Marketing Oz style

This is going to be an unusual post.

If you listened to the last podcast, Meg and Isabelle and I talked about how there doesn't need to be competition when it comes to web content. Unlike deciding where to buy a copy of a book or DVD from, web content is free to access, meaning that all it costs the user is the time used to enjoy it.

That's logic for web content, but what about Oz?

In The Road to Oz, the Tin Woodman tells us that money is not used in the Land of Oz. Everything that a person wants is given to them.

However, that sadly doesn't work in our civilized countries. When it comes to online Oz fandom, us bloggers are very open to promoting each other. When David Maxine started the Hungry Tiger Press blog, he included a sidebar with links to many blogs. I've always linked to other blogs (ever since I started putting links on the side, that is), and I recently added a similar side bar.

However, I must speak of business. Having just published a book and a little imprint of Lulu called Saladin Press (you won't get it unless you've read Sky Island), I've put myself into the position of marketing Oz.

However, I do have one little advantage that prevents me from feeling pure evil: I'm not selling an item that anyone else is. Thus, I am not competing with anyone for this particular product. Of course, to buy Outsiders from Oz may mean you're doing it instead of buying another item you want, but if you really want that other item, you'll probably just be putting it off for a bit. I hope so, anyway.

That being said, although I have a book out (and more to follow, I hope), I will continue to help promote other works. Even if it means that potential customers will be buying a record on eBay or a book from Tails of the Cowardly Lion and Friends instead of my book. As long as a standard of quality is aimed for, there should be no real competition at all. Just what gets bought first.

To me, it feels Ozzy to help others out instead of just trying to be in it for yourself.


I wonder if other marketers of Oz feel the same way.

The Royal Podcast of Oz: Namesake

Jared talks to Megan Lavey-Heaton and Isabelle Melançon of the webcomic Namesake.

As always you can listen and download at the podcast site or use the player below!

       

   
   
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Aunt Jane's Nieces At Millville

And I finally read the third book in the Aunt Jane's Nieces series.

Major Doyle informs Uncle John he has a farm up in Millville. (I had to check; yes, there is a Millville, New York, but it doesn't seem to match the Millville as described in the book. Going off of just Wikipedia, the fictional Millville is much smaller.) It became property of Uncle John's bank when young Joseph Wegg defaulted on his loans.

Well, summer's coming on, and it'll be getting hot in New York City, so Uncle John has the farm set up so he and nieces can spend the summer there.

Of course, the nieces can't go and just relax, and they begin investigating the history of the Wegg family. If Captain Wegg was so rich on such a poor farm, what became of all his money? How did he die? Murder?

The answers are eventually revealed, but the nieces never could have guessed the truth!

Meanwhile, there are couple other humorous subplots. One only lasts a couple chapters as a local shopkeeper woman sends her son to court Patsy, Beth, and Louise, expecting him to get engaged to one of them. However, he doesn't exactly have the moves...

Another involves Mr. McNutt, who Uncle John hired to have the farm fixed up and furnished before they arrived. McNutt knows full well how rich Uncle John is and attempts to get more of his money all the time. He manages to sell Uncle John and the nieces his last three copies of Radford's Lives of Saints, and not good copies either. They play it cool, but the nieces manage to exact revenge in one of the most humorous ways I've ever read!

Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville was definitely an improvement on Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad. The nieces take on more of an active role. It is, in fact, Louise who begins reading mystery into the Wegg family. Also, no one's lives are put in danger, so it's overall more of a fun story.

I have an ever-increasing number of books to read, but I went ahead and grabbed Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work, so I'll probably be blogging about that within a week.

'Dorothy and the Witches of Oz' Round Two!

I'm blogging on a Monday? WHAT? Do pigs fly too?

I just wanted to stop by and announce the second batch of theaters that will get to see 'Dorothy and the Witches of Oz' on the big screen. Here are the official theater locations for THIS FRIDAY, that's March 16th, 2012.

• College Square (Cedar Falls, Iowa)
• Addison Cinemas (Addison, Illinois)
• Marcus Cinemas Elgin (Elgin, Illinois)
• AMC Mayfair Mall 18 (Milwaukee, Wisconsin)
• 20 Grand Cinema (Omaha, Nebraska)
• Marc Sheboygan (Sheboygan, Wisconsin)
• Cinema Oshkosh (Oshkosh, Wisconsin)

There will be a Q&A with members of the cast and crew after the 7:00pm screening of the movie at AMC Mayfair Mall 18 on Friday. Be there!

Weekly Update!

