It has been a long, long time since I remember seeing an Oz reference in Heart of the City. And that's too bad, as it was that strip that really got me going on collecting Oz references in comic strips, what with Heart playing the Wicked Witch of the West in the local production, and Mark Tatulli's wonderful homage to W. W. Denslow in one of his early Sunday strips. But in today's strip, that all changes. Yeah, simple and cliché, but it's a great piece of art!

It Pays to Know Your Oz!

2011-11-19T17:00:00.001-08:00

If you ever go on a game show, it's always a good idea to refresh your memories of Oz. All those Oz clues from Jeopardy! make a good case, and then there's this clip from a 1988 edition of Wheel of Fortune:

Today's Oz comics

2011-11-19T09:51:00.000-08:00

A double dip today! Not only has Sherman's Lagoon appeared to have wrapped up their production of The Wizard of Oz, but there's also a lot of Oz in today's Mother Goose and Grimm*. I've just gotta ask about today's Grimmy: Is that Munchkin being played by Mr. Magoo?

*(If you are not viewing this comic on November 19, you'll have to click on that arrow to the left of it and go back in time until you hit November 19. Trust me, you'll know it when you see it. Or, if it's no longer available that way, try the search box on Mike Peters' website. The results not only include several old Mother Goose and Grimm strips, but several of his editorial cartoons as well.)

Today's ongoing Oz comic strip storyline

2011-11-12T15:54:00.000-08:00

My wonderful, thoughtful, beautiful, talented, and smart sister-in-law (and hey, guys, she's single!) spotted this edition of Sherman's Lagoon the other day. It seems the gang there will be putting on The Wizard of Oz, and it's already developing into an ongoing storyline. So go ahead and click on the little "Next Cartoon" link and we'll all see where this leads. The next day's strip was show-related but not Ozzy, but today's strip is Ozzy again. This is not a strip I usually follow, so thanks for the heads up there!

Today's Oz Comic

2011-11-12T08:59:00.000-08:00

I have a wonderful mother-in-law, who has been very good to me and my wife. So I must take umbrage at the continued slam against mothers-in-law, as typified by today's edition of The Born Loser. However, it does make for a pretty good Oz joke...

The latest Oz reading

2011-11-12T06:19:00.000-08:00

I'd been hearing about The Legend of Oz: The Wicked West for some time now. The publishers had been putting up lots of art to publicize the series, and it looks really good. So I was surprised at my disappointment at the first issue, which came in the latest batch of comics. But I suppose it was inevitable, as this is a set-up issue, and not a lot happens yet. However, what does happen is interesting. Dorothy keeps having nightmares about the tornado that brought her and her horse, Toto (!) to this strange land three years ago (!!), and she's beginning to accept that she may be there to stay. But they keep finding gold bricks [it's a yellow brick road, people, not gold!!!], getting closer to the wizard who's supposed to be able to help her. She comes to a saloon and gets involved in a gunfight with some desperadoes that turn out to be flying monkeys in disguise (!!!), and has an encounter with a skeptical lawman and a lion.

Despite my disappointment, I'm intrigued enough to want to see where this is going, and it's likely that future issues will pay off with all kinds of answers, such as those ruby spurs on Dorothy's boots. And the art is still gorgeous!

Speaking of Fables...

2011-11-11T14:46:00.000-08:00

Speaking of Fables, as I was the other day, Blastr (the news/opinion/weird stuff website affiliated with the SyFy channel) had a post today about an artist creating teaser posters for a not-really-existing Fables movie. Of course, the Oz bits were represented by Bufkin, everyone's favorite flying monkey. Go ahead, though, check them all out.

Oh, and in real movie news, Dorothy of Oz now has a release date, of August 3, 2012. Woo-hoo!

Today's Oz Comic

2011-11-11T05:51:00.000-08:00

Ah, an old idea, with a new twist behind it, in today's Strange Brew.

The latest Oz reading

2011-11-10T05:05:00.001-08:00

The comics order came this week! Which means Oz comics! And lots of exclamation points! So let's dive right in!

Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz #2. If you're a regular reader of my blog, you probably know of my love for anything Eric and Skottie do. So yes, they do a great job again. This issue covers the Wizard's arrival in the land of the Mangaboos to the Wizard catching a fish for Eureka. And yes, the nine tiny piglets make their debut (but I've got to wonder about the nine identical little red top hats).
Fables #110. The search for the new North Wind continues, and Mrs. Sprat continues her training. There, now that those non-Oz storylines are out of the way, let's get to the real action! It seems the Nome King's grip on Oz is slipping. Not only has the little band of rebels picked up some new allies (notably Mr. Yoop, who doesn't seem to quite have the appetite for eating all the prisoners he's being asked to eat), but the Nomes and the Kalidahs are also expressing their reservations about what's happening. But Blufkin has a more immediate problem to deal with, as someone who's been out to get him succeeds, and kidnaps him.

I've got at least one more Oz comic in the current order, and it looks like a really good one...but it will have to wait a bit before I can tell you more.

The latest Oz reading

2011-11-09T13:20:00.000-08:00

This is going to be a difficult book for me to review, because I've known Robin Hess, author of L. Frank Baum and the Perfect Murder, for most of my life now, and a pretty good chunk of his as well (and he's not shy about mentioning that he's now in his eighties). Robin and I even roomed together one year at Winkies when neither of our wives could come. So I may be a little more willing to forgive some of the little errors that creep into self-published books like this, and I'll just mention a handful in passing: One major character's hair changes from brown to black, the dates of the first two bits of prologue have the evidence discovered several months before the actual murder is committed, the chapter numbering gets all pear-shaped at one point, and L. Frank Baum's wife's maiden name is given as Gauge, not Gage. There are a few other little errors in spelling, grammar, punctuation, that sort of thing, also.

Now that that's out of the way, I can tell you about the story itself. This is a fun little mystery story set in the latter years of the nineteenth century. Young L. Frank Baum is a struggling actor and budding journalist living in New York City. He stumbles across something of a mystery in his new roommate, a foundling who lived on the streets before breaking into the theater. Could Willie be a missing heir whose parents were murdered fourteen years ago? It's a tightly plotted and well-woven story, with all kinds of intrigue, and Frank turns out to be a pretty good detective. I won't give away too much, of course, but I, for one, enjoyed it. It reminded me of many of the Mary Louise books that Baum wrote as Edith Van Dyne, or some of his other mysteries. True, there are a few cases of wild coincidence, but that's the sort of thing one expects in stories like this. However, the Oz content is pretty slight. This is set long before Frank ever dreamed he'd make his fortune as a writer of fiction, let alone Royal Historian of Oz, but there are a few allusions, and hints of things to come. But strictly speaking, it's not an Oz book, merely a curiosity. Frank didn't have to be L. Frank Baum; he could have been any character. (While Frank's background in the story is more or less accurate, the story itself, and much of what Frank does in it, is wholly made up.) So while I do recommend this book (if only to support an old friend — but that's not the only reason for the recommendation!), I'll understand if your Oz book-buying funds are limited, and you'd rather focus on getting something Ozzier. And to be honest, I think Robin would, too.

Oz in Jeopardy!

2011-11-05T16:10:00.000-07:00

We've got a double dose for you today! First off, on last Wednesday's show, which was the first quarterfinal match of this year's Tournament of Champions, one of the categories in the first round was Little People in Lit. This is clearly a slam dunk category for an Oz clue, and sure enough, there was one under the $600 card — but not what I was expecting!

Jay, an oncologist who was at the center lectern (and who'd won $107,203 in his previous five wins on the show) rang in first and quickly responded with, "What are nomes?" Nope, not a single Munchkin in the category! Sadly, Jay did not go on to win, but his score was good enough that he's likely to appear in the semifinals next week as a wild card.

And just yesterday, my Jeopardy! desk calendar had an old clue from way back in 2007 as the clue. Interestingly, the clue was originally worth $400 in the Jeopardy! round. This time around, it was a $1200 Double Jeopardy! clue. So I guess the writers of the calendar are not always sticking to the original games and values.

The Wizard in Iceland!

2011-11-03T17:08:00.000-07:00

The Reykjavik City Theater, in the capital of Iceland, is currently putting on their production of The Wizard of Oz. I just wanted to share the video:

All I want to add is that their interpretation of the Munchkins is adorable!

Today's Oz Comics

2011-11-02T05:27:00.001-07:00

It appears that the Scarecrow needs a little "me time" in today's Rubes. Then, today's Dork Tower, of all things, references Alan Moore's latter-day very adult version of Dorothy and Oz in the last panel.

A handful of Oz visitors tonight

2011-10-31T21:35:00.000-07:00

We had well over eight hundred trick-or-treaters visit us tonight (we're in that popular of a neighborhood), and possibly even more than nine hundred. Of those, we had three Dorothys, one of which was accompanied by a Wicked Witch of the West and a Glinda. I gave the Oz costumes two pieces of candy each.

Next year, I am seriously buying about a dozen copies of the Dover Thrift edition of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and giving a copy to anyone wearing an Oz costume.

Halloweenie Oz TV alert!

2011-10-31T06:44:00.000-07:00

I'm sorry I didn't mention this here sooner! Today, as a Halloween treat, The Talk over on CBS has a special Wizard of Oz-themed episode, with costumes. Here's a preview video. And yes, my TiVo is fired up. If you miss it, I suspect it will be online for a few days.

It was probably inevitable...

2011-10-29T11:29:00.000-07:00

Presented to you with no further comment...

