My latest Oz readings and acquisitions

I'm not in an Oz cycle of reading right now, but I did get a couple of recent goodies that I thought I'd share with you.

First up is The Marvelous Land of Oz comic book #3, which has, in my opinion, one of the greatest covers an Oz comic has ever had. This one covers Tip's journey to the Emerald City after the Sawhorse runs off without him. He meets up with General Jinjur and her Army of Revolt, and gets swept along with them to the Emerald City. After slipping away, he finally meets up again with Jack and the Sawhorse, and the three of them slip out of the city with the Scarecrow. Meanwhile, Jinjur and her Army conquer the city, and Mombi enters the scene again. All good stuff, and I eagerly look forward to the next few issues. Good news, by the way: There will be a Marvel adaptation of Ozma of Oz. I look forward to how Skottie Young handles the Nomes!

The other acquisition is The Oz Toy Book by John R. Neill. Marcus Mébès has issued a very limited run of a reprint of this extremely rare Oz book, in color, on cardstock. I bought two, and I've already removed the staples from one in anticipation of cutting it up. I'm surprised it took this long for someone to do this, and I gather this is not going to be reprinted anytime soon, either. So if you want a copy (or two), contact Mébès.

The latest Oz reading

I'm still working on an old sci-fi novel (how's that for a teaser?), but I snuck in the latest edition of Ruth Berman's Dunkiton series. This year's edition is the eighteenth annual edition, and is the second issue to celebrate Thanksgiving. Fun fact I learned from this issue: Football games have been associated with Thanksgiving for over a hundred years. There is a very nice John R. Neill newspaper illustration reproduced here, and a short story and some poems by Ruth Plumly Thompson from her newspaper days, before she started writing Oz books. I highly recommend the Dunkiton series for those who want to see some of the non-Oz work of early Royal Historians and illustrators, and they're pretty darned inexpensive, too.