More Lost in Oz!

Appropriately enough, with today being 11/11, Bureau of Magic dropped a new Lost in Oz short:

Yes, at last word is out that there will be more of the show, with Lost in Oz: The Movie. I am excited to see this!

Yesterday's Oz Comic

Someone is asking for real trouble in yesterday's edition of The Argyle Sweater.

Yesterday's Jack Pumpkinhead Comic

Jack makes another appearance in Brewster Rockit!

Today's Jack Pumpkinhead Comic

Well today's Brewster Rockit claims he's an updated version of the Headless Horseman, but I think we all can recognize who's actually playing the part.

Today's Jack Pumpkinhead Comic

Yeah, I sincerely doubt that that guy selling gourds in today's edition of CowTown is actually an Oz character, despite his appearance. So I'm not calling it an Oz comic, even though I'm going to secretly pretend it is. I suspect Jack will show up in a few more unexpected places between now and Monday.

Today's Oz Comic

Strictly speaking, today's edition of Eek! probably isn't actually about an Oz character. But at this time of year, I'll take them when I can find them! (I will point out that there is no actual pumpkins in pumpkin spice, so I don't know what he's all worried about.)

Today's Oz Comic

Yes, I do mean today. I found this edition of Strange Brew in my comics feed this morning. I gather the cartoonist is unfamiliar with Blinkie, Singra, or any of the other potential claimants to the title.

Oz in Jeopardy!

Well I haven't been able to do one of these for a while! But now that Jeopardy! has its own YouTube channel, when things like this guest giving video clues happens, I can easily post them.

Now how in the world did I know that last one was going to be in there?

The Latest Oz Reading

And by latest I mean some time in the past year or so. Hey, as I said last time, I may be keeping up with the reading, but not doing so well with telling you about it!

• "No Place Like Oz", the first story in the collection Dorothy Must Die Storise by Danielle Paige. I may have finished off the main line of Dorothy Must Die novels, but Paige also wrote a number of novellas on the periphery of the main series. (How many novellas? Enough that this is only the first of three volumes!) "No Place Like Oz" sees Dorothy, now back in Kansas, wondering what her life may have been like if she'd stayed in Oz. For her sixteenth birthday, she receives a gift of a mysterious red pair of shoes. Sure enough, Glinda sent those shoes, and they transport Dorothy back to Oz, along with Toto, Uncle Henry, anh Aunt Em. But although it's been only two ears for Dorothy, much more time has passed in Oz, and she doesn't know how to cope. The Scarecrow says Glinda has been missing for ten years, and Dorothy doesn't trust the new queen, Ozma. Ozma's not too wild about her, either, and decides to bring the Gale farmhouse to Oz to transport them all back. Angry, Dorothy uses some magic she's picked up to cause the house to land on Ozma. But Ozma is protected, and it instead lands on Uncle Henry and Aunt Em! Needless to say, Dorothy is not happy with this development—but that's where this particular story ends. It does a god job of setting up the series, and creating the circumstances under which Dorothy will eventually take over Oz in novels. And if this is your first exposure to Danielle Paige's version of Oz, yes, it's definitely not like the Oz that L. Frank Baum first imagined!
• Next comes The Spelling Bee of Oz by Robin Hess. This is a book I've known about for years, as Robin is a long-time friend, and he read portions of this at some of our local Oz events when I was a kid. Elizabeth "Zeebee" Warren is from California, Amal is from Somalia, but they both end up in Oz on an adventure involving a revolution by the cats of Oz. The Nomes and, of course, lots of Oz celebrities also get involved. It's been a while, so I don't remember much else, but it was fun and Ozzy. Having a character from the outside world but not the United States was a fun addition, however. Naturally, it all ends well, and the Spelling Bee, who can both spell well and cast magic spells, is a fun new character.
• Finally (for now) comes Yookoohoos of Oz by Paul Dana, continuing his saga of Button-Bright, Ojo, and the Yookoohoos. Since this is part of a series, I don't want to give away too much, but there's a whole mess of Yookoohoos, and some of their secrets that even they have forgotten about are uncovered.

And there is a lot more to come!

The Latest Oz Reading

At last, something that's not a comic! Yeah, I've been busy, and I have a huge backlog of just stuff I need to take care of in the coming weeks and months. How big is the backlog? I have a whole bunch of books and other items I read in my last round of Oz reading, last winter, that I haven't blogged about yet. And now I've started the latest round. I'll go back and hit some of those in the coming weeks, but right now I want to start with what I started off this round with:

• In my attempts to reread all of L. Frank Baum's Oz books, I realized I missed one a few books back. Despite his success as an author, L. Frank Baum still wanted a career in show business, and the success of the 1902 musical version of The Wizard of Oz only whetted his appetite. Shortly after the publication of The Patchwork Girl of Oz, Baum put together a treatment and scenario for a stage adaptation. It didn't get very far, and was eventually adapted to become the 1914 silent film version. Only one copy of the original treatment is known to exist, but Michael O. Riley turned it into a gorgeus little hand-bound book in his Pamami Press series. Since I've gotten all the other ones, I had to get this one as well, and Michael kindly let me buy it in installments. Baum clearly learned his lesson from previous theatrical adaptations, as this is not the book, but streamlined, with a few other characters to appeal to different audiences. The parts that become Jesseva and Danx in the movie are Jellia Jamb (!) and Pugly Muffins, and a few extra characters are thrown in for comic effect, but it follows the general arc of the story. One new character, the Scorner, is probably the genesis of Pessim, who happens to appear in the next book I read.
• After The Sea Fairies and Sky Island in my previous rounds of reading, naturally I was going to tackle The Scorecrow of Oz next (which, coincidentally was the reverse of The Patchwork Girl of Oz, in that it was based on a silent movie; The Scarecrow of Oz is considered to be one of the earliest novelizations of a movie). There's not a lot I can leally say about this, it's still a fun romp that brings Trot, Cap'n Bill, and Button Bright to Oz for good (although there's still the lingering question of Trot's parents).