The latest Oz reading

2011-10-28T21:05:00.000-07:00

Two more items of Ozzy interest that I just wrapped up today:

Moment of Desire by Rachel Cosgrove Payes. When I decided to set out on this little project to collect and read as many of Rachel's writings as I could, I knew I'd run into books like this. Wow, what a page turner! It's a sprawling historical romance, and since it was published by Playboy, you know it's going to be spicy! However, since it also came out in 1978, it's pretty tame in comparison to most of today's romance books. It's the early years of the 18th century, and Lady Melusina Hilton is living a privileged life at the court of King George. However, her mother manages to upset the King's mistress, and gets themselves thrown out. Mellie leads a real roller coaster of a life, plunging to the deepest of depths before rising again, only to find herself in a marriage of convenience to the gay son of an earl. This is not going as well as the plot of her favorite French romance novels, as Mellie points out more than once! Of course there's a happy ending, but the road there is definitely via the scenic route. I'll admit, I was sucked in, dying to see what twist Rachel would throw in next and how Mellie would get out of it. More, please! (Oh, right, I have a whole stack of Rachel's books to read in the coming months.)
Oziana #38. New Oziana editor Marcus Mébès appears to be trying to do for the Oz Club's fiction magazine what Scott Cummings has done for the Bugle lately: Get it out on time, and make it good to boot. This would have been the 2008 issue if all had gone well. Publishing it through Lulu is a stroke of genius, as the Club doesn't have to commit to a particular number of issues, or store them. But to the issue itself, this one is a real treat. With stories about the Sea Fairies and a cruise on the Crescent Moon, this would have been great to have on hand at this year's Winkie Convention. And of further interest is the interconnectedness of some of the stories. The events of "Executive Decisions" by David Tai lead to an encounter in "Thy Fearful Symmetry" by Jeffrey Rester. Also, Prince Bobo's faux pas in "Bud and the Red Jinn" by Jared Davis is touched upon in "The Bashful Baker's Honeymoon" by Mébès. This is unusual for Oziana, but it was a nice touch. I've always felt that Oz was ripe for sort stories, but other than The Little Wizard Stories of Oz and Eric Shanower's The Salt Sorcerer of Oz, there doesn't seem to be much of a market for them other than Oziana. So it's good to see the magazine in good hands. Besides this issue from Lulu, many other issues are currently available from Marcus (I hope to have ordering details up soon), and I know there will also be a 2011 issue coming soon...

Today's Oz Comic

2011-10-27T05:21:00.000-07:00

Well, at least I'm reasonably certain that today's Strange Brew is Ozzy, but with the way things are this time of year, it may just be autumn/Halloween topical. Still, I'd expect the next line to be, "...The Witch is dead."

Today's Oz comic, editorial division

2011-10-24T18:46:00.000-07:00

Remember last week's release of a bunch of exotic animals in Ohio? When I heard the list of some of the animals running around the countryside, something like this became inevitable!

A mostly non-Oz post

2011-10-23T08:20:00.000-07:00

I hope you can all indulge me for a bit in a post that is mostly not about Oz, but it does have an effect on my Ozziness and some of my online Oz activities, so I think I'm justified. My computer died. It's no shock, it's nearly eight years old and I've been trying to baby it through the last legs of its existence, and Laura and I were already planning to save up for a new one. But the other night I tried to turn it on and it gave me a "You need to restart" message. Well, every time I did that I got the same message. So I think it's fair to say that it's dead. But the good news? I was at my parents' place when it happened, and they had a solution. My dad recently got a new computer, and while he and Mom were planning for her to take over his old computer, she was reluctant to let her old one go, and so they decided that I could have Dad's old computer. It's not that much newer than mine, but it does have a newer processor that can handle a lot more stuff. I've already made some major software upgrades, and now I can watch online videos (and found Hello Kitty in The Wizard of Paws online!) and do all kinds of other things I never could before. I'm also seeing a whole lot less of the spinning beach ball (that's the Mac equivalent of the hourglass, for Windows users out there). The biggest drawback is that I can't configure my e-mail program until I get home, and all of my files are on the old computer. So I'm going to have some troubles for a while, until I can deal with those, and I'll likely have to take my old computer to a shop to get my old files off. The non-wiki bits of the website may not get updated much for a while (and this may spur me on to putting more of my website into wiki format).

So, to sum up, it sucks that it happened, but it at least chose a great time and place to do so. And I think, in the long run, this is going to be a win-win-win situation for everyone.

But I think I still want a new computer...

The latest Oz reading

2011-10-19T09:06:00.000-07:00

More! Yes, more Oz and quasi-Oz and pseudo-Oz and Ozzish books! Here's the wrap-up of the latest:

My classic re-read was The Hidden Prince of Oz by Gina Wickwar. This was published by the Oz Club in 2000 to celebrate the Oz Centennial, and it's clear to see why this won the contest. It's a rip-roaring, very Ozzy treat, with all kinds of great new characters — and that's one of the biggest problems. There are too many characters, and it's hard to keep track of them all, particularly when the three or four main plot threads, and the associated groups of characters, all meet up and join forces. Still, the plot is tight and holds together very well, and all ends satisfactorily. Special kudos for Anna-Maris Cool's illustrations. Her style reminds me of, surprisingly, Frank Kramer, if Kramer knew his Oz better and didn't have some of the weaknesses he's been criticized for. But Cool very much has her own style, while still keeping all of the old familiar characters looking like we know them. One observation, however: Princess Vitrea, in her traveling clothes, looks like she wandered in from an '80s music video. She's still lovely, however.
My old "Baum" story this time around was Mary Louise at Dorfield by "Edith Van Dyne". This was actually the first book where "Edith Van Dyne" wasn't L. Frank Baum; it's Emma Speed Sampson's first stab at it, and it shows! A lot of the characterizations are just off. Josie O'Gorman, who under Baum was the cool, logical girl detective, talks about her instincts and superstitions, and how they've always helped her. And wheelchair-bound Irene MacFarland, who's never let her handicap stand in the way of her accomplishments or esteem before, is now jealous of all of her able-bodied friends and what they can do, and worries what kind of life she can lead. I wasn't impressed. But the big problem with this book is that Mary Louise is barely in it! And the book is supposed to be about her wedding, no less. No, this is the first Mary Louise book in which Josie O'Gorman is the main character, unintended thought that may be. Since the last book, Josie's father has died, and so being on her own and the old house in Washington having too many memories of her father in it, Josie decides to settle in Dorfield. (This makes sense, as she's been to Dorfield in every book in the series so far anyway!) There, she decided to open a shop with one of Mary Louise's friends, Elizabeth Wright, and still be a detective in secret on the side. And what a case she's found in this one — and they've targeted Mary Louise's wedding!
Two more Oz comics. The first is Grimm Fairy Tales Presents The Library #2. Sela manages to escape from the book of dinosaurs she was trapped in at the end of last issue, but a Tyrannosaurus Rex follows her out. Good thing her brother, Thomas, landed in a book of Greek myths, because when he escapes, Hercules comes with him. So, yes, there's a battle between Herculese and a T. Rex! How awesome is that? Also, from out of a Western come some villains, and a good guy who uses a snake like a whip! (More awesomeness!) Finally, just as everyone's catching their breath and trying to figure out what's going on, here come Flying Monkeys! Yup, the Oz content finally enters our story, and the cliffhanger is the Wicked Witch of the West looming over Sela and asking about a key. (What key? Ah, there are three more issues to find out!) My biggest gripe is that this Wicked Witch has two eyes, green skin, and dresses in black. Yup, she's MGM movie based. Couldn't they have used Denslow's version, or one from any other illustrated edition? Still, I doubt the average comics reader would know who she was if she didn't look like Maggie...
And finally, issue #178 of the Knights of the Dinner Table Magazine. It has an Oz cover, so we ordered it. Turns out that was the only Ozzy thing. Oh, well, it still looks good.

That's it for this month's comics order, but I still have some more books in my pile, and I'll tell you about them once I finish reading them.

Even more Oz reading!

2011-10-16T16:07:00.000-07:00

Wow, amongst everything else (both Oz and otherwise), I forgot to mention here that I got the latest issue of The Baum Bugle a couple of weeks ago. Surprisingly, it took me about a week to read it (normally I tear through it in a matter of hours), just because I have so many other things going on right now. So, if you want to know what's in the latest issue, go on over to my website's news page.

(Is this the first time I've put up four blog posts in one day? At least it doesn't look terribly likely that there will be a fifth today!)

A Halloween appeal

2011-10-16T13:56:00.000-07:00

I'll be brief: I'm trick or treating for UNICEF online, through my website. If you can spare a dollar or two (or five or ten), here's my donation page. Feel free to spread the word!

Oz in Jeopardy!

2011-10-16T13:39:00.000-07:00

I wasn't expecting another Oz clue so quickly after last Friday's show (as I blogged about earlier), but sure enough, another one popped up on last Monday's episode, and in one of the most unlikely categories I could imagine. This was a fun one: Adjectives of The Young and the Restless. A couple of actors from Y&R would start a typical soap opera scene, then stop themselves in the middle, turn to the camera, and give a clue about the adjective they were just about to say. So, the final clue on the board, for $1000, was:

[Him]: "Dear God. You manipulate everyone around you just like a marionette. You are downright..."

Joon, still the defending champion from the previous episode, rang in first and quite rightfully responded, "What is wicked?" (Or, if you prefer, "What is Wicked?") Again, Joon went on to dominate the game and win in a runaway.

The successful hunt for an Oz-inspired story

2011-10-16T06:57:00.000-07:00

D'oh! There was one more component to my Oz reading post yesterday that I forgot about. However, there's enough interesting background to it to make an interesting post on its own, so here it is. Many many many years ago, on some Oz mailing list I was on at the time, someone remembered a short story by Zenna Henderson in which the magic word in The Magic of Oz really worked, in the real world, and the resulting consequences. I saved the e-mail, thinking I might track it down some day. Well, some day came this summer, as I finally dug through my e-mail archives and found the note. So I decided to do a little research. The original poster thought the story was in Henderson's collection The Anything Box, so I figured I'd start there. My local library system didn't have the book, of course, but they have a great interlibrary loan department, and put in my request. Sure enough, they found one pretty easily, and I dug in, reading one story each day. Henderson is a fascinating writer, whose themes often involve childhood wonder and the innocent acceptance of everything around them, even things like, say, classmates from another planet. As she was a lifelong resident of Arizona, many of Henderson's stories are set in the southwest, and often the protagonist, or at least the narrator, is a teacher. I enjoyed reading The Anything Box, but there was no Oz story in it. Hmm, okay, so the original poster got it wrong. It happens. I did a little more research on Henderson's career, and found another promising collection of short stories, Holding Wonder. Yup, interlibrary loan found that, too.

