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.

The Apocryphal Oziad

Many long-time attendees of the Winkie Convention will recall Fred Otto's Oziad. Over three decades Fred (seen at left) would transform each of the forty Oz books into rollicking verse - in rhyme! Sometimes incredibly clever, sometimes cringingly atrocious. The Oziad was a tradition at the Winkie Convention.

In 1991 Eric Shanower and I chaired our first Winkie Convention. The theme was "Oz on Stage," and Eric and I produced a very elaborate convention. The displays, the program book, and pretty much everything else was organized around the "Oz on Stage" theme and Eric and I wrote Fred Otto to ask if he'd consider doing the 1991 Oziad on one of Baum's stage shows or on Baum's stage works in general.

Alas, Fred said no. But he said no in the nicest possible way.

Dear David and Eric,

I don't have the books for the tales of Baum's stage works,
Those plays are to me esoteric.
Each new plan proposed an old man of my age irks.
Though it be for David and Eric.

The challenge of rhyming the name Tryxie Tryfle
Or that of the cow, Imogene,
Will please me as anything else in my life'll
But I'm not a rhyming machine!

So, with your approval, I'll do Hidden Valley.
I've read it before, so don't fret.
I did it last year at the Munchkins' gay rally,
In front of the authoress yet!

See you at Asilomar,
Fred

Fred is gone now. But he and The Oziad are still fondly remembered at the Winkie Convention.

If you'd like to join us at this year's Winkie Convention check out the WINKIE CON tab at the top of this page or click here. We'd be delighted to have you join us.

Fred Otto reading THE OZIAD at the 1978 Winkie Convention

Newsies in Oz!

Back in the very early 1980s three teenage boys went to Oz. . . . Well, they each started Oz newsletters, anyway.

Eric Gjovaag - David Maxine - Scott Cummings (circa early 1980s)

In those days the Oz Club's journal, The Baum Bugle, was being published very sporadically, yet the Oz Club was heading into its biggest decade. Oz fans were simply itching for contact with each other, to learn of local Oz news and activities.

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The Seattle area was especially rich with Oz interest and club members, and the local group had begun holding a regular mini-Oz convention called The Oogaboo Rendezvous.

The group was becoming so active that Eric Gjovaag was the first to address the need for a regional Oz newsletter. In January 1980 he produced the first issue of The Oogaboo Review. The newsletter was published quarterly.

In addition to local news, Eric filled the issue with book reviews, mini-essays, short fiction, profiles of local Oz folk, and of course announcements and reports on the Oogaboo Rendezvous.

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In 1981 my family had just recently moved to Minneapolis and there was a large Oz community waiting to be organized. I started hosting local Oz parties, showing my collection at local libraries, and Fred Meyer mentioned The Oogaboo Review to me. I was immediately smitten with the idea of starting my own newsletter and in the Spring of 1981 I produced the first issue of The Pumperdink Press.

Like Eric's Seattle newsletter, The Pumperdink Press included a good deal more than local Oz news. I shared new treasures from my collection,  reviewed books and movies, and was pleased to include some really neat things, including Oz fiction by Philip José Farmer and previously unpublished artwork by W. W. Denslow, Dick Martin, and Eloise Jarvis McGraw. Each issue also contained an advice and gossip column written by Kabumpo, the Elegant Elephant.

The Pumperdink Press was published for three years. I  tried to make each issue more elaborate than the last, absorbing new layout techniques, printing on colored paper, exploring dry-transfer lettering and decorative layout tape, and having photographs screened. By the third issue I had switched from photocopying to off-set printing. All these regional newsletters were typed on typewriters. Affordable home computers and laser printers were still several years away.

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At exactly the same time, Scott Cummings of upstate New York began The Munchkin Monthly. Yes, a monthly! Though in actuality it was only supposed to be published ten times per year, the daunting schedule forced the closure of the paper after only six issues. It was soon reborn as a quarterly called The Munchkin Times.

Scott was the youngest of the three of us - his youthful enthusiasm was evident in his taking the time to hand decorate many of the issues (note the Ozmite wings under the masthead), and Scott would send personal notes and valentines. I even have a Munchkin Times pendant Scott made with Shrinky Dinks!

I don't know if Scott did this for everyone, but some of my envelopes came very elaborately decorated.

If memory serves me right, all three newsletters ceased publication sometime in 1985. I completed three volumes (twelve issues) of The Pumperdink Press. The final four issues were spread over almost two years. My first full-time theatre job was sapping all my creative energy. Eric Gjovaag eventually turned the reins of The Oogaboo Review over to his Assistant Editor, Glenn Ingersoll, after volume five, and Glenn produced another couple issues. The last partial issue I have of The Munchkin Times dates from August 1985 and I think that was the final one.

