Sis Sez Sunday - 52

Happy Birthday, Sis! You've now had fifty two weeks on the blog so here's an out-of-season valentine just for you!

This installment of Marge and Ruth Plumly Thompson's SIS SEZ page first appeared in King Comics, No. 47, in March 1940. If you love Marge's Little Lulu you're sure to get a kick out of Sis!

Please note that if you click on the image it will expand to a full-size version which will make it much easier to read! All of the other blog images will similarly enlarge.

Skottie and Jack

At Comic Con I got the chance to have Skottie Young sign my copy of The Marvelous Land of Oz. I like the way he signed it.

I Got You, My Pretties!

One of the interesting Oz goodies I snagged at Comic Con this year was this Wicked Witch of the West and Flying Monkey POP! vinyl figurines produced by Funko.

These two were available as a Comic Con exclusive, with metallic green paint on the Witch, and metallic blue paint on the monkey.

They have many other Wizard of Oz items: plushies, more realistic figures, etc.  But I thought the little POP! vinyl ones were very cute - and in any case, they only had the "exclusives" at the Comic Con booth.

There is a Dorothy and Toto in this set - but not with metallic paint.

There's No Place Like Stockholm

In the last few months I've been able to fill several holes in my foreign Oz translation collection. This is especially nice when I can fill a hole with a book more than seventy years old.

Trollkarlen Fran Oz was the first Swedish translation. As you can tell by the cover it was published to coincide with the Swedish release of the MGM Wizard of Oz film in 1940. The translation is by John Wallin. It was published by Reuter & Reuter of Stockholm.

The back cover (shown below) is also decorated with vintage MGM art including the names of the players in the film. The interior of the book looks essentially like a 1930s American edition of Wizard. It includes many of the W. W. Denslow pictures and about half of the original color plates - each reproduced in the same muted and washed-out colors of the contemporary US edition.

The Swedes never really warmed to Oz until the 1970s when Delta Forlags began issuing all of the Baum Oz books. Delta eventually issued all fourteen - each translated by Oz club member Sam Lundwall, and that set deserves a blog-post of its own, so that's all for today!

Sis Sez Sunday - 50

No, it isn't Sunday! But somehow this episode failed to run on weekend before last despite my setting it up to automatically post. So here it is. In a few days I'll kick it back to the weekend it SHOULD have run on so the Sis Sez strips stay in order.

Sis doesn't seem ready for kids. It's hard not to read a bit of Ruth Plumly Thompson's status as a perpetual single into this epsiode at least a bit.

This installment of Marge and Ruth Plumly Thompson's SIS SEZ page first appeared in King Comics, No. 46, in February 1940. If you love Marge's Little Lulu you're sure to get a kick out of Sis!

Please note that if you click on the image it will expand to a full-size version which will make it much easier to read! All of the other blog images will similarly enlarge.

Tik-Tok Pin!

It's always nice to add a new Return to Oz item to the collection - and today's mail brought this little guy. He missing some gold paint but he's still cute. He has a pin on his back so you can attach him to your shirt and he stands about 2 1/2" high. He was distributed in the United Kingdom and in Japan at Tokyo Disneyland.

I tweaked the photo a bit to make the gold-loss areas a bit more visible. I wonder how hard it would be to re-gild him.

You can check out our previous Return to Oz blog posts by clicking here.

One Year from Today!

I'm happy to announce that the dates for the 2012 Winkie Con have been confirmed. It begins one year from today! We will gather at the Asilomar Conference Center in Pacific Grove, California, from  July 27th to 29th, 2012.

Among other things, we will be celebrating the centennial of L. Frank Baum's Sky Island - the book he considered his very best work. It's going to be a colorful convention I guarantee you! And the opening day of the convention also happens to be Ruth Plumly Thompson's 121st birthday. Today is her 120th!

It's too early to tip our hand and tell too much about next year's programming, but mark your calendars, start saving your pennies, and begin thinking about a costume. You have exactly a year to get ready!

Nine is Enough!

Last night I got to look over Skottie Young's inks for issue #1 of Marvel's Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz - one of the perks of living with the writer of the series. I think it may be the very best adaptation yet. Both Eric and Skottie are so on top of it!

You'll have to wait to see the inks. But for now, here's Skottie's great cover for issue #2 showing the Nine Tiny Piglets. I wonder which one was hiding on the cover of issue #1.

So get ready for a super Ozzy year in comics and make sure your local comic shop knows you want to read Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz. It's a great time to start someone new on the series as well. And don't forget that the hardcover collection of Ozma of Oz hits the stores in September, too.

Come on, the piglets are waiting for you!