Again, I read a story a day...and then my ears perked up about halfway through "The Believing Child". Sure enough, the first grade teacher who's relating the tale starts reading the Oz books to her students, and Dimsey, the title character who really, truly believes in anything you tell her, not only believes in the power of "Pyrzqxgl" to enact transformations, she learns how to pronounce it correctly! (By the description of its pronunciation in the story, I think we regular folks are quite safe reading The Magic of Oz out loud.) So them Dimsey uses the word on the two class bullies...

If you want to read it, there's your local library, of course, and used copies of Holding Wonder are out there, but some can be pretty pricey. I can now add Holding Wonder to the list of books I want to add to my collection. If you really want to go to extremes, the story first appeared in the June 1970 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. It's definitely a fun, yet slightly chilling, read.

The latest Oz reading

2011-10-15T11:42:00.000-07:00

Not only have I entered into another cycle of Oz reading, but the comics order also arrived — and there are a lot of Oz comics! So, let's jump right in.

First, my latest Oz-quisition that I told you about recently, L. Frank Baum's The Uplift of Lucifer. This was, essentially, a skit he wrote for a bunch of buddies in the Los Angeles Athletic Club, which he joined not long after moving to Hollywood in 1911. Within the LAAC, a group of members formed The Uplifters, and they pretty much did whatever they felt like, I gather, including putting on little shows for the rest of the Club. It's a slight little thing, with lots of in-jokes of the times (as this was right before Prohibition, naturally there are quite a few references to the Women's Christian Temperance Union, which was spearheading the campaign, just to give one example), as well as some aimed right at the LAAC and the Uplifters themselves. I don't recommend just anyone hunt this down and read it, but Baum completists will get a kick out of it. I'd love to see this reprinted, with more background about Baum and the Uplifters, and with annotations.
Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz #1. It's Eric Shanower and Skottie Young, do I need to say more? This issue covers from Dorothy's arrival at Hugson's Siding to Zeb's and her spotting the Wizard in his balloon over the Mangaboo's glass city. I've heard Eric took a few more liberties with the storyline than usual, and the first big difference shows up here: Dorothy doesn't faint as the buggy is plunging through the hole. That's something that's always bugged me about the book, particularly Zeb not fainting because he's a boy. Sheesh! Oh, and for some odd reason, Eric Shanower's variant cover features Neill's version of Dorothy, not Young's.
A new comic series with an Ozzy bent started up, and issues 1 and 2 of Grimm Fairy Tales Presents The Library both arrived in our order. I've read #1 so far, which doesn't have any Oz content, but I gather that changes down the road. Our heroine, Sela, and her younger brother are wandering around a condemned library, when they encounter an old spell book that zaps them into some of the other books. Sounds promising, doesn't it?
Fables #109 gets back to what's been happening in Oz, with Jack, the Sawhorse, Bungle, and Blufkin still on the run from the Nome King's troops. It also appears that Ozma will have a hand in deciding who the new North Wind will be!
And there was a surprise Oz reference in Young Justince #8, which shows us what Artemis was doing during the team's fight with Amazo in one episode, and how she was recruited to join the team. It seems she's a fan of Alice in Wonderland, and refers to Superboy as the White Rabbit she's following into her version of Wonderland. However, as that leads her into a battle with a bunch of Professor Ivo's flying robot monkeys, she adds, "...maybe I landed in Oz!"

Well, that's about it for now, but I've got at least two more Oz comics and I'm in the middle of two different books right now, so there will be more updates coming soon, I'm sure.

"But will it play in Peoria?"

2011-10-12T07:53:00.000-07:00

You know that old show business question with which I've entitled this post? Well, I just observed that as of tonight, in regards to Wicked, the answer to that question is "Yes!"

Today's Oz hacked road sign

2011-10-12T07:37:00.000-07:00

I don't think I ever imagined that for a post title when I started this blog! But it's true. Today, Blastr had pictures of a bunch of funny hacked road signs (in case you're not sure what that is, relax, the article will explain, and the pictures are pretty self evident). The last one is of particular interest to you, me, and famous slipper-wearing little Kansas girls.

Oz in Jeopardy!

2011-10-09T13:00:00.000-07:00

They took their time this season, but the first Oz clue of Jeopardy's twenty-eighth (!) season popped up on Friday's show. In the category Name Calling, returning champion Joon uncovered this clue at the top of the column, for $200:

Joon jumped in first and correctly responded with, "What is Munchkin"? And note that the clue says the Munchkins live in the east of Oz! Someone was doing their literary research. Oh, yeah, and Joon went on to totally dominate the game again and win easily. It also appears that my local station is now showing Jeopardy! in widescreen.

Coincidentally, my Jeopardy! desk calendar also had an Oz clue that day. I knew it sounded vaguely familiar, and looked back through my blog's archive. Sure enough, it was on the show back in 2007, and I blogged it here (the first clue, in Crossword Clues "G", not the second one about the old Oz series on HBO).

A couple of thoughts

2011-09-29T15:32:00.000-07:00

I've been rereading Queen Zixi of Ix today for a special project I'm working on, and two thoughts occurred to me just reading Chapter 1:

1) Here's a quote from the book about the manufacture of the cloak:

The garment was as beautiful as it was marvelous--each and every hue of the rainbow glinted and sparkled from the soft folds; and while it was light in weight as swan's down, its strength was so great that the fabric was well-nigh indestructible.

If it's nigh indestructible, how could it be cut up later in the book?

2) We learn that Ereol is the fairy guardian of the old King of Nole. Who, then, are the guardian fairies of the other characters in the book, and why don't they intercede as the events unfold?

[EDIT: Here are some comments from Ruth Berman, who is great at thinking about these sorts of things, and has been doing it for a lot longer than I have:

I think "indestructible" has to be taken as reading "indestructible under conditions of normal wear," i.e., it'll never wear out. (And maybe inflammable?) But not meaning uncuttable. (How about untearable? -- I'd guess probably yes. And you probably could't pull the "Superman Comcs" trick of unraveling and re-weaving the threads, because the spell was put on it by the fairies' original weaving, so I'd imagine that undoing the weaving would undo the spell.)

Why guardian fairies other than Ereol for the King didn't help the other characters -- maybe they did unseen? Or possibly we should imagine that the fairies keep general watch over humans, but don't assign specific fairies to specific humans except for humans who affect whole countries'-worth of other humans, as kings do.

Ruth

Hmm, okay. Food for thought. And thanks for the other comments, everyone.]

Today's Oz Comic

2011-09-25T05:19:00.000-07:00

Well, now, today's Brevity gives us a nice Twilight Zone-y twist ending to The Movie...

The Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz comic is coming soon!

2011-09-24T17:50:00.000-07:00

Hey, kids, want to read an interview with Eric Shanower and Skottie Young on their latest Oz comic book adaptation? I thought you might! It's over at Newsarama. Lots of interesting revelations about what's to come, and the mention that they're going to get to work on The Road to Oz soon. Three words about that: Skottie Young's Scoodlers!

Surprise Oz in the comics

2011-09-22T21:29:00.000-07:00

It turns out that Fables wasn't the only Ozzish appearance in this month's comics order. Power Girl #27 has a villain giving Karen a choice of three crises to solve, and only one minute to do it, so she can only pick one — or so the bad guy thinks! She may not be the Flash, but PG has speed, and is able to not only take care of all three, she also solves a couple of other problems along the way. But the first place she goes is Brazil to save a friend who's been kidnapped. Now, they could have used just about anyone they wanted to, but who did the writers choose? Cyclone! So my favorite Oz-themed superheroine gets one last hurrah before the entire DC Universe resets itself. Sadly, no word yet on the fate of the JSA or Cyclone in the DCnU, but I hope they show up in some form.

A Litte Request

2011-09-22T14:27:00.000-07:00

Hey, are any of you, my faithful readers, planning to be at the Autumn at Oz Party at the site of the old Wizard of Oz theme park on Beech Mountain in North Carolina? I've got a little proposition for you! Drop me a line (go ahead and leave a comment, or e-mail me if you know my address), and I'll give you the details.

A Fables Follow-Up

2011-09-13T13:31:00.000-07:00

Wow, for a day that didn't look like it would be at all Ozzy, I'm getting a lot of stuff up today! It turns out that that Fables piece I posted earlier isn't the only Fables giveaway from San Diego. They've given away one page stories every year since 2007 (except 2010, when it was a souvenir scarf instead). And it turns out that the 2009 giveaway is particularly interesting, in that it not only features Ozma, but also ties into the events of the issue I just read! So, here's the prequel to Fables #108 (although not, it turns out, the Oz storyline).

Thanks again to David Tai for the heads up on all this extra Fables goodness.

