Monday, November 16, 2015

Map of Oz Monday - Oz Club Map of Oz 1962


Oz Club's "Marvelous Land of Oz" map - 1962 version. Click to enlarge.

Today we'll begin looking in detail at the Oz Club's set of maps. We explored the origins of these maps last week, so let's jump right in! The club reissued and revised their Oz maps a number of times over the years. The first version (seen above) was published in 1962. There was a new set with many revisions and additions published in 1967 and additional editions published in 1971, 1975, and 1980, and a full overhaul of the maps was carried out in 2008. You can tell the issue date of the main "Map of the Marvelous Land of Oz" in a given set by the roman numeral date in the yellow shield on the Tin Woodman decoration. Alas, the 2008 revision inadvertently retained the 1980 date.

This 1962 version is also the first map to include locations and geographical features from all of the then-39 Oz titles, from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) through The Hidden Valley of Oz (1951), as well as locales from the Little Wizard Stories of Oz (1913) and The Laughing Dragon of Oz (1936). The 1962 version of the "Explanatory Notes" that accompanies these maps fails to mention anything about what books are covered in the maps. Many of Baum's non-Oz works are referenced in the "Map of Surrounding Countries," but we will save that conversation for a later blog post.

I greatly admire these maps and the care James E. Haff put into them. Haff was a civilian cartographer for the U. S. Air Force and a consummate Oz aficionado. And lest there be any doubt, the actual design of the maps is the work of Jim Haff. Dick Martin's role was to prepare a clean inked version of the line art, lettering, etc. and then to prepare the color separations, which were done by hand.

Below you can see Jim Haff's working drawing for this map. You'll probably want to click on the image so you can see the level of detail better.

James E. Haff's working copy of the 1962 "Land of Oz" map. Click to enlarge.

Thankfully, the first thing to point out is that Haff restored Baum's Munchkins in the east, Winkies in the west orientation for the first time since 1920.  But this map has for the first time in any Oz map, made both those countries and those directions agree with our "real world" compass. From the notes I've read, it doesn't seem like the creators of the Oz Club map ever even considered that Baum's 1914 map might have been "correct."  I can understand if they made a different choice, but it is surprising to me that the idea that directions were in fact reversed in Oz was not an option that seems to have occurred to them.

Jim Haff took great pride in spots where he could "sync up" details from different Oz books. A prime example being his charting of the Winkie River. Haff wrote in his unpublished notes: "This results incidentally, in a rather neat coincidence: Suds and its adjacent lake and are an extension of the Dangerous Passage and Soap Slide on the Winkie River."


Suds, of course, is from Ruth Plumly Thompson's The Gnome King of Oz (1927) and the Dangerous Passage and Soap Slide are from John R. Neill's Lucky Bucky in Oz (1942). It is little touches like this that make the maps so much fun!

There are many details unique to the 1962 version of this map; things that will be adjusted and corrected in the 1967 and later editions. To point out only a few: Reera is north of Skeezer Lake in this map and she will eventually be moved south of Skeezer Lake; Torpedo Town, Stairway, and the Delves are further north in the 1962 map and will be shifted further south in later maps. Note, too, that this map came out the year before Merry Go Round in Oz was published, so none of the locations from that book are on the 1962 version of the map.

While Dick Martin has for the most part drawn in each locale exactly where Haff placed it, there were a few omissions, such as Martin's failing to draw in "Bottle Hill." The label is present on the '62 map but the actual hill is not (see full-color map above). I will more systematically itemize the changes made to later versions of the maps as we get to those discussions.

Central section of Haff's master Map of Oz. Click to enlarge.

For the most part the published maps strictly adhere to Haff's master map. But the Munchkin Country was radically altered before the map went to press in 1962. This is largely due to a disagreement over exactly where Unc Nunkie and Ojo's cottage is located. Personally, I think Haff's original choice to keep Ojo and Doctor Pipt in the southern Munchkin Country was correct. Whoever urged their shift to the north created an unfortunate blemish. I was going to address this messy business in today's blog, but when I sat down with the various maps and copies of The Patchwork Girl of Oz and Ojo in Oz, I found the issue complex enough to warrant an entire post. Guess what you'll be reading next week?

There is another unique feature of the 1962 version of the maps. Dick Martin did not use a black plate in his color separation. He seems to have used a deep royal blue instead of black (see below); the three other colors being process yellow, magenta, and cyan. It's a handsome choice, IMHO. According to David Greene, Dick Martin personally oversaw the printing of the maps in Chicago.

Note that the text is printed in royal blue in the 1962 version of the map.

Despite my admiration and fondness for the Haff/Martin maps they have a major weakness (for me anyway) in that they generally disregard the shapes of the countries as presented in Baum's 1914 Map of Oz. The Gillikin Country is much enlarged, the area of the Emerald City is greatly shrunk, a good deal of real estate is taken away from the Quadling Country, and the proportion of Oz is altered, making it somewhat more square than Baum's fairyland.

I prepared a little animation to show the transformation from Baum's map to the Oz Club map. I had to mirror-image the Oz Club map to make the two maps "morph." I have aligned the top northern borders of both maps, as that edge was the least changed. I think you can see how radically Haff and Martin altered Ozian geography.