What I find most interesting is that we Oz boys were about the same age, each of us built our little Oz journals at about the same time, and each journal ended as our lives became too "grown up" for us to manage the headaches of editorship. Yet we each also went on to fairly high-profile lives in the Oz community. Eric Gjovaag developed the earliest (and best) major website devoted to L. Frank Baum and Oz; I went on to found Hungry Tiger Press and edit Oz-story Magazine (not to mention this time-sap of a blog); and Scott Cummings is currently the editor of The Baum Bugle - one of the best Bugle editors that journal has had.

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I can't finish this blog without mentioning one other Ozzy newsletter, The Quadling Quarterly. It was founded by a young kid named John Plummer from Tennessee. He prepared three or four issues and disappeared. Maybe he'll read this blog and say hello! [Note: Just reconnected with John Plummer on Facebook!]

The 1970s and early 1980s produced a very large and very engaged group of young Oz fans. I wish I saw more of that happening today. Kids, teenagers, and families seem to be disappearing from organized Oz life. I know kids still love Oz, but although I've seen a special few, I haven't seen a whole new generation of Ozzies chomping at the bit since the early 1990s - certainly not in the Oz Club anyway - but here's hoping!

Eric Gjovaag - David Maxine - Scott Cummings  -  (these days)

Dickin' Around

Dick Martin circa 1980

No doubt you are all familiar with the work of Oz illustrator Dick Martin. He was the last "official" illustrator for the Reilly and Lee Oz books and created the pictures for The Visitors from Oz (1960) and Merry Go Round in Oz (1963.) He also illustrated picture-book abridgements of the first four Oz books and he designed the ever popular "white editions" of the Oz series that dominated bookshelves in the 1960s and '70s.

Dick also played a huge part in the early days of the International Wizard of Oz Club, doing research, editing and laying out The Baum Bugle, working on bibliography, and much else including illustrating Ruth Plumly Thompson's final two Oz books, illustrating the McGraws' Forbidden Fountain of Oz (1980), and finally writing an Oz book of his own, The Ozmapolitan of Oz (1986). And at the time of his death in 1990 he had the finest Baum and Oz collection in the world.

Dick was a very private man, very reserved and quiet (he was very hard-of-hearing), and he hated fandom of any kind, despite being a fanatical Oz collector, comic collector, and toy collector himself. I am sure, too, that some of Dick Martin's reserve was because he was gay (but pretty firmly in the closet). It wasn't exactly a secret (at least to other gay people). I suspected Dick was gay the first time I got a letter from him. His tone, his quirky sense of humor, his ultra-dapper author's photo in The Oz Scrapbook (1978) all set my Gaydar off, even though I was a sixteen-year-old closeted gay boy myself.

I'll share more Dick Martin stories in the future, but in today's blog I'm gonna discuss Dick's mischievous side. Dick's illustrations were fairly cartoony, always light-hearted and fun. But he also liked to work in quaint references, little in-jokes for his friends. Sometimes these were Baum or Oz collecting references, sometimes bits of sly innuendo like in this charming illustration from Merry Go Round in Oz showing two cute little boys holding hands in the Land of Good Children. In Oz it seems everyone is a Friend of Dorothy.

Two Ozzy boys holding hands in MERRY GO ROUND IN OZ

Or in the illustration of Prince Gules below. Note the placement of the big Easter egg and Gules's excitement at finding that big ring. And if it's not obvious enough what's going on, Gules's right hand signals it quite blatantly.

 
This "after dark" in Oz streak is most evident in a short bit of Oz fiction Dick wrote for friends in the mid-1960s called Oz ad Nauseum. It was later printed in a fanzine called No, no.10 (June 1972), edited by charter Oz Club member Ruth Berman, and it was included as a premium broadsheet in our own Oz-story No. 6 (2000).

But for your reading pleasure it is also available as this month's free on-line Tiger Tale. I'm sure you'll get a kick out of this very irreverent Oz tale, and you'll get to spend a few minutes with a more private Dick Martin than you get to know from only his illustrations. Go read it!

Banner Elk and The Land of Oz

Eric Shanower at the Gates of the Emerald City.

This coming weekend the International Wizard of Oz Club will be meeting in Banner Elk, North Carolina, at the site of the long-defunct Land of Oz theme park.

In many ways I wish I was going. Several close friends will be there, and it would be a great chance to meet some friends I only know from on-line. But I am not going.

While travel funds being tight is certainly a part of it, the biggest reason I decided not to go was that I had gone to the park in its heyday when I was a kid. Frankly, I was afraid of messing with those ever more distant memories.

Many of those attending the con and most actively involved in what remains of the park are too young to have ever gone to this Land of Oz when all was new and vital. For these Land of Oz newbies I suspect it is easy to look at the remnants and see the landscape as one-quarter full. I fear I would only see it three-quarters empty. In any case, I'm unwilling to risk my memories of the functioning Land of Oz park.

Eric's sister (in red) watches the Magic Moment show.