The Latest Oz Acquisitions

2011-09-13T11:52:00.000-07:00

I've picked up a few things recently, and thought I'd share:

First, the comics order came. The only Oz comic was Fables #108 — and this time it really is an Oz comic, at least in part. There are a whole bunch of storylines going on right now, but for this overview, I'll skip the ones about Rose Red returning to the Farm to see what's been happening there (not much, yet), the death of the North Wind and the attempt to find a successor, and Mrs. Spratt's warrior training. In the Restored Pan-Ozian Empire (ruled over with an iron fist by Roquat the Red), Blufkin the No-Longer-Flying Monkey is trying to get Jack Pumpkinhead, the Sawhorse, and Bugle across the desert and back into Oz. The good news is that there are now roads across the desert. The bad news is that they are heavily guarded, and travelers need passes. It's going to take all of Blufkin's wiles to handle this!
The Witches of Oz. Thanks to my latest bit of credit from Amazon.co.uk and owning a multi-format region-free DVD player, I snagged the DVD of the miniseries version of this story (I gather there will be an American movie release of this in the not-too-distant future). So far, I'm impressed with the background of this version of Oz, as I think the producers tapped into the rest of the books. Hey, when the first character mentioned is Bini Aru, you know someone's paying attention. I hope to get a chance to sit down and really watch this before too long.
And finally, there's a story behind my latest acquisition. I found out about The Uplift of Lucifer from reading The Book Collector's Guide to L. Frank Baum and Oz by Paul Bienvenue (I talked about that book in a recent post). This was a privately printed publication of one of L. Frank Baum's skits for the Uplifters Club, which he belonged to when he was living in Hollywood. From what I gather, Manuel Weltman published only five hundred copies, and gave them to any Oz or Baum enthusiasts who were interested. I'd heard of the story, but hadn't realized it had been published until I read Paul's book. So I idly poked around on the web to see if any copies were available — and more importantly, affordable. Sure enough, they are both. But one copy in particular caught my attention. It wasn't the cheapest out there, but it was still not too bad, considering it was the personal copy of one of my heroes, Martin Gardner. Gardner was one of the sixteen founding members of the International Wizard of Oz Club, wrote many essays and introductions about Oz, wrote The Annotated Alice, and his mathematics column in Scientific American helped to popularize mathematics for everybody. This edition has a postcard from Weltman to Gardner, and Gardner's own annotations. I hemmed and hawed and talked to Laura, and she said, "I'm surprised you haven't bought it already." So I punched a bunch of buttons on my computer, and a few days later it arrived. So now I not only have a rare piece of Baumiana, it also has a history in Oz fandom. And yes, I'll actually read it soon, too.

The Revolution Needs You!

2011-09-13T10:26:00.001-07:00

Thanks to David Tai for pointing out a one-page Oz-centric Fables tale that appears to have been available at this year's San Diego Comic Con. You can read it now right here. (Oh, and in case you're curious — as was I — Jack's last line is a reference to a character in Neil Gaiman's classic Sandman series.)

When George Lucas goes too far...

2011-09-12T19:37:00.000-07:00

You've all heard about the tinkering George Lucas is doing (again) with the original Star Wars trilogy for its Blu-Ray release, right? One thing he's doing is adding Darth Vader's final "Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!" in Revenge of the Sith to him throwing the Emperor down the core of the Death Star in Return of the Jedi. So the nice folks over at CineWeekly thought, "Hey, what if he did that with other movies?" So go take a look. "But Eric," I can hear you ask, "is this an Ozzy topic?" Again, go watch the clip and find out. (One big hint: Um, yeah!)

The latest Oz reading

2011-09-04T14:41:00.001-07:00

Just finished up the latest round this morning when I got to the end of The Book Collector's Guide to L. Frank Baum and Oz by Paul Bienvenue. This is a big fat guide to exactly what the title says, as it describes all of the various major editions of all of the Famous Forty Oz books, lots of other important Oz books, and just about everything L. Frank Baum ever wrote. It's not a full-blown bibliography that describes every point of every edition, but gives enough information and background to figure out exactly what you have. The best part is that all of the illustrations are in color. It is an extremely helpful book (I've already discovered a few things about my own collection I didn't already know). There are a few omissions, notably the 2006 Oz Club reprints of some of their own books, and a few items have come out since this book was published two years ago. But overall this is a great book for anyone who likes the Oz books, particularly older ones, and collectors will find it especially useful.

Where's that robot?

2011-09-04T14:36:00.000-07:00

You know, I could have sworn I put this up here in an earlier post, but I can't seem to find it. So I may as well do so now. This image is entitled "Where's Wall-E?" and you have to find the famed titular Pixar robot. But that's really only secondary (and he's not that hard to find). The real fun with the picture is identifying how many other famed movie and TV robots you can name. Two of them are from Oz, of course, else I wouldn't be posting it here. (Okay, technically, one isn't a robot, but that doesn't stop a lot of people from thinking that this character is a robot.) Once you've pored over it, the answers are right here.

Today's Oz comic

2011-09-02T11:57:00.000-07:00

Actually, this one isn't from today. Earlier this week, however, J. L. Meadows introduced himself over on the Oz Club's message board, and pointed out one of the works on his blog. So, I'm passing it along to you, in this installment of The Adventures of Blot & Smudge. Enjoy!

Preview of Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz #1

2011-09-02T10:21:00.001-07:00

I think the headline says it all. So go take a look at what Skottie is doing!

The Witches of Oz is coming to America!

2011-08-31T14:44:00.000-07:00

I was fortunate to receive a gift certificate for Amazon.co.uk the other day, thanks to all of the stuff that people have bought through my website. I don't sell much through my British links, but I do well enough to get myself a little treat once in a while. So of course I ordered the television miniseries version of The Witches of Oz, thinking it would still be a while before it was ever shown over here. I've also heard that the planned American version will be a shorter theatrical movie, not a miniseries.

Today I found out that The Witches of Oz will be a featured offering in September on DISH On Demand and Pay-Per-View. And guess what service I get my television through? Oh, well, at least the British DVD didn't actually cost me anything, and I have a region free multi-format DVD player that it should work on.

Today's spot-the-Oz-reference comic

2011-08-30T23:34:00.000-07:00

Today's extra edition of Girl Genius has nothing to do with Oz. But this is congratulations to Cheyenne and the Foglios for winning their third Hugo. And since they're a local outfit, and Laura and I have crossed paths with them a few times now (Laura even took an old fish tank off the Folios' hands once), I just wanted to pass the word along and extend the congratulations. Plus, the line from The Wizard of Oz made me giggle. (Can you spot the Oz line?)

Oz in London

2011-08-30T17:35:00.000-07:00

I'm sure you all know by now that a new stage version of The Wizard of Oz, based on The Movie, is playing in the West End in London. And that the producer is Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber himself. But did you know that he and Tim Rice have gotten together for the first time in a couple of decades to write some new songs? Yeah, yea, I know, it's a crummy idea, because everyone knows and loves the ones from The Movie so much. But think about this: How many songs are there in The Movie after "If I Were King of the Forest"? The answer is none. And how many songs do the Wicked Witch and the Wizard get to sing? The answer to that one is none, too. So to structure things a little better for a big stage spectacular, more songs were needed. And here, by a wild coincidence, is one of them. Ladies and gentlemen, may I present Hannah Waddingham as the Wicked Witch of the West, singing "Red Shoe Blues":

The latest not-really-Oz reading

2011-08-27T06:31:00.000-07:00

I read Fables #107 yesterday. There was no Oz content. The next issue looks much more promising!

Today's classic Oz comic strip

2011-08-27T06:29:00.000-07:00

Today's classic Bloom County rerun has OZ content. Those of you who have loved this strip in the past will probably know it. So go enjoy it again!

The latest Oz reading

2011-08-26T11:22:00.000-07:00

Man, I have been knocking them out of the park lately! Well, that's going to change once I get back to work within the next couple of weeks. But until then, I can tell you about The Pearl and the Pumpkin by Paul West and W. W. Denslow. This story has a bit of a convoluted history, which Michael Patrick Hearn nicely covers in his introduction. The story was originally conceived by Denslow as a musical extravaganza, and West and he collaborated on the script. West then turned the story into a novel, richly illustrated by Denslow, so that the story might become familiar to play-going audiences. And the story's musical roots sure do show! It's a choppy, episodic story of Joe Miller, the nephew of a prosperous Vermont farmer who knows the secret to growing spectacular pumpkins. When word of the pies made from these pumpkins spread, the pirates in Davy Jones' locker are determined to have their own pies. It all involves the Ancient Mariner, a Corn Dodger (an agricultural sprite), Joe being transformed into a pumpkin boy, and all kinds of other nonsense that probably entertained a lot of people on stage. (In case you're wondering, the show had a decent run on Broadway and toured for a year, but never came close to matching the success to another hit show Denslow was involved in at the time, something called The Wizard of Oz.)

Since the book was published in 1904, and involves pumpkins, one can't help but noticing some similarities between the book and Jack Pumpkinhead, who also first appeared in 1904. There are also elements that reminded me of other Baum and Oz books, notably John Dough and the Cherub, The Sea Fairies, Carter Green from The Hungry Tiger of Oz, and Pirates in Oz. In fact, with much of the story involving mermaids and pirates and taking place under the sea, it would have been a worthy story to include at this year's Winkie Convention.

The best reason to recommend this book is Denslow's artwork. He does his usual excellent job, and is clearly having some fun here. Dover has also done a splendid job recreating the original look (so far as I know) of the original book, with all of the pictures reproduced in shades of black and orange.

The latest Oz reading

2011-08-25T10:19:00.000-07:00

I'm finally getting through last month's comics, which means a few Oz ones are percolating up to the top. Today, it was Cinderella: Fables are Forever #6, completing the miniseries. In this one, we get some of Dorothy's backstory and her relations to the other Fables, and just why she hates Cinderella so much — and why Cindy feels compelled to take her out. The first page has some very nice Denslow- and Neill-inspired art in the flashback. Beyond the characters, however, it's a pretty straightforward climax to a spy caper, with the two protagonists going mano a mano in the desert — but in this case, it's the Deadly Desert! I won't spoil the ending, of course, in case you want to pick up the series yourself (or the trade paperback collection). I'll just say that this one is definitely not for Oz purists. But if you have a sense of humor and like seeing your favorite fairy tale characters in kick-butt Bond-esque situations, you may very well enjoy this one.