The Marvelous Eisners of Oz

I'm happy to report that we survived San Diego Comic Con. All is well, but both Eric and I are very wiped out. Sales were down a bit at the Con - which is unfortunate. But it was great seeing friends, promoting the Winkie Con, and Friday evening was especially nice as Eric Shanower and Skottie Young's Marvelous Land of Oz graphic novel picked up two Eisner Awards!

Skottie won as Best Penciller/Inker; and Eric and Skottie both received Eisners for "Best Adaptation from an Existing Work."

Alas, I was so busy being excited I didn't get a picture showing both Eric and Skottie's faces. So we'll have to settle for this one showing Eric's acceptance speech and Skottie examining his new prize. Congratulations to both of them!

More on Comic Con in the next few days and back to regular blogging soon - I just need a little nap-time first.

Comic Con!

I know everyone is waiting for full-scale blogging to resume, but this is Con month, and that is using up a lot of blogging time and energy.

Two weeks ago it was Winkies and tomorrow we begin San Diego Comic Con. If you're attending, come by and visit, or even buy a book or two. You can meet me and Eric Shanower and see lots of cool Ozzy stuff! We are at booth 2008. And we're all set up and waiting - just for you!

Eric Shanower at San Diego Comic Con 2011

A Quick Update

Dearest Readers -

So sorry for the delay in blogging. The days leading up to the Winkie Con were jam-packed with preparations, then there was the Con itself, then back to work at the day job, then sleep, then ... well, you get the idea!

Now we're heading full-tilt into San Diego Comic Con and I've yet to blog about how Winkies actually went. It went great, IMHO, and there will be blog-posts aplenty in the coming weeks. But for now, bear with me and keep checking back.

For those of you who came to the Winkie Con or those that are interested in attending next year, you might check out our new Winkie Con Facebook Page.

That's it for tonight, and thanks for reading!

Sis Sez Sunday - 51

Well, Sis is mistaken about it's being New Years, - but she's right that the comics are crowding in! It's less than a week until San Diego Comic Con! Come visit Hungry Tiger Press at Booth 2008

This installment of Marge and Ruth Plumly Thompson's SIS SEZ page first appeared in King Comics, No. 46, in February 1940. If you love Marge's Little Lulu you're sure to get a kick out of Sis!

Please note that if you click on the image it will expand to a full-size version which will make it much easier to read! All of the other blog images will similarly enlarge.

The Pirate DEN

Well guys, it's almost Winkie Convention weekend! Followers of this blog know that our theme is "Oz Under the Sea" and that we're celebrating the centennial of L. Frank Baum's The Sea Fairies and the eightieth anniversary of Ruth Plumly Thompson's Pirates in Oz.

To get things off to a jolly start, this month's Tiger Tale features "The Pirate," an illustrated poem by W. W. Denslow from his book When I Grow Up. Click here to read it and see the pictures.

So, Arrrrr....

Sis Sez Sunday - 49

Personally, I think the baby colt might like a blanket with duckies on it. I know I would!

This installment of Marge and Ruth Plumly Thompson's SIS SEZ page first appeared in King Comics, No. 44, in December 1939. If you love Marge's Little Lulu you're sure to get a kick out of Sis!

Please note that if you click on the image it will expand to a full-size version which will make it much easier to read! All of the other blog images will similarly enlarge.

Geocaching in Oz

A week from today the 47th Annual Winkie Con will begin. In addition to all of the usual things, we have quite a few surprises and Ozzy new activities. One of which is the first-ever Oz Con Geocache.

What is a geocache, you ask? It is a hidden treasure that you find by using a special program on your iPhone. Using GPS, the geocache app will tell you how close you are to the hidden item. You can learn a bit more about geocaching from this website: http://www.geocaching.com

To participate, you must have an iPhone or iPad and have downloaded the geocache app from the iTunes store. There is a free app called "Geocaching INTRO," and the full-version runs $9.95. The free one will work fine for Oz Con purposes. There will be additional information on the geocache at the reception. But if you are interested, it is strongly recommended that you download the free app BEFORE you arrive at the convention. Note this free INTRO is only good for three "caches," so don't have too much fun before you get to Winkies! There are other geocaching programs for other phones and GPS devices, but I don't know much about them. They would probably work - I just can't make any suggestions on apps or devices.

An info sheet will be distributed at the convention with a few more tips and some geocaching etiquette. It's not too late to join us at the Winkie Con, either. Simply download the registration materials, contact the registrar SOON, and get yourself to Pacific Grove, California, next weekend!  You can check out our entire Convention Schedule by downloading this PDF.

You can download our PDF Registration Forms at the link below:
http://hungrytigerpress.com/winkies_2011_registration.pdf