The Comical Land of Oz

We’re off to see the Wizard! The Cartoon Art Museum celebrates The Wonderful Wizard of Oz with an exhibition featuring vintage newspaper tearsheets and original artwork spanning over 100 years of classic comics. The exhibit runs from November 12 - April 25, 2012. Click here for details.

At the dawn of the 20th century,  L. Frank Baum created a world of wonders that was to hold a permanent place in the culture of America: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz . Then in 1904, to promote his second book, Baum, along with master cartoonist Walt McDougall, brought his famed characters to Earth in a new medium, the comic strip.

Famed Oz illustrators W.W. Denslow and John R. Neill also launched their own syndicated comic strips in the early 20th Century.  The Cartoon Art Museum’s exhibition will include a selection of tearsheets from these talented artists: McDougall’s Queer Visitors from Marvelous Land of Oz, Denslow’s Father Goose and Billy Bounce, and Neill’s Nip and Tuck, courtesy of historian and publisher Peter Maresca of Sunday Press.

Acclaimed writer and artist Eric Shanower’s first Oz comic, The Enchanted Apples of Oz, was published in 1986, beginning his 25-year (and counting!) association with Baum’s characters.  This exhibition will feature highlights from five of Shanower’s Oz graphic novels, as well as a selection of art from his latest series of Eisner Award-winning Oz adaptations for Marvel Comics illustrated by Skottie Young.  Additional collaborators include Anna-Maria Cool and the legendary Ramona Fradon.

Presentations and booksignings featuring publisher Peter Maresca and writer/artist Eric Shanower are in the planning stages. Information on these and other Oz-related events will be available soon.

Color Me Ev

We're taking a break from foreign editions in this Saturday's Ozma of Oz blog series. Instead we take a look at one particular illustration by John R. Neill for the original 1907 edition of the book.

This full page illustration on page 221 features the Queen of Ev, who has just been disenchanted by Billina. When I was a kid I always thought the Queen of Ev looked too much like a nun! Anyway, this illustration was only printed in color in the very earliest copies of the first printing in 1907. It is in black and white in all later copies.

The reason the publishers dropped the color is quite evident if one looks closely at the color version. Something has gone very wrong in the magenta and yellow printing plates resulting in a heavy ink build up along the hem of the queen's gown and the lower half of Billina, which results in so much ink that there is a bad paper scuff (right behind Billina) from overly sticky globbed-up ink. It was so bad that the printed pages stuck together as they were coming off the press - that scuff ripped a chunk of text from page 222, the verso of this page (see below).

Red ink offset and scuff of text on page 222.

The bright vermilion border of the illustration is the same color as the ink blob. The border is also badly overprinted with sticky ink - so much so that one can feel its dimension, the ink is so thick. It looks like the problem arose when the printer failed to remove the dot-pattern of the Queen's gown from Billina - thus making Billina look transparent.What caused the main bright red ink blob is unclear. The printing plates must have been so damaged that they were beyond repair and the the color was dropped, leaving the illustration in black and white in all future printings.

I believe the current Books of Wonder reprint of Ozma of Oz restored this image in color, though I do not have a copy of that edition to confirm that. In any case here is the Queen of Ev in color

Ozma in Japan Strikes Again!

It's Saturday again and we shall continue our series exploring foreign editions and other unusual takes on L. Frank Baum's 1907 Oz book, Ozma of Oz. Two weeks ago we looked at a Japanese picture book edition of Ozma, and today we explore the first full-length Japanese translation.

This edition of Ozu no Ozuma Hime (Princess Ozma of Oz) was published in 1975 by Hayakawa Shobo of Tokyo. It had been preceded by translations of The Wizard of Oz and The Land of Oz, and Hayakawa has since published the entire series of L. Frank Baum's Oz books. The fourteen uniform volumes are each translated by Takako Sato and each features illustrations by Sonoko Arai.

These Japanese Oz books are very attractive. They are small size paperbacks about six inches tall. Each comes in a full-color dust jacket, has a full-color double-page frontispiece, a map, and many black and white illustrations. Each also has an afterword featuring more information about Baum and Oz.

Arai's black and white work has always seemed a little flat to me. The line weight is too uniform, and the pictures can feel a little lifeless and static. But the character designs are good; even if the humans characters seem a bit generic and WASPish. (At right) you can see Sonoko Arai's black and white illustration showing Dorothy meeting Tik-Tok.

I like Arai's color work much better. Indeed, her double-page color illustration of the Wheeler (see below) is one of her best efforts in the Japanese Oz series. It's strong and dynamic; and the use of white space in the background and in the road feels very Japanese.

You can check out the previous Ozma of Oz posts by clicking here.

Ozma Goes to Belgrade

Ozma of Oz continues her tour of the world, and today we find her in a rare Yugoslavian edition.

This edition of Ozma od Oza was published in 1976 by Nolit of Belgrade. The full-length Serbian translation was made by Zoran Stanojevic. The book is illustrated in black and white by Vlada Stolikovich. There is a companion edition of Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz but seemingly no other Oz books in this set - not even a Wizard of Oz.