Today's Oz comic, political division

2011-08-25T08:33:00.000-07:00

The "today" on this is quite a bit of a misnomer, since my local paper ran this last Saturday, and it was already a few days old then. As I had company over the weekend, I didn't immediately get a chance to put this up, and only remembered that it was there today. Still, better late than never. Jerry Holbert in the Boston Herald used an Oz metaphor for the aftermath of the Ames straw poll in Iowa. To go see it will be a little involved, so pay attention. First, go to Holbert's page at Cagle.com, the big Internet repository of political cartoons. Then, in the pull-down menu with all the dates in it, choose "8/15/11" and click on the "Get Image" button. There, wasn't that worth it?

I'd like to reiterate yet again that all political and social commentary cartoons presented on this blog are here solely for the Oz content, and may not reflect the views or beliefs of the guy who owns and runs this blog. (Not that I think that's going to be a problem with this cartoon...)

The latest Oz reading

2011-08-24T11:45:00.000-07:00

I just finished the first book in a new project I'm working on. I looked at my collection one day, and realized I had just about all of the works of L. Frank Baum, Ruth Plumly Thompson, Jack Snow, and Eloise Jarvis McGraw, as well as many books illustrated by W. W. Denslow and John R. Neill. But where were the books of Rachel R. Cosgrove? I decided to start collecting and reading her books, under her various names (as well as various permutation of her married name, Rachel Cosgrove Payes, she also published under two pseudonyms, E. L. Arch and Joanne Kaye.) And The Silent Place is the first of her non-Oz novels that I've read (although I've found a few of her short stories before). This is a gothic romance, first published in 1969, with all that encompasses. There's a handsome widowed father, a traumatized daughter, a young schoolteacher who comes to the mansion as a tutor/governess, a jealous secretary, the mysterious return of someone who may or may not be the wife come back to life, clues in the attic, a fog-enshrowded beach, and of course, true love that is tested and pushed to its limits before the happy ending. The romance comes from left field, and seems to be more background than the mystery at the heart of the story, so Fiona and Rome's attraction seemed forced to me. Otherwise, this was a fun popcorn read, and definitely along the lines of Mary Louise Adopts a Soldier. I know most of what Rachel wrote is more along the lines of this book than The Hidden Valley of Oz, and this seems like a good jumping on point.

On a related note, I'm going to use my collecting Rachel's books to also compile a checklist of her published works. So if anyone has any of her books that I don't already have or know about (and I already have a few more on the way), or resources about where to find more (I know a lot of her short stories were published in science fiction magazines), please let me know. This is a sadly overlooked field of Ozian research, and I hope to have a finished product within the next couple of years.

The latest Oz reading

2011-08-23T11:51:00.001-07:00

Yup, I'm back in an Oz cycle! So, here's what's been in front of my eyes lately:

Ozma of Oz #8. Yes, Eric and Skottie's adaptation from Marvel has wrapped up at last (with a great promo pic for Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz #1 in back). This issue picks up after the Scarecrow has thrown his eggs at the Nome King, and Dorothy steals the Magic Belt, and goes to...well, the end, of course. This means another hardback collection to buy in the spring!
The Ozmapolitan of Oz by Dick Martin. I've decided to incorporate some of the older books in my collection that I've previously read into my regular Oz reading, as I've been enjoying reading some stuff to Laura (and my nephew when he visited for a week — more on that one later), and for whatever reason, I picked this one first. This was Martin's only written addition to the Oz books, and it's a lot of fun, actually. Dorothy and Tim, the most recent employee of Oz's largest (and, it appears, only) newspaper, The Ozmapolitan, are off on a news hunting expedition. It appears to be a random set of little adventures, but it turns out that Tim is hiding a secret, and that ends up tying the whole story together. It's fun and Ozzy, and I enjoyed rereading it.
Mary Louise Adopts a Soldier by "Edith Van Dyne", who is, of course, actually L. Frank Baum. This was Baum's last non-Oz book (but not, as it turned out, Edith Van Dyne's, as many of you may know). Like all of the Mary Louise books, it's pure girls' adventure. Mary Louise and Grandpa Jim hire a soldier, just returned from the recently concluded Great War, and Danny seems to be quite smitten with Mary Louise. But he's hiding a secret (hmm, seems to be a theme in my current reading), and appears to steal Mary Louise's car for his own nefarious purposes. Towards the end it all starts getting a little far fetched, with German agents trying to destabilize relations between the United States and Mexico (!) and a road trip to Albuquerque, but of course it all comes out fine in the end, the good guys win, the bad guys end up in jail, and all is well — until the next book, of course...

Oz in Jeopardy! Live edition

2011-08-17T20:54:00.000-07:00

I went to try out (again!) for Jeopardy! today, and guess what? An Oz clue popped up! Now, because of the nature of this event, I am, strictly speaking, not allowed to discuss this. However, since this was not part of the process that I'm pretty sure they were talking about, and it was in the category Seattle, which I doubt they're going to use in the tryout process again any time soon, then I think I'm safe. I don't remember the exact wording, but it was something along the lines of "Nickname for Seattle; Dorothy wanted to go there, too." Of course, the correct response was "What is the Emerald City?" Of course I raised my hand, but I'd already answered one, so they naturally picked someone else — who got it right, of course.

And before anyone asks, no, I don't know if or when I'll be on the show. Since they get a pool of about two thousand potential contestants every year, and only need about four hundred, odds are good I won't be picked. However, if I am, I'll be sure to let you know!

Today's Oz comic

2011-08-11T07:57:00.001-07:00

Remember in The Movie when the Wizard tells the Tin Woodman, "You don't know how lucky you are not to have one," (referring to a heart, of course). Well, today's edition of Rubes shows just one more reason why he may have been lucky.

Vote for Wicked

2011-08-02T15:28:00.000-07:00

Hey, everybody, NPR is taking a major poll to determine the top 100 science fiction books (which, it appears, also includes series, fantasy, and graphic novels). Well, one of the nominees is Wicked, so I'm encouraging you, my readers, to go over there and vote for it, if you are so inclined. And since you can vote for up to ten books, I'm sure many of you will find up to nine other books you'd like to name as well. So, go take a look already!

The latest Oz reading

2011-07-25T14:38:00.000-07:00

Hi, everybody. Well, guess what? I have a major update of my Oz reading to tell you about, even though it's not one of my regular Oz reading cycles right now. But the perfect storm of a comics order arriving while we were at the Winkie Convention means a lot of little things all popped up at once, and I've been trying to get through them as quick as possible in the days since our return. Some of these are very short, and so will my report on them. So, let's jump in!

First off, I managed to snag the first five issues of the comic book miniseries Cinderella: Fables are Forever. This is a Fables spinoff, and thankfully, we were able to add the sixth and final issue to our regular comics order, so that should come soon. I picked this up because I knew who else was in it. Cinderella is Fabletown's greatest spy, you see, and she often heads out to missions around the world to see what fables in other countries are up to. Back in the '80s, undercover behind the Iron Curtain, she had a run in with Dorothy, who has her own agenda. Well, now their paths have crossed again, and Dorothy is not happy. Bungle and some spoon soldiers from Utensia also show up in this one.
The Marvelous Land of Oz collection from Marvel comics. Yes, I collected and read the single issues, but of course I was also going to get the hardback collection. Extras include a new introduction by Eric Shanower, a covers gallery, and some sketches.
A bunch of stuff that was in the goodies bag for Winkies! There was a program for the Toronto Civic Light-Opera Company's 2010 production of their stage version of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (very appropriate, since Joe Cascone and David Haines of the company were there entertaining us over the weekend — gee, maybe I should have gotten this autographed!), and programs for the 2010 and 2011 Oz-Stravaganza celebrations in Chittenango, New York. In case you don't already know, Oz-Stravaganza is Baum's home town's annual celebration of their favoite native son. I'd love to make it out there some year, and these program books give a taste of what happens there.
Blow, Winds, Blow! by L. Frank Baum. This is a slim little souvenir from the convention, a poem Baum wrote back in his Dakota prairie days editing the Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer. It's also the first Pamami Press production Michael O. Riley has produced in some time.
The 2011 Winkie Convention Program Book! This has become a tradition now, and this one is the biggest of them all (so far). Besides the convention schedule, information about Asilomar, and interviews with the guests, it has all kinds of writings about the convention themes, which means lots about The Sea Fairies, Pirates in Oz, and related topics. There's also an appropriate story by Ruth Plumly Thompson, and pirate art by W. W. Denslow and John R. Neill.
The Big Little Times for November/December 1991, a journal of the Big Little Book Collector's Club of America. Someone slipped this into the swap meet, and I picked it up. With a big old picture of The Laughing Dragon of Oz on the cover, and a feature article on The Laughing Dragon of Oz, I couldn't resist.
Dinosaurs Across California by Phil Yeh. I gather that this comic is part of an educational series about the various states, and this one is packed with all kinds of information about California — including a mention of Eric Shanower (who I got this from in the swap meet) and an actual visit with L. Frank Baum.
Thanks to Kirk Kushin being there, I finally got my mitts on not only a copy of Ozopolis #1, but also the just-then-making-its-debit issue #2. This is a great Oz comic, and unlike some comics, Kushin has a very traditional approach to Oz. All of the characters were written just right. Gonzalo Martinez has a little different take on some of the characters in his art, but it still worked for me. You bet I'll do my best to get more issues when they come out!
The Oz Club is trying to fill some of the gaps in their publications, so of course I had to pick up the double flip issue of Oziana, which was for both 2009 and 2010. Good thing, too, as I gather the entire run was at the convention — and it sold out! One half was devoted to humorous takes and parodies (including a visit from some kid named Barry Porter), while the other is devoted to stories about the difficulties of governing a fairyland. As always, it was a great read, and I just wish more people knew about this magazine, and that the Club could nurture and fuel the audience for it.
In our regular comics order, Fables #106 appeared. No major Oz in this one, just Ozma retiring as a superheroine.
And finally, Laura managed to snag a copy of the fifth and final issue of The Royal Historian of Oz. It was easy, because the only way SLG is distributing this one is electronically. Why they don't put it out on paper for those of us who already have the first four issues that way I don't understand, but it's their company. I finally figured out how to read it on my computer, and at least the whole thing comes to a satisfying and Ozzy, if somewhat surprising, conclusion. Oh, yeah, and that officious Official Oz Society has been defanged now as well, but I won't tell you how so that you can read about it in the forthcoming collected graphic novel.