My partner Eric also went to the park back in the day. Indeed, that is Eric Shanower and his Dad (in the photo above) standing outside the gates of the Emerald City. I don't have any personal snapshots of my visit, though I still have all of the souvenirs I bought, except for two felt Oz flags.

I first heard of the Land of Oz park when I was six. My family and I were traveling in Texas to visit my grandmother, and the Holiday Inn magazine had an article on the park. I desperately wanted to go - having no conception that North Carolina was not an easy drive from Lubbock, Texas. I didn't get to the park until I was thirteen, when we were on a family vacation in Atlanta.

I really liked it. It felt  like going to Oz - albeit more MGM's Oz than L. Frank Baum's. The trip through the storm cellar during the tornado was very effective and the skewed perspective in the ruined house was really very amazing and disorienting.

The show in the Emerald City.
Photographs copyright © Eric Shanower 2011.

While it was called a theme park, in reality it was a walk-thru stage musical. There were no rides, no concessions, just pure fun and entertainment. All of the shops, food, and souvenirs were kept in the Emerald City where the journey ended. My dad, a grumpy, pessimistic, anti-corporation, anti-big-business radical LOVED the park. He was so impressed that they weren't nickle and dime-ing you every step of the way.

I think I might be able to deal with walking thru what remains of the park if I were alone - just absorbing and taking it in. Letting a curve of the Yellow Brick Road bring back a memory. But I'm not gonna risk it with a hundred Ozzy friends. Have fun, guys :)

QWERTY in Oz

Today's blog is the tale of a typewriter - Ruth Plumly Thompson's typewriter to be exact.

In 1985, Thompson's niece, Dorothy Maryott, decided it was time to part with a few of her aunt's things and she donated RPT's typewriter to the Ozmapolitan Convention to be auctioned off. This preposterous collectible had to be mine! MINE!

I had read in The Baum Bugle how pioneering Oz collector C. Warren Hollister owned the pencil that L. Frank Baum had used to write The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. I thought to myself ... Hah! This will be my Baumian pencil stub! But I knew there would be some bidding competition - perhaps even from Warren Hollister himself! I began my pre-auction negotiations.

Most of the folks that I viewed as "competition" saw my youthful eagerness and said they'd give me a clear shot. But, DRAT! Warren Hollister had the notion that it would indeed be a good companion piece for his pencil stub.

Warren and I talked, I tried my best pitiful look, and we eventually struck a playful bargain. He agreed not to bid on the typewriter; and I agreed that if at any other auction I was bidding against him he could say the word "typewriter" and I'd stop bidding. Done deal! By now you may have already surmised that I went on to win the typewriter.

I must add that this is not RPT's typewriter from when she was writing her early Oz books. It was her typewriter from the early 1950s until her death in 1976. But it was the typewriter she used to write Yankee in Oz and The Enchanted Island of Oz.

The typewriter came in its case (see above) and even included RPT's typewriter cleaning kit!

After the auction, I heard that Dorothy Maryott wanted to talk to the young man that had bought her aunt's typewriter. She found me a bit later that afternoon and congratulated me on my win. Then she said that she had something she thought I might like to have to go with the typewriter.

She pulled a small bit of folded blue fabric from her handbag. She had withheld it from the auction - unsure if she really felt like parting with it. But after she saw my youthful excitement at winning, she decided that maybe I should have it after all.

It was a dustcover Maryott had made for the typewriter while her aunt was writing The Enchanted Island of Oz.

It was decorated with an applique showing Humpty Bumpty, the camel from what would be Thompson's final Oz book. I happily accepted the dustcover as a gift.

And that is how I came to own RPT's typewriter and sign off today's blog post with it, too.

Cave Men in Oz

Today has been very busy and for the first time there was a danger on no daily blog post. But I hate to break stride this early in the life of this blog. So you get ...

An original drawing by Dick Martin for The Ozmapolitan of Oz (1986). This was the the only Oz book Martin both wrote and illustrated. The drawing shows two prehistoric Ozzy cave dwellers. I'm not really very fond of the idea of Ozzy Cave Men. They just don't seem very ... Oz-like to me.

However, in one way this drawing is very Oz-like! Dick Martin based the characters' appearance on two long-time members of the International Wizard of Oz Club: Rob Roy MacVeigh and Robin Olderman.

Phew! Guess I dodged the daily blogging deadline just in time!

Rockin' the Emerald City!

Many longtime Oz collectors might remember Oz Club member Irene Fisher. She had a fine Baum and Oz collection, she dabbled at selling used and rare books, but she was primarily a painter.

Her serious painting work was not Oz related. But almost every year in the 1970s and '80s Irene would paint miniature scenes of the Emerald City on small stones - usually only a couple inches across. Sometimes she donated them to the Oz Club's auctions. Sometimes she made them as gifts for friends.

One year she gave one to me - an especially tiny and detailed one. If you click on the image it will enlarge and you can see how very intricate the little painting is. I especially like the full moon behind one of the towers.

I realize this is a very small blog post today. However, it is also a very small rock.