Christmas Cards - Have a Cool Yule!

I've previously blogged about several examples of holiday cards drawn by the creators of the Oz series. Eloise Jarvis McGraw was known to engrave wood-blocks to print her own Holiday cards (click here). And Eric Shanower drew his own Christmas cards for many years. Here's one of my favorites featuring Percy the Personality Kid. Bill Campbell of the Oz Collector blog recently shared a great collection of John R. Neill's personal Christmas greetings.

Here is a Christmas card drawn by Oz illustrator Dick Martin. It is a commercially produced card designed by Martin in the mid-1950s. Dick created dozens of different greeting cards back then. Many delighted in '50s kitsch, such as this trumpet playing cat lounging in a bowl chair. The front of the card gives little indication this is, in fact, a Christmas card. But as you'll see from the inner spread, it is!

As this cat says, "Have a cool Yule . . . and a real crazy new Year!"

Christmas Snow!

I think maybe it's time for a holiday-oriented blog post!

Back in the late 1920s Jack Snow wrote a weekly radio column called "Cruising the Air Channels" for the Piqua Daily Call in Piqua, Ohio. Incidentally, for years I mispronounced the name of this small Ohio town. It's actually pronounced "Pick-way."

Below you will find excerpts from two different columns, both from December 1928. I'm not quite sure why Snow found this issue of multiple Santa's on the air waves so troublesome. To me, it seems no more problematic than the usual logic issues of how Santa gets to all the various houses to deliver all those toys from one sleigh in one night.

But it's still fun to read about the relatively young medium of radio, and Snow mentions "nomes" and uses Baum's spelling. So get ready to lock down your radio tuner and enjoy some Christmas Snow!

December 17th 1928
SANTA AGAIN

This is the season of the year when every radio studio has its Santa Claus. Actually if you want to preserve the illusion of the bewhiskered Saint for your small son or daughter, the only thing to do is to pick a strong station and lock the controls of the set. For if the youngster starts hunting Santa of his own accord, he will discover the air to be thickly beset by the benevolent old gentleman. The child will make the alarming discovery that Santa can hop from Pittsburgh to Cincinnati and to St. Louis and and back again as fast as he can turn the dial. Apparently Santa is possessed of a tenor voice in St. Louis, a bass tone in Cincinnati, and a mellow baritone in Pittsburgh. This state of affairs is confusing to say the least, and has been known to elicit some embarrassing questions that parents are not always capable of answering.

All the Santas are jolly and beneficent so there is not really much choice. The thing to do, therefore, is to pick the strongest station and then stand guard over the controls of the set while the young hope is absorbing the Christmas spirit. Otherwise the radio as a means of child education is going to prove just a trifle too successful.

December 24, 1928
Illusions Lost

Our worst fears are realized. Either the whole Santa Claus story is a gigantic hoax, or Santa himself is a deceiver of the worst sort. How, are we anxious to learn, aided by even the swiftest airplane can Santa be in Detroit, Philadelphia, New York, and Cincinnati as fast as we turn the single dial of our set?

And oh, the companions and merry little helpers of Santa, their member is legion. There are nomes, elves, princesses, fairies and all manner of what nots that roam through the pages of the charming child books. The main difficulty, however, in all this pleasant phantasia to entertain the younger members of the radio audience is the lack of consistency. Even in fairy tales, and imaginative stories, the author must be believed - he must be consistent. but not so your bland studio director, he asininely bites off several more hunks than he can choose, and proceeds to lose seven-eights of the illusion that the microphone, more happily handled, might create. Here again, we have a crying need for competent radio dramatists.

Now, why not head over to our sister blog Hungry Tiger Tales and read Jack Snow's The Animals' Christmas Tree.

Reindeer Prints

When I was blogging about Royal Historian of Oz Eloise Jarvis McGraw earlier this month I mentioned that she was trained as a fine artist as well as being a writer of books.

In the last decades of her life she was very interested in print-making of all kinds, and most years she made her own Christmas cards. One of the first I got from her was the Christmas card (at left) from 1982. It's a wood block print showing the Three Magi. Eloise designed the card, carved the two wood blocks (one for each color), and then hand printed the cards. This card is more detailed than most she produced.  As you might imagine, Eloise was a big fan of Barry Moser.

This one (at right) from 1984 was one of my favorites. It reminded me a bit of the cover of L. Frank Baum's Life and Adventures of Santa Claus. I especially liked all the fanciful objects serving as snowflakes falling from the sky.

Below is the card from 1985. Eloise wrote in it:

"Dear David - the title of this card should be Christmas Clichés. Ah well, I'll do a better one next year."

I think she did just fine! Happy Holidays!

As always you can click on any of the images to enlarge them and see them a little better.

Sis Sez Sunday - 25

Well, it's Christmas a week early at Sis's house! And golly gee, if the shoe fits, then why not?

Happy Holidays from Ruth Plumly Thompson, Marge, and all the gang in Sis Sez!

This installment of Marge and Ruth Plumly Thompson's SIS SEZ page first appeared in King Comics, No. 21, in December 1937. 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.

Christmas in Oz

This past weekend Eric Shanower and I had our annual Holiday Party. It always features a nice mix of Oz friends, Comics friends, and Theatre friends. It was a fine evening!

People often bring little gifts, a bottle of this or that, sometimes books, sometimes edibles. But this year our good friend, cartoonist Joe Phillips, made us a wonderful and Ozzy Christmas drawing!

So thank you, Joe, for the wonderful present!

Happy Holidays!

David and Eric

Jack Snow and The Magic Sled

A couple days ago Jared Davis's Oz blog featured a free on-line recording of Jack Snow's Christmas short story, The Magic Sled. I encourage you to go check it out. Listen to The Magic Sled here!

Original 1955 appearance of THE MAGIC SLED

Snow of course was the author of The Magical Mimics in Oz, The Shaggy Man of Oz, and Who's Who in Oz. After Snow lost his job working at NBC he was hired as a staff writer for the Associated Hospital Service of New York and he edited their in-house newsletter, Inside AHS. It is very probably that Snow named the newsletter himself, as the AHS initials in the title could well be pronounced as "Oz". Jack Snow wrote The Magic Sled for the December 1955 issue of Inside AHS.

The illustration (at left)  is signed Richard Rodriguez. There is some very circumstantial evidence to suggest the illustration might be the work of one of Jack Snow's boyfriends. Yes, Snow was gay in case you hadn't heard. The original AHS printing of the story includes a very brief introduction by Snow, too. If you click on either of these images they will expand to a much more readable size.

Hungry Tiger Press reprinted The Magic Sled in Oz-story No. 5 where it was newly illustrated by Eric Shanower (see below).

Happy Sledding!