That should do it for a while — again — but I have some interesting developments coming up in my Oz reading that may lead to filling in some gaps in Ozian scholarship!

Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz #2

2011-07-25T11:52:00.000-07:00

I just caught a sneak peek at the cover of issue #2 of Marvel's next Oz series. So, go take a look at how Skottie handles the piglets!

Today's Oz Comic...I Think...

2011-07-25T04:10:00.000-07:00

I'm really not at all sure if I should count today's Mother Goose and Grimm as an Oz comic. Actually, it probably isn't. But the mention of a certain type of winged simians caught my attention, at least.

Oz in Jeopardy!

2011-07-24T15:42:00.000-07:00

And they just keep coming! Not only was there another Oz clue in last Thursday's episode, but for the second Oz clue in a row, it was a Daily Double. So, here's the set-up: It's the Double Jeopardy! round, and our four-day returning champion Mark chooses Novel Quotes (in which they give you the quote, you name the novel it's from) for $1600, and gets the DD. Mark was a steamroller in his first four games, but he's been struggling here and is way behind challenger Brian, with $12,000 (Brian has over $24,000 at this point). So Mark can't catch up, but he can come close with a big bet. He wagers $9000. (I told Laura that if I were in his shoes, I would have bet $10,000.) Then Mark got this clue:

It quickly became clear that Mark had no idea what the correct response was, but he hemmed and hawed and finally said, "What is The Green Mile?" Alex told him that the correct response was Wicked, of course, and Mark's score went down to $3000. As it was late in the game by this point, it was pretty clear that he wouldn't win this game. Sure enough, he ended with nothing, and Brian went on to win in a runaway.

The schedule for the rest of the season has now been set, and it looks like there's only one more week of new episodes before the summer break. It's not likely that there will be an Oz clue in there, but you never know!

The Eisner Awards!

2011-07-23T01:35:00.000-07:00

Insomnia is not always a bad thing, because it allows me to post good news like this as soon as I know of it: Marvel's adaptation of The Marvelous Land of Oz won two Eisner Awards last night at the San Diego Comic Con. The series won for Best Adaptation from Another Work, and Skottie Young won for Best Penciller/Inker or Penciller/Inker Team for his pictures. Congratulations! (How many will Ozma of Oz receive next year, I wonder?)

Oz in Jeopardy, Kids Week edition

2011-07-18T11:55:00.000-07:00

The annual Kids Week on Jeopardy! is always a lot of fun. They get bright ten- to twelve-year-olds from around the country, and they each play one game. I think the writers have some fun getting into the heads of kids at that age for a few days. Anyway, this year, I didn't get to see much of it right away because of the Winkie Convention. Good thing we have two DVRs that record it, because I was very pleased with the show for Friday, July 8. I was originally excited just for this exchange between Alex and Maddie, a kid from Florida who wants to be a theater critic:

ALEX: You're into theater, I understand.
MADDIE: Mm-hmm!
ALEX: How old were you when you saw your first play or musical?
MADDIE: Three or four.
ALEX: Yeah? What was it, do you remember?
MADDIE: Seussical. Seussical.
ALEX: Seussical! Now, do you want to pursue a career in the theater?
MADDIE: Mm-hmm!
ALEX: Yeah? What?
MADDIE: Mm, either a theater critic or I would like to be able to do musicals.
ALEX: Musicals. All right, what's your favorite musical?
MADDIE: Oh, my gosh, that's hard!
ALEX: Is it? Why?
MADDIE: Because I've seen so many, and they're all so good.
ALEX: Yeah?
MADDIE: It's really difficult to choose.
ALEX: So, your favorite musical would be the most recent one you saw.
MADDIE: Mm, probably.
ALEX: Yeah? Do you remember what that was?
MADDIE: Um...
ALEX: I'm putting you on the spot.
MADDIE: That would probably be Wicked.
ALEX: Okay. That's a fun one, isn't it?
MADDIE: That is a good one.
ALEX: I like that.
MADDIE: I like that one.

Ozzy enough for this blog, I figured. But wouldn't you know, once the game got started again, a few clues in and another contestant, Tony from Connecticut (whose ambition is to be an archaeologist) picked Literary Quotations for $800, and uncovered the Daily Double! He bet $1000, and got this clue:

Tony hesitated a bit, but did ask, "Who is Dorothy?" So his score went from $4600 to $5600. Tony would go on to dominate the game and win convincingly. Sadly, Maddie came out of the Double Jeopardy! round with no money at all and couldn't play in Final Jeopardy!

Correspondents needed!

2011-07-17T20:08:00.000-07:00

Anybody out there going to either the San Diego Comic Con or the National Oz Convention in Banner Elk, North Carolina? I would like to get some information from those events, and so I need some correspondents who will be going to help me out with this blog and my website. Leave me a comment or drop me an e-mail at whatever address you can find for me (and I've got a bunch now). Thanks!

Today's Oz Comic

2011-07-16T05:48:00.001-07:00

Wow, here's one I never thought I'd see an Oz reference in. This week's installment of The Non-Adventures of Wonderella, everybody's favorite slacker superheroine, has some spoilers, including for a certain famous movie, so be warned. (Thank goodness this installment is totally safe for kids and other sensitive readers, unlike some of her other adventures...)

We're home!

2011-07-12T09:46:00.001-07:00

We made it home late last night, and promptly flopped into our own bed for the first time in nearly a week. I'm trying to not be Ozzy for a few days, just to reconnect with the real world, but yes, we're already making plans for next year's convention. (It's currently scheduled for July 6-8, but that may change.) Laura's been doing a fantastic job writing it up and tweeting events as they happen, so I'm probably not going to say much, at least not soon.

Today's Oz Comic

2011-07-12T05:46:00.000-07:00

And the hits just keep on coming! After today's Strange Brew, I've got to wonder, why haven't we seen that third sister in any of the books? Hmm, with all of the Oz movies and television shows being made right now, maybe there's a chance to slip her in somewhere.

Today's Oz Comic

2011-07-11T21:01:00.000-07:00

It was bound to happen sooner or later — and it did in today's edition of The Flying McCoys.

Dorothy at Comic Con

2011-07-10T09:06:00.000-07:00

Well, now that Winkies are almost over, it's time to look forward to the next convention. Comic Con in San Diego starts in about a week and a half now. And it turns out there will be something of interest to Oz fans. Not only is IDW going to have the Dorothy of Oz preview comic again (it appears to be the same one they had at Wonder Con, so I don't need one — but if someone did get me one, I'm sure I could find a good home for it), but there will be a Dorothy of Oz panel, including some footage. So, if you're an Oz fan and you'll be there, you may very well want to scout out Hall H and see when that will be. Once you see it, feel free to drop me a line about it, and I'd be glad to post something here.

Today's Oz-ish Comic

2011-07-10T06:37:00.000-07:00

I'm on the road and slowly catching up on my Internet comics. And I wasn't sure about whether or not to post yesterday's In the Bleachers. But I figured, oh, what the heck! So here it is. (I suspect that if I'd read this first in my local paper, I might not have been posting it here, since they print it in black and white. But the coloration of the online version makes it a little Ozzier.)

Winkie Convention Countdown: It's started!

2011-07-08T23:23:00.000-07:00

It's late, I should be in bed, and the Internet connection here is pretty weak. But the important thing is, I did it! I blogged about the convention for thirty straight days (well, thirty-one now), and we've now had our first day of it. Tomorrow's the big day, with costumes, quizzes, the auction, and all kinds of other stuff. I don't know how much I'll get around to telling you as I go, but I'm just happy to be here again.

Winkie Convention Countdown: 1 Day to Go!

2011-07-07T17:26:00.000-07:00

This is it! We're well on the way. We were in Oregon last night, and now we're in a very pleasant little motel room in northern California. (As always, I got excited when I saw my first palm tree. That's always my cue that I'm not in the Pacific Northwest any more, and getting closer and closer to Oz.) We have to step out for dinner soon, but otherwise we just get to relax tonight and rest up for tomorrow. A few more hours on the road, including trying to navigate the San Francisco Bay area, and we'll be there! We'll likely be pretty early, and just hang around and see who else shows up and chat awhile until we can check into our rooms — after which, we'll clean up a bit and step right back out and chat some more. (It's a very social group!) I'll do the best I can to keep you up to date, of course, but blogging won't be my primary goal, so it may be kind of quiet.

Winkie Convention Countdown: 2 Days to Go

2011-07-06T05:11:00.000-07:00

We're slowly getting everything ready and worrying that we've forgotten to pack something or other, but overall it's coming together nicely. We'll have a day and a half of driving to relax once we leave here. So, this year's convention looks like it's going to be all wet, and I'm not talking about the weather. Since 2011 marks the one hundredth anniversary of the publication of The Sea Fairies, the eightieth anniversary of Pirates in Oz, and the seventy-fifth anniversary of Captain Salt in Oz, this year's theme is Oz Under the Sea, and we're going to have lots of mermaids and pirates running around. (Some of the other visitors at Asilomar may mistake us for a Peter Pan fan group as a result. Like we care!) We're also going to have visits and presentations from Tommy Kovac, writer of the comic book The Royal Historian of Oz and Kirk Kushin, writer of the OZopolis comic, as well as Winkie regular Eric Shanower (since this weekend is not Comic Con International in San Diego), so Oz comics will be a big part of it, too.