Hey, this is Jared. Angelo's having a weekend in Disneyland, so I'll be rounding up news this week.

Audible has released a new unabridged reading of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz read by actress Anne Hathaway as part of their new A-List collection.



The audiobook is available for download at Audible for about $15.

While Disney seems to be in "hush mode" over their film Oz, the Great and Powerful (though someone did tweet about overhearing some interesting sounds being mixed for the film), there's been a lot of legal news about conflicting Oz copyrights and trademarks as Warner Brothers attempts to maintain the MGM Wizard of Oz film as their own property and ensure that no one, including Disney, is attempting to profit from the classic film's original ideas. Over at Law Law Land, writer Dan Nabel provides an easy to read, humorous, and well-informed look at the situation.

That's just about all for this week!

Adventures in Oz with Cheryl

We've had the Land of Oz for 112 years now. When asking how it's been interpreted, a better alternative may be how hasn't it been interpreted?

Well, in 1999, Oz entered the fitness field with Adventures in Oz with Cheryl, a fitness program for kids consisting of a coloring book that came with a set of three video tapes or one DVD. (Guess which one I picked up?)

Cheryl Ann Silich, who appeared on American Gladiators, had fond memories of watching the MGM film The Wizard of Oz on television with her mother as a child. She decided to take the Wizard of Oz story and rework it as a fitness video adventure.

The three programs (Munchkidland, Yellow Brick Road, and Emerald City) tell a story loosely based on Baum's book, interspersed with lively song sequences featuring dance/exercise movements children are encouraged to move along with. The bits of plot in between the songs allow kids to have time to cool down and regain their normal heart rate so they don't overexert themselves.

The story is narrated by Cheryl, who is seen at times reading from a book titled Adventures in Oz with Cheryl, opening and closing each program. She also plays Dorothy, beginning in her house in the cyclone and continuing into the gaudily designed take on Oz.

In Oz, Dorothy meets the Lizard of Oz, a librarian lizard who wears a fez (which makes him cool). He's an animatronic, and even though he doesn't perform the same exact role, we can just say he replaces Toto. He also has a speech impediment, in which his "L"s sound like "W"s. (Several people think he says he's the Wizard.) He tells Dorothy how the Nice Witch got mad and sent a Lazy Rain over Oz, making everyone stop exercising regularly and eating nutritious foods. Then, she became the Ice Witch.

Another altered take is that the Silver Shoes become the Silver Exercise Shoes Archie and Leftie, who perform a lot of wisecracks. ("I wish we'd skipped." "Yeah, out of town.") They belonged to the Ice Witch, but she sealed them away. However, Dorothy is able to free them and she takes them with her as she and Lizard travel down the Yellow Brick Road to encourage the people of Oz to practice healthier life styles.

A character original to this take is the Key to Fitness. It frequently pops up on the upper right hand corner of the screen and dispenses fitness advice to the characters.

Along the way, they are joined by the joke-cracking Scarecrow who wants to learn to read. (While discussing reading and singing the song "Reading is a Dream," Baum gets a couple name drops.) Then, they meet the Tin Kid who doesn't have a heart, so he's rude. Finally, they meet a Lion, who is "Not An Ordinary Lion." He's a coward. They all join Dorothy, the Lizard, Archie and Leftie to the Emerald City to see the Wizard.

At the Emerald City, they find the Wizard has become a vegetable watching too much TV. (I have always wondered at video programs that speak against watching too much TV. Aren't these also counted as TV?) So they set off to the Northern Gardens to find the Ice Witch.

The Ice Witch is a little girl (who, before you say it, Sam, looks a lot like Alice in Wonderland), but she's frozen in her own ice. The Scarecrow manages to cheer her up with his jokes (a couple of which actually made me laugh). She thaws and Dorothy returns her shoes to her. The Nice Witch is back and is ready to undo what she did.

In the Emerald City, the Wizard is soon restored to his own shape (which made me think of Rinkitink) and helps the Scarecrow, Tin Kid and Lion out, and makes Dorothy (brace yourself, Oz fans who are prone to nerd rage...) Ozma, Princess of Fitness.

Feeling better now?

Yeah, so Dorothy stays in Oz to encourage everyone to have healthy life styles. Everyone gets a happy ending.

Now, I can't attest to how good the exercises are, especially since they were designed for children and I'm not a child anymore (in body, that is). However, the message behind it, encouraging healthy habits, is good and really drives home. Some might find it preachy, but hey, you're watching an exercise video, what did you expect?