I suspect Haff adjusted that bit of the yellow Winkie Country to creep down to the southern edge of Oz so that the route of the sand boat would end in the Winkie Country as is described in The Road to Oz, but  there seems little reason for Haff to have altered the shapes of the other countries. Personally, I would have just redrawn the path of the sand boat into an arc, or shifted Dunkiton and Foxville, rather than alter the shapes Baum gave to his Oz countries.

I asked Jim Haff about some of this back in the late 1970's and he replied that he just wanted to equalize the land masses of each country a bit and that he always thought the area around the Emerald City seemed too large. There is also a possibility that Haff and Martin wanted to make the map "different" from the Reilly & Lee maps so as to avoid any hint of copyright infringement. But both Jim and Dick had died before I thought of asking them about that possible reason. In any case the altered country shapes make the map less authentic to me.

It would be hard to deny the influence the Oz Club's maps have had. They have been available from the club for over fifty years, they have been reproduced in various fantasy works, and they were included in all of the Del Rey reprints of the Oz books.

Next week we'll explore exactly what they did to the Munchkin Country and check out a few missed opportunities as well. Click here for the next blog in this series.

Original ad for the Oz Club Maps in THE BAUM BUGLE, Christmas 1963.

I must express my gratitude to Cindy Ragni of Wonderful Books of Oz.com for her help and generosity in sharing scans of Jim Haff's original "research" maps and many other helpful materials she has directed my way.

10 comments:

marbpl said...

The Oz Club Land of Oz map was included in the Del Rey mass market paperback sized Baum editions, but both maps were only included in the larger-sized Del Rey Thompson editions. Perhaps the Surrounding Countries Map was left out of the Baum tiles because it was unreadable at that small size?

Interestingly, Dick Martin "restored" Ojo's home to the south of the Munchkin Country in his 1968 Baum-only map for Reilly & Lee.

Also, the Oz Club map left out the Goody Shop from JACK PUMPKINHEAD IN OZ. I don't think it's ever been added to the map since then.

David Maxine said...

@ marbpl - My copy of Dick Martin's 1968 Reilly and Lee map shows Ojo and Dr. Pipt in the North. Can you recheck your source for that info, and if Ojo is indeed in the South on some version of that map I'd love to see that variant!

marbpl said...

Oops! You are indeed correct -- I haven't looked at that map (which indeed, was the one you had posted on this very site at http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xkH9NvoOQBg/Tzt9Ns-USVI/AAAAAAAABUo/mS4HTDfLnoM/s1600/we_lostprincess_map_1968.jpg) for a while, and must have confused it with the positions on the 1914 one. I'll have to be more careful before posting in the future. Sorry!!

marbpl said...

Also, it is interesting how Haff and Martin chose to include the rather obscure, unauthorized, and pretty much non-canonical LAUGHING DRAGON OF OZ. I suppose that in 1962 there were hardly any published Oz works outside the 39 books and related non-Oz fantasies, and that they could feel generous and include those locations. However, they didn't include the serialized 1926 INVISIBLE INZI OF OZ, which must have been considered too obscure for inclusion (or was it yet to be discovered when the map was being designed?).

Nathan said...

Baum' 1914 map was an in-universe one, credited to the Wogglebug, so its compass directions are the ones for Ozian maps. Haff's was adapted for Outside World consumers, so it uses our standard compass directions. That's one possible explanation, anyway.

I kind of like the larger Gillikin Country. I wish Baum had given some textual indication as to whether he actually regarded it as smaller than the other quadrants.

David Maxine said...

@ Nathan - I think many of us would prefer "Ozian" maps so we won't get lost :)

My concern with the size of the Gillikin Country isn't that one version is bigger or smaller, but that I prefer to have the geographical shape that L. Frank Baum drew; a picture is worth a thousand words. It's fine for Jim Haff to scribble a new shape and call it the "Gillikin Country," but the most that can ever be, IMHO, is a fan-made alternate version.

For me Baum's geography wins out because, well . .. it was drawn by L. Frank Baum! And Baum was using his own map to create his later Oz book texts.

David Maxine said...

@ Marc - I suspect they included places from LAUGHING DRAGON OF OZ on the map because it's author Frank Joslyn Baum was a good friends of Fred Meyer's and, too, Frank J. Baum was the first President of the Oz Club. The choice to include the weird little book does tend to "validate" FJB's not very Ozzy text into Ozzier status.

saintfighteraqua said...

I can't wait to read the in depth stuff. Moving Ojo's house always seemed an off choice, but maybe they did it because the southern Munchkin Country gets really crowded in the Cowardly Lion of Oz and Ojo in Oz...or to make him closer to Nikidik's, which was pretty unnecessary.
Baum says you could see Hammerhead Mountain from Ojo's hill, I believe, which is also very odd. Almost certainly impossible from the northern Munchkin Country and still unlikely from the south. Unless there are multiple places where Hammerheads can be found in Oz.
Either way, it was a pretty drastic change for Haff to make.

David Maxine said...

@ Saintfighteraqua - nice to see you commenting again! You'll get all the Ojo stuff next week :)

marbpl said...

Even after Martin moved Ojo north, he still kept the southern Munchkin forest where his house used to be in his 1968 map, which is closer in shape and layout to the 1914 one.