It's probably too late for you to make plans to be there now, but if you want to follow along, I'll probably post a few things, and my wife is going to tweet about it on Twitter as well. You can see what she has to say at twitter.com/realtegan. And if I get a chance to write tomorrow, it will be from the road!

Winkie Convention Countdown: 3 Days to Go

2011-07-05T05:20:00.000-07:00

Today is our last full day at home before the convention. Tomorrow around midday we leave for Oregon, where we'll stay with Karyl for the night, then head down to California from there. Fortunately, our house will be occupied by my mother-in-law and her little Rottweiler, Snuffy. We're just about ready, as I've written the quizzes (I just need to go make copies today), the costumes are pretty well set, and we're gradually getting things checked off the various lists. I don't know how good our connections are going to be along the way, so I may miss a day or two of this countdown, but we should be fine once we get there. And of course there will be lots of posts about the convention itself.

Winkie Convention Countdown: 4 Days to Go

2011-07-04T08:28:00.000-07:00

Is it getting that close to the convention? My, this countdown has flown by. We've still got a few more things to do, but we're getting there. I'll probably start looking forward to this year's convention any day now. But today is one more remembrance, and this was a weird one! In the past, I've had bouts of scleritis, which makes my eye all red and sore and a little puffy. In the past, I've had to use two different prescription eyedrops to cure it. So one morning, just as we were heading out the door for the convention (we were driving that year), I realized my eye was sore, and took a look in the mirror. Sure enough, the scleritis was back. We had no chance to see a doctor and get a prescription filled, so I just took a bottle of Aleve with me (which has been successful in the past in keeping it down), determined to take some whenever I needed it on the trip, then see the doctor as soon as I could once I got back. I was taking the Aleve pretty regularly at first, and it did a great job of keeping the scleritis at bay. During the convention itself, I ended up taking it less and less, and by the time we got home, I realized that I'd stopped taking it, because the scleritis had gone! Who would have known? Not only that, it hasn't even returned since then. So maybe I've discovered a previously unknown miracle cure.

Winkie Convention Countdown: 5 Days to Go

2011-07-03T09:04:00.000-07:00

I'd like to talk to you today about wildlife. No, not the late night parties (although those can get pretty wild at times). I'm talking about the animals that run around and sometimes interact with us humans in interesting ways. Our convention center for the past twenty-seven years have been in a California state park, with rangers and woods and a beach and yes, wild animals. Fortunately, they usually know enough to stay out of the way of those silly humans. We often spot deer roaming the grounds, especially early in the morning. I remember seeing six deer on my way to breakfast one year. One evening, we also saw a raccoon's butt sticking out of a garbage can.

Wouldn't you know, the next year the garbage cans all had these newfangled latches on them that raccoons can't open...at least not yet...

Oz in a Facebook Game

2011-07-02T12:55:00.000-07:00

Hi all, Laura again.

I have gotten myself down to only two Facebook games, and hopefully will eventually not play any at all, but one of the two is called Bushwhacker and is a fun little flash-based adventure game in which you are a little warrior running around, um, whacking bushes. With a sword. To scare up prizes, and gold, and other fun stuff. And you solve puzzles, and meet characters, and go on quests. Ahem. Anyway, the game just introduced a new module, available to players level 16 and above, that is set in a faraway land that you have to reach by balloon...

So far I've met some familiar-looking friends, and gone on a couple of little side quests to solve puzzles. I haven't finished the module yet, but I figured I'd mention it in case anyone else wants to check it out and visit this faraway land, too.

This week's Oz Political Cartoon, Overseas Division

2011-07-02T10:15:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since we heard from our man in Japan, Michael-sensei. But he has the word of a cartoon that The Japan Times ran earlier this week. So go take a look at www.japantimes.co.jp/life/cartoons.html, look at "Dahl's Japan", and click on June 26, 2011. That will open up a new window with the cartoon in it. As Michael says, "I'm not so certain I even understand it but it is well drawn."

Winkie Convention Countdown: 6 Days to Go

2011-07-02T07:06:00.000-07:00

One of the highlights of the convention each year is the Saturday night banquet. Okay, it's actually just the standard dinner Asilomar serves us, but we like to dress up and give it a sense of occasion. One year, back in the early '90s, a few weeks before the convention, an online friend got all excited after finding an Oz necktie, and wanted to get it for me. I mentioned the upcoming convention, and said sure I'd take it. He not only sent it to me, he sent it by express mail, thinking the convention was coming up a lot quicker than it was. Of course, how could I not wear the tie to the Saturday banquet? I still have it, in fact, and will very likely wear it to the banquet one week from tonight. I also have the shirt picked out...

Winkie Convention Countdown: 7 Days to Go

2011-07-01T17:50:00.000-07:00

Wow, only a week to go now? How time flies! And I'm definitely starting to run out of things to say. Still, I should be able to come up with something each day. So today, I want to reminisce about my costumes. I'm not a big costumer, but I've worn a few in my day. I already told you about my prize-winner in 1989 and my first costume, in 1983, but here are a few others I've worn:

Captain Salt. I had a black costume frock coat, I managed to find a good beard, and Karyl supplied a hat. Frankly, I thought that was one of my better ones. Somewhere in the depths of my collection are pictures of me in that costume out on the dunes of Asilomar, with the Pacific Ocean in the background.
Ippty, the scribe of Rash from The Hungry Tiger of Oz. By coincidence, Susan Hall also dressed as Ippty that year. So we did a joint presentation, each claiming to be the real Ippty, a la "I am Spartacus!" (Just between you and me, however, I think her costume was better.)
The Army of Oz. This was a joint costume Laura and I did a few years ago (I'm sure we blogged it somewhere, feel free to browse). She was the officer, I was the private.
The Soldier with the Green Whiskers. This was pretty much Karyl's baby, I was just the model for it, although I seem to recall supplying the pants. Also, we borrowed a prop gun from a stage presentation of The Marvelous Land of Oz from years ago, which just added to the affect.
The Oogaboo Army. This was another theme costume that a whole bunch of us Oogaboos wore.
Pokes. Again, a bunch of Oogaboos being silly. We dressed as the Pokes from The Royal Book of Oz and did things real slow, said "Cheese" about a minute after someone took our picture, dropped off to sleep at random moments, and the like. Hilary dressed as a pet snail! It was a lot of fun.
Kermit the Frog as the Scarecrow in The Muppets' Wizard of Oz, another Karyl creation (she went as Miss Piggy as the Wicked Witch of the West and won a rare special prize). In fact, here's a picture of me:
And, of course, you all recall Ozzy McTavish, right?

Oz in Jeopardy!

2011-06-30T14:39:00.000-07:00

No, the folks at Jeopardy! are not laying low after that Bacchanalia of Oziana they had last weekend. There was another Oz clue in last night's episode. For $800 in the Double Jeopardy! round, in the category American Art & Artists:

Jeff, the challenger in the middle, rang in first and correctly asked, "Who is Baum?" (Alex chimed in with the added "L. Frank" when stating he was correct.) Jeff went on to easily win the game, showing that it pays to know your Oz (well, this time, at least)!

We should be coming to the end of the season pretty soon here, so that will give us all a rest from Jeopardy! clues for a while.

Winkie Convention Countdown: 8 Days to Go

2011-06-30T10:09:00.000-07:00

I may have bitten off a lot more than I can chew this year. I want to get as many people interested in taking the quizzes as I can, so after winning last year, I announced that I was going to write three quizzes: Rookie, Standard, and Masters. That way, everyone who's interested can take a quiz at their own level, against equally-matched competition. But that means I still have to write three quizzes, and I haven't yet, and I leave in only six days. It was a lot easier to write some of the other quizzes I've written in the past. You see, the winner of the quiz has to write the next one. So after I won it for the first time, I decided that my quiz would be a quote quiz. I provided fifty quotes from the Oz books, and you got one point correct for naming the speaker, and one point for the book. That meant I had to reread all forty Oz books over the course of the year. This was not at all an onerous task! When I came to a good quote, I wrote it down on a yellow legal pad. I was going to college at the time, so every time I went home, I'd take back the books I'd read and picked up the next few. And I think I borrowed the handful of books I didn't already have at that time. I had a lot of fun writing it, too, and I thought it would be a tough one. But Robin Olderman won it with a score of 92.

A few years later, it was my turn again. I came up with another theme quiz, based on Who's Who in Oz. It was pretty simple, in that all you had to do was identify the character from its entry (with some major identifying words deleted, of course — except I missed it on one of them). Again, I thought it would be a tough but entertaining one, but the winner had a perfect score. Guess who? Robin Olderman again.

Enough blogging, I have some quizzes to write!

And now the show is over...

2011-06-29T13:12:00.000-07:00

It's been a year, but I've finally finished watching the old cartoon series The Wonderful Wizard of Oz this afternoon. This was a series that was originally made in Japan, but the English version was put together by Cinar, and for some reason decided to totally disguise its roots as an anime. It was originally shown on premium cable channels in the '80s, so I never got a chance to watch it then, and for some reason, it's never been released complete on DVD in English (although it is available in other languages). I've seen some of the compilation movies, named after the books the storyline is based on (The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, The Land of Oz, Ozma of Oz, and The Emerald City of Oz), but I still wanted to see the whole show. When Jaroo started streaming it online, I figured that was my chance — until I found they were about thirty episodes in, and they only kept episodes up for a few weeks at a time! Ah, but I am a patient Oz fan, and figured it would eventually start over again — which it did last year at about this time. So I started watching, and enjoyed myself. There are fifty-two episodes in the series, and they put up a new one each week, so it took a year to watch the whole show. Episode 52 went up today, and now I guess I have to find something else to watch every week.