This is a very different take on Oz, so it's best not to expect it to follow Baum's original story closely. The character designs are interesting if not especially great. They certainly play on your familiarity with the MGM film while not being derivative.

The camera work is okay, but some wonky shots might upset those who experience motion sickness from odd camera angles. (You can see some tilted shots in the screencaps I linked to. By the way, clicking on them will enlarge them.)

The songs I find nice, but not particularly memorable. There's some fun lyrics ("I want to live vicariously, to read along hilariously, of those who lived nefariously, I'd like to read with you."), but it's not easy to pick up on the lyrics right away.

So, Adventures in Oz with Cheryl, very good for what it is, a video exercise program for kids. As a take on Oz, it's interesting if not especially notable.

You can get the DVD on Amazon here.

Outsiders from Oz — Hardcover Out NOW!

For those of you who were waiting for the clothbound edition of Outsiders from Oz, wait no longer!

The clothbound is out! And believe it or not, I priced it at the lowest possible price.

The paperback is, of course, still available.

Witch Family General

As I've stated before when writing about the Wicked Witches of Oz, the idea that the Witches of the East and West are sisters comes from the MGM film, there being no hint of it in any of the books written prior to the movie's release. After the movie, however, the idea caught on with Oz writers, and many stories utilize that premise. As such, it strikes me as perhaps being quasi-canonical simply by popular appeal. In Rachel Cosgrove Payes' The Wicked Witch of Oz, Singra, the Wicked Witch of the South, claims to be a cousin of both the Eastern and Western Witches. This doesn't necessarily make the WWE and WWW sisters (they could be cousins or not related at all), but it seems likely that Payes was working from that premise. Also, Eric Shanower has said that he considers his own Wicked Witch of the South from Enchanted Apples to be Singra's sister, so that's another relative. The odd one out here is Mombi, the Wicked Witch of the North. I had previously thought that Fred Otto's short story "Mombi's Pink Polkadot Vest" (which can be found in the 1985 Oziana) indicates that Mombi is another sister of the WWE and WWW, but another look at the story makes me think this might not be the case. Mombi does tell her fellow witch, "No sister could be kinder," but this doesn't mean they ARE sisters, just that she thinks of the WWW as being LIKE a sister. I haven't reread the entire tale recently, but it looks as if the other references in it simply refer to Mombi and the WWW as colleagues, not relatives. As far as I can recall, the only source indicating Mombi is related to the other Wicked Witches is the animated film Journey Back to Oz, which is about as far from canonical as you can get. So maybe Mombi had no family connections to the others at all, and just happened to unite with the others due to a common goal.

So anyway, if the Witches of the East and West are sisters, who are their parents? Wicked covers this, but I think that can be safely disregarded when talking about the Oz of the original books. One author of Baum-consistent Oz books who dealt with this issue is Peter Schulenburg, who identifies their mother as the Enchantress Vile, or E. Vile for short. She makes an appearance in Unwinged Monkey, and Emerald Enchantress gives her another daughter, Emmy, who is not wicked like her relatives. I don't think either of those books give any indication as to who the father might be, but I could be forgetting. I believe March Laumer made the main Good and Wicked Witches all half-sisters, being daughters of Lurline by different fathers. As with most issues left unresolved by the Famous Forty, I doubt there will ever be a consensus answer here, but I do have to wonder what growing up in a family of evil magicians would have been like.

Oz and Beyond

So, remember how I said I read the backlog of The Baum Bugle? All those reviews made my want list soar! So, I'm slowly managing it so my bank account isn't left sore. (Tip for collecting: look around!)

Well, there's some fiction, and some non-fiction. Oz and Beyond: The Fantasy World of L. Frank Baum is by Michael O. Riley who is an expert at binding books and printing them. In fact, he has even reprinted short Oz-related works in pamphlet form with his very own printing press and I happen to have two of them in my collection. He's also been at Winkies both times I've attended and I hope he'll be back next time! I want him to sign my copy of his book!

Oz and Beyond looks at L. Frank Baum's fantasy writing as it developed from about 1897 to 1919. Riley also examines Baum's life without pretending at some funny agenda. He theorizes that Baum, who identified with children very well, missed his happy childhood days and points out supporting examples in his works. That's the most when it comes to drawing conclusions here. The book depicts Baum as a very real person by putting his writing in perspective with his life. It believably explains why Baum published many books in 1900 and 1901 and suddenly went to one fantasy under his real name a year shortly after.

