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Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Spouse and Thompson

One of the comments on this week's Map of Oz Monday blog asked if anyone had noticed that Ruth Plumly Thompson's characters Roger and Pigasus were pictured in the decorative border. To be honest I had forgotten and failed to mention them. When I went to inspect my scan of the map I found a number of Thompson characters in the border design - all from Thompson's 1931 Pirates in Oz. Peter and Clocker, Samuel Salt, Roger, and Pigasus.

There is a mystery character though - a goose named Lonnie wearing a top hat! Anyone have any idea who Lonnie might be? The other oddity on the map border is that Tip appears in it twice!

It's kind of neat to see Walt Spouse's renditions of these Thompson characters. If the Wonderland of Oz strip had run for a decade or so, Spouse would have gotten to Thompson's Oz books. It's interesting that he only included characters from Pirates in Oz (then the most recent book). It would have been nice to see Kabumpo or Sir Hokus on the map, too.

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5 comments:

  1. AnonymousMay 30, 2012 at 7:24 PM

    See, this is how ignorant I am…when you wrote Spouse, I thought she had snuck in a drawing of her husband. Guess I'll have to brush up on my Oztory…your blog is a great way to do that!

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  2. NathanMay 31, 2012 at 5:47 AM

    I'm pretty sure Thompson never married.

    I'm curious about Lonnie, too. Was she perhaps from another project Spouse was illustrating at around the same time?

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  3. AnonymousMay 31, 2012 at 9:19 AM

    Lonnie reminds me of the similarly hatted companion of Father Goose in some of Denslow's illustrations for Baum.
    http://www.oz-central.com/graphic/p_father_goose_02x.jpg

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  4. saintfighteraquaMay 31, 2012 at 9:25 AM

    Maybe Lonnie is short for Lonesome Duck? I was wondering who that was myself.

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  5. Bell-SnickleJune 1, 2012 at 2:17 PM

    So curious about Lonnie. Could it be a nickname for the Lonesome Duck? Of course if it was the Lonesome Duck it should have a crown instead of top hat...

    Hmm, or maybe Souse got mixed up and included a character from something else he'd illustrated?

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