Despite the differences, and some of the limited animation, I liked the designs for the characters, and I really grew to enjoy most of their voices. The show started off as a pretty straightforward adaptation of The Wizard of Oz, but about two-thirds of the way through the animators started taking a few liberties. You know something is up when Mombi and Tip show up right after the Wicked Witch of the West is melted! Yes, they set up the events of the later books (they also had an encounter with the nomes on the way to Glinda's). The China Country was different, and the Hammerheads got a major reinterpretation. Then, after Dorothy got home, she ends up in Oz again, accompanying Tip in the events of The Land of Oz! Those of us who know the book know this is wrong, of course, but it actually worked all right, and she felt like part of the story. Surprisingly, Ozma was left behind at Princess Lulu's in Ev for the events of Ozma of Oz, and Billina had only a small part. Then the show almost went its own way with The Emerald City of Oz, but enough of the original story was there as to at least be recognizable.

So, yes, now I can say I've seen it, and I'm not unhappy about that. And with the series ended, that means that they're very likely going to start at the beginning again next week. So, if you want to do the same thing, go to www.jaroo.com/shows/about/the-wonderful-wizard-of-oz, bookmark the page, and be sure to watch for a new episode every Wednesday.

Winkie Convention Countdown: 9 Days to Go

2011-06-29T08:59:00.000-07:00

Laura here!

I'm filling in today because today I did something for the Winkie convention that I've been doing for two years now, and my memory is about that thing. In 2009, at the end of the convention, there was a forum about how to improve the Winkie Convention. One of the topics that came up was increasing communication between Winkies. I don't know who first suggested it, but I recall standing up and bravely volunteering to put together and send out a newsletter to Winkies, as long as somebody else provided the material. I had the tools on the internet, the know-how, and the time. What I didn't and don't have is the specific knowledge of Oz that everyone else at the convention has, since I'm an Oz widow more than an Oz fan. A few weeks later the first edition of the Winkie Newsletter came out, and I've been trying to put out a monthly newsletter ever since.

At the last Winkie Convention, I set up a little newsletter station in the back of the conference hall and took notes, Tweeted, and even reported live on the Eisner awards. Each night I wrote up a newsletter to send out to people who weren't at the convention, which I then printed out and posted in several places in the morning. One of my greatest pleasures of all Winkie conventions was seeing a crowd of people around one of my reports, reading about what had happened the day before. And not just Winkies, the staff at Asilomar were reading and enjoying them as well!

I'll have a newsletter station at the convention again this year, with my trusty old computer. I'll be Tweeting live from the evening events, hopefully writing up nightly reports and posting them, and keeping tabs on the outside world while everyone there is happily in Oz. I may even manage a bit more this year, depending on my technology and how reliable an internet connection I can swing.

And today I sent out the last official Winkie Newsletter to go out before the convention. So if you are subscribed, check your e-mail. And if you aren't and are a Winkie... what are you waiting for?

The latest Oz reading

2011-06-28T23:27:00.000-07:00

I just finished off another whole big bunch of books. And here they are:

The Collected Short Stories of L. Frank Baum by...do I really need to tell you that? This has been one of the longest times I've ever taken to read a book, of any sort, just because I took it in pieces. I got the book when it first came out in '06, and I've just now finished it! At nearly six hundred pages, I didn't think I'd have the stamina to read it all at once. So I read a few stories at a time, along with the rest of my Oz readings. Good thing I had it with me when I first started working out here and had to live out of a motel for a few weeks, it was the perfect tonic for that situation! I'd already read most of the book before, of course, in various sources, but it was good to revisit these stories, and it's nice to have them all in one place. It is, however, not quite complete, as it's missing Baum's "Our Landlady" columns from his days in Dakota Territory (which were more topical, and therefore may not have quite been appropriate for this collection), and the stories from A New Wonderland/The Magical Monarch of Mo and The Little Wizard Stories of Oz. But it's pretty thorough otherwise. Okay, Oz Club, now that we have this book, how about The Collected Poems of L. Frank Baum, The Collected Scripts of L. Frank Baum, and The Collected Essays of L. Frank Baum?
My next book is another of those I can't tell you about, because of dubious legality (fortunately, it's also the last of those). Let's just say that chaos breaks out when a lot of magic spells that have been broken on some of our favorite Oz characters are reversed! It ends on a cliffhanger, but I already read the resolution to that in an earlier book. Um, I'm afraid there's not much more I can say.
Mary Louise Solves a Mystery by "Edith Van Dyne". I snagged this off ABE not long ago, and this was the last book Baum wrote as "Edith Van Dyne" that I didn't already have (but not the last I've read; that will be coming up in the next few months). The first third of the book or so doesn't even feature Mary Louise or her grandfather or the inevitable appearance by plucky girl detective Josie O'Gorman, but set things up for Mary Louise and Josie. Between the two of them — and for once, Mary Louise actually does have a big part in solving the mystery — they managed to piece things together, but I'd figured much of it out even before they showed up on the scene. Still, it's an engaging little potboiler that I'm sure teenage girls of a hundred years ago enjoyed.
A Little Bit Wicked: Life, Love, and Faith in Stages by Kristin Chenoweth. Oh my word, I think I am seriously crushing on this little stage brat who originated the role of Glinda in Wicked. She's just as much a dynamo on the printed page as she is on stage and screen. She's had an interesting life and career, and she claims this book only skims the surface. She's saving the really juicy stuff for telling a lot later in her life. I was particularly amused by her best friend, Denny, and her boyfriend, Aaron Sorkin, interjecting and adding their own take on incidents (typing in italics) over Kristin's objections. Her recipes are a riot, too (and no, I don't think the cookies killed anyone, they were just catalysts). This is one of the few books I'm thinking about buying again — this time, the audiobook!
And finally, The Real Wizard of Oz: The Life and Times of L. Frank Baum by Rebecca Loncraine. This is the latest full-length adult-type biography of L. Frank Baum. To be honest, I wasn't impressed. I think Loncraine often stretched too far to make a connection between something that happened to Baum (or even just something that was happening in the news) and something that Baum wrote about. Still, she does go into more historical background than some other Baum biographies have done in the past, and she does have some interesting ideas. It's also interesting getting a Brit's viewpoint on Oz and L. Frank Baum, as she's able to come to things from a little different perspective. However, there were enough errors to bug me, such as the "Mungaboos" in Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz, the Quadlings having no arms and stretchy necks in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and "The Runaway Shadows" was not in American Fairy Tales. But what really got to me were the lack of citations. Loncraine gives no evidence in the text of her claims, and doesn't back anything up with specifics. To be sure, there is a short paragraph at the end of the book of some of her sources for each section, but it's not at all clear what came from what. I guess we're still waiting for that definitive Baum biography (right, Michael Patrick Hearn?).

Winkie Convention Countdown: 10 Days to Go

2011-06-28T08:23:00.000-07:00

I'm really starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel here, as I'm starting to run out of ideas and remembrances. But at least we've hit the twenty-first century at last. In 2000 we didn't have a convention, with all of the conventions pooling their resources instead for a mega-con in Indiana to celebrate the centennial of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. So it was good to be back at Asilomar in 2001. Since I was on my summer break, and I had a major walkathon going on later that summer, I decided to almost shave my head. I did leave a little layer of fuzz, but by the time we got to the Convention, it hadn't grown in much, and I looked a lot different from what everyone expected. For some reason, everyone wanted to rub my head. After I threw up objections to that, some people started rubbing Laura's head while she rubbed my head (I will never object to my wife rubbing the top of my head). And in a happy bit of serendipity, two of our costumed celebrities were dressed as the Wash and Brush Up Co. hair stylists from The Movie. As I was hosting the costumed characters anyway, I sat down and let them "cut" my hair to the amusement of the crowd. That was a fun year, because after the convention, we headed on down to San Diego for the annual Comic Con, and got to sleep on the floor of Eric Shanower's studio for a few days. Yes, an Ozzy time was had by all!

Today's Oz Comic

2011-06-28T04:41:00.000-07:00

Wait, hold on a moment: If the Tin Woodman can't eat, then how can he get himself in the situation he finds himself in today's edition of The Argyle Sweater?

Winkie Convention Countdown: 11 Days to Go

2011-06-27T12:01:00.000-07:00

This is another I-don't-remember-which-year memory. It's also another one that's not about the Convention itself, but the trip. I only ever drove down there by myself once or twice, I think, and I may be getting some of the details mixed up, but in the early '90s, I had money, a car, and time, so I did it. One year, I had a whole bunch of tapes all ready to listen to — only to discover that my tape player wasn't working not long after I started off. Let's just say that I found an awful lot of different radio stations to listen to up and down the I-5 corridor, including OPB through much of Oregon. One year I also packed a whole case of cherry Coke and a whole box of peanut M&M's for the road. A friend of mine had access to some dry ice, and gave me a good sized chunk to throw in my cooler. Wow, that kept the Cokes cold all the way to the Monterey Peninsula. Some got so cold that they froze and burst open, and I ended up with some cherry Coke slushies. That is definitely a good thing to have while driving through the Sierra Nevadas in July in a car with no air conditioning. One of those trips I spent the night in a campground. I just pulled in, leaned my seat as far back as I could, had a pleasant night's sleep, and just got up and left early the next morning. In fact, I ended up getting to Asilomar so early that I couldn't find any fellow Oz fans! Usually there's someone hanging around on Friday. At one point, I panicked and feared that I'd gotten there on the wrong weekend! Finally, however, I found Peter Hanff, and he assured me that I was there at the right time. One of those trips on the way back I ended up staying at a friend's in Napa Sunday night, then took off right away for Seattle Monday morning. It ended up being a fourteen hour drive, but at least it worked better than the marathon my mother and I put in a few years earlier. There were a couple of times on that drive back that I started nodding off, but both times, a sign saying "Rest Stop One Mile" would loom up. So I would pull in, take a little catnap, and I was good to go again!

I don't think I could pull off one of those solo trips now, even if I wanted to. But being young and hearty has its advantages.

Today's Oz Comic

2011-06-27T08:38:00.000-07:00

In today's edition of On a Claire Day, Claire learns a tough but Ozzy lesson about being the boss.