That's all for now, but there are going to be a lot more reading recaps in the next few days, I hope.

Yesterday's Oz Comic

Yesterday, Lola had an encounter with the Tin Woodman, who's had an upgrade. It did not go as well as one would expect.

Oz Comics Roundup: Sherman's Lagoon

I promised I'd give you the complete saga once the storyline ended in Sherman's Lagoon, and now I am making good on that. This particular story was inspired by a real life discovery, a natural "yellow brick road" discovered on an underwater mountain near Hawai'i. (Snopes has a good summary of it all, including video.) So, here we go!

• September 21
• September 22
• September 23 (no road in this one, but it's nearby)
• September 24
• September 26 (the 25th was a Sunday, so the strip wasn't part of this at all)
• September 27
• September 28
• September 29

It turns out that this is part of a broader arc to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries, which is pretty cool (and quite appropriate for a strip like Sherman's Lagoon).

Oz Comics Roundup

A couple more that have appeared kind of recently:

• All I will say about the September 12 edition of Strange Brew is, "Hmm, yeah, good question!" (I recently rediscovered that this is actually answered in the animated movie Tom and Jerry and The Wizard of Oz, however. That movie also explains how Dorothy didn't get mud all over herself after falling into the pigstye in Kansas!)
• All I will say about the September 19 edition of The Argyle Sweater is, "Ack, too much information!"

Sherman's Lagoon is also running an Oz-themed storyline, based around that undersea "yellow brick road" discovered earlier this year, but I'll wait to report on that after it's wrapped up. And I also hope to have something else on this blog soon besides comic strips. But "soon" is a relative term.

Oz Comics Roundup

Um, is it actually a roundup if there's only one? And it's a rerun from last week? (Yes, I lead a busy life.) Anyway, here is last Thursday's rerun from Liberty Meadows. I think that sauce may just be a bit on the spicy side.

Today's Oz Comic

I'll keep this one brief: Red and Rover are out hunting, and have a familiar call.

Oz Comics Roundup

With my job starting up for the year this week and all kinds of other things going on, I've been falling behind on all kinds of other things lately. But this morning, I want to share with you the comics page of this past Friday, August 12. Because there were not one, not two, not even three, but FOUR Oz comics that day! Not all of them were new, but it's still a pretty impressive feat! Here we go, in the order I read them:

• The Far Side's website presents a series of classics each day, and every once in a while Gary Larson will even put up something new! LAst Friday, this was one of the offerings.
• CowTown is by an artist in Kansas City, and he wears that fact on his sleeve. Naturally, lots of Oz stuff turns up. I think this one published last Friday may be a rerun, but it's still Ozzy.
• This edition of also feels like it may be a rerun (I know there have been many comics on the same theme), but hey, the third Oz cartoon!
• And finally, one that I know is not a rerun, the policically-tinged strip Prickly City has this comment on current economic conditions.

I doubt we will ever have this Ozzy of a comics day again. But it sure was fun!

Oz Cartoon Round-Up (Kansas Election Edition)

With the surprising vote in Kansas last week to keep the right to an abortion in the state constitution, editorial cartoonists had a field day. And since it was in Kansas, you can guess what the topic of many of the cartoons was!

• The vote was on August 2. Dave Whamond appears to be the first out the gate, with a cartoon that very day. (Well the results were pretty clear early on, as it was nowhere near as close as most pundits thought it would be.) Two days later, Nick Anderson seems to have had a similar idea.
• The day after the vote, Clay Jones had this cartoon and blog post.
• Also the day after the vote, David Cohen had this comment from the Supreme Court.
• That same day in The New Yorker, David Ostow took a different approach, but definitely got the point across.
• And finally, Bill Bramhall did this little number for us.

I wonder what the cartoons would have been like if this had all happened in some other state. The cartoonists would probably have to get more creative, as few states can give us this ind of easy shorthand.

Oz Cartoon Round-Up (Non-Kansas Election Edition)

I've been very busy, but now I have a chance to breathe and catch up on stuff. Here are a few recent Oz comics:

• On August 3, Rubes had this edition of the comic where the boys point out Nick's shortcomings.
• Perhaps, in retaliation, Nick pulls this prank on the Scarecrow, recorded in a cartoon by Joe Lennon.

I have a lot more cartoons to present, but as they all have to do with the results of last week's election in Kansas, and I'm running out of time and energy tonight, they'll have to wait until, I hope, tomorrow.

This Week's Oz Political Cartoon, No Video

Marshall Ramsey has an Ozzy take on what Donald Trump was doing on January 6, 2021.

This Week's Oz Political Cartoons, With Video

In case you haven't heard, Dr. Mehmet Oz is runnnig for the Senate in Pennsylvania. Well, here's an ad his opponent put out:

To celebrate, we have a historical cavalcade of Dr. Oz cartoons!

• Let's start with this very recent one from Drew Sheneman.
• And here's a recent one from Jeff Darcy.
• Going back to last year, Sheneman may have borrowed the idea for his cartoon from John Cole.
• But that's hardly the first time John Cole has commented on Dr. Oz.
• Cole may, in fact, have been inspired by his own 2015 cartoon.
• Going even further back, Mike Peters had a few things to say about Dr. Oz even before he entered politics.
• Peters' history with Dr. Oz goes back even further, as evidenced by this 2012 edition of Mother Goose and Grimm.