I'm not quite sure whose fingers Billina is standing on in the cover illustration. Perhaps it is the Nome King, symbolically emerging from underground?

The illustrations are very odd and very 1970s. I quite like them because they are just so weird and unusual. The simple ink work is enhanced by many different types of Yugoslavian zip-a-tone, which is often used to great effect. The occasional moiree patterns are deliberate, not from my scans.

I especially like seeing how very different foreign illustrators portray our well known Oz characters. This is certainly one of the most original Tik-Tok designs! Almost all of Stolikovich's illustrations are decorative portraits. Few actually illustrate exact moments in the story. Oddly there is not a single picture of Ozma herself.

More Ozma of Oz next Saturday!

Nice Hat, Mister!

It's always fun when I can give you a sneak-peek at an upcoming issue of Eric Shanower and Skottie Young's Ozma of Oz from Marvel Comics.

So here is Skottie's cover for issue seven!

Remember that you can order signed copies of both The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and The Marvelous Land of Oz  at our on-line store. It's easy! In the "Special Instructions" box simply let us know that you'd like your books signed and if you'd like them personalized to someone in particular.

Ozma in Japan

This weekend I bring you another post focusing on L. Frank Baum's third Oz book, Ozma of Oz. Many of you are following Eric Shanower and Skottie Young's adaptation of that book from Marvel Comics and I thought you might like a look at Ozma through foreign eyes.

This weekend's Ozma post focuses on a charming Japanese picture book published by Popura Shabunko, of Tokyo, in 1987. The book's title is a bit unusual, Ozu no Mahoutsukai to Ozuma Hime which translates as "the Wizard of Oz and Princess Ozma". Other Japanese editions of Ozma translate the title more traditionally as Ozu no Ozuma Hime "Princess Ozma of Oz". There are picture book editions of The Wizard of Oz and The Land of Oz as well. I suspect that the popularity of Disney's Return to Oz film that motivated the publication of these three titles. There is similar set with different illustrations by another Japanese publisher, also published in 1987.

The edition was published in hardcover with a dustjacket and has 44 pages. Below you can see several of the more interesting illustrations. At right, Dorothy gale enjoys a meal from the Lunch Pail Tree while Billina looks on. The way these lunches grow you can sort of see what you're getting - they're more like cafeteria trees - you just pick a couple sandwiches, a piece of fruit, and a doughnut and you're all set!

I think the design for Tik-Tok is pretty cute.I'd love a toy version! The wind-up key at the front is a bit odd as it seems like Tik-Tok might be able to wind himself. I've always assumed Tik-Tok's manufacturers placed his wind-up keys on his back and under his two arms so that Tik-Tok couldn't be self-winding, thus preventing their robot from attaining true autonomy. The inability of the traditional Tik-Tok to wind himself is one of the things that helps define him as "non-living."

The Japanese illustrator did follow Baum's text and hang Tik-Tok's "operating instructions" from a clunky cardboard sign around Tik-Tok's neck. It seems like it could easily get lost, IMHO. Below you can see Tik-Tok giving the Wheelers a hard time.

The arrival at the entrance to the Nome King's caverns is striking and very different. We also get a nice view of the Nomes slaving away in the jewel mines. Click on any of the images to see them enlarged.

 

Every spread of the picture book contains one full page color illustration and one page of text with a small illustration echoing the larger image. Below you can see a sample showing Dorothy giving the Nome King what-for. The book is really cute!

Blog 200 - Chicken Kiev

Well here we are at our 200th blog post. It seems hard to believe how quickly time sure is flying by!

Many of you are eagerly reading Eric Shanower and Skottie Young's adaptation of Ozma of Oz from Marvel Comics. So I've decided to start a short series of blogs on unusual editions of Ozma of Oz.

We begin with a lovely, if very different, Russian translation from the Ukraine. This oversize hardcover, titled Ozma iz strani Oz was published in Kiev in 1994 by Spalax Ltd. The book is profusely illustrated in full color by S. M. Starosuk.

New, and often very original, illustrations are one of the great joys of collecting foreign editions of the Oz books - especially neat are translations of the later Oz books with new illustrations. This Ozma is one of my favorites.

The illustrator seems to have had a lot of fun with Billina. She is in almost every illustration and always full of character. Note her calm demeanor as she sits on the wave-tossed raft holding her morning egg.

Tik-Tok is very original, too, looking a bit like a mechanical Conquistador. (See below)

I also really like the the Elizabethan look of the Queen of Ev. We see her below freshly disenchanted by Billina in the Nome king's ornament room (see below).

Roquat the Nome King is also in high-renaissance garb as you can see (at left) when the Sawhorse gives him a good kick. I really like the Russian Hungry Tiger, too. He's such a little fur-ball!

That's it for today. We'll take a look at some other editions of Ozma of Oz in the coming weeks.