Each book is given its own section. It begins with A New Wonderland (later The Magical Monarch of Mo), as Riley correctly notes that the Phunnyland stories were the first fantasy stories Baum wrote. Mainly, the rest of Baum's fantasy work (including the "Laura Bancroft" Twinkle Tales and Policeman Bluejay) is followed as they were published, a big exception being that about 1905, there is a section for King Rinkitink.

In the Rinkitink section, Riley surmises the book must have had a defeat of the Nome King and then a return to Pingaree. It seems plausible, and is likely the case. (I more or less said the same thing when I reviewed the book.) It's a nice way to appreciate the story on its own. Later, the revised version Rinkitink in Oz is covered, looking at why Baum dusted off a previously unpublished manuscript, and how the story was affected by turning it into an Oz story.

Riley spends a lot of time looking at how the Land of Oz develops in each Oz book, how it's vast in Wonderful Wizard, then shrinks in Marvelous Land, then varies in size until becoming vast again in the latter Oz books. He also looks at how the rules and mythology of Oz change in the series.

You might think I've done the same thing in my blogging, but I tend to look at the Land of Oz as a finished whole, while Riley examines it as it developed. Riley reminds us that unlike later fantasy series of the 20th century, Oz was not begun as a series. It was a book, then a book and a sequel, then a book, a sequel, and a series, then an ongoing series. Thus, the development of Oz under Baum is rather uneven, a point Riley drives home. However, rather than making Oz seem inferior, it reads more like Baum was polishing a valuable stone to show its true luster.

As Riley focuses on Baum's fantasy world, he does not give the same treatment in the book to the Oz books of Thompson, Neill, Snow, Cosgrove, and the McGraws. They are acknowledged and gone over briefly, however. Furthermore, he acknowledges their later Oz works and the new run of Oz books by fans that had begun trickling in the 1980s. However, he stresses his work in this book is not to examine Oz the continuing legacy and the core, but just the core.

Sometimes, that simple approach, to just stop and examine one area indepth, works best. Michael Riley did a great job.

Depicting Oz Characters: Nick Chopper, the Tin Woodman

Jared's posting of Disney's "Tin Woodman of Oz" Record+Story Album has reminded me that it's been too long since I last did a Blog about portraying characters of Oz, so now's the time to do so! Maybe soon I'll also discuss my thoughts on the CG movie but for now let's just focus on the character and his various looks throughout the century-plus . . . I won't be able to name ALL the depictions, illustrated on paper or played physically/vocally, but I can mention some examples.

Now of course anybody who has read the book, the FIRST Oz book, would know that the Tin Woodman wasn't tin in the first place, but a human Woodchopper (later named Nick Chopper). In checking the actual text, L. Frank Baum never actually said that he, the woodchopper himself, was a Munchkin: just "one of the Munchkin girls" he fell in love with, so MAYBE Nick was a normal-height human who loved a shorter woman (as shown in "Oz: the Manga"). But we'll never know the details for sure.
And of course those who have read the book know how he became tin: the Wicked Witch of the East enchanted his axe which then cut a piece of his body - a leg - instead of the tree he intended. Nick took himself to the Munchkin Tinsmith (later named Ku-Klip) and had that damaged body part replaced with a tin limb, then later upper body and finally head. That is how the heart was lost.

Now that's the main thing: one of the legs was cut by an axe and replaced with tin. This means that the metal limb has to match with the body: not too Thin - like how Evelyn Copelman depicted it in 1944, as it would be too light and skinny to lean on support for - and not too Thick either - as then it would be heavier to lift and walk with, not to mention rather heavily-bulked and out of sorts compared to the body. The "hinges" or whatever tool is used to link the flesh+blood+bone body to metal-replacement likewise cannot be to small (lest it would show a discomforting mass of 'remains/left-overs') or too big (too distracting for the eye or won't fit with two different body types). The same would have to be said for the arms too. The head of course needs eyes to see, mouth to speak, ears to hear, the nose . . . doesn't really smell and would be deemed useless, but then again a face without a noise would seem distracting and odd, so including a nose wouldn't be so bad after all. The head could be Can shaped, domed shaped or maybe more sculptured/articulated - depending on what looks best. Sometimes the tin head may include a moustache or some form of hair (the Toho anime and CG movie have interestingly given him a beard treatment), either for decoration or an attempt to be closer to human form. Many times (but not counting The Wiz versions, 1976 Australian Rock'n'Roll, Polish series, Sci-Fi "Tin Man", CG movie and "Heartless") the funnel hat is retained.

Sometimes the origin story is illustrated and sometimes it isn't. Those who DO the origin story can show their process of coming up with how Nick looks (Lisbeth Zwerger and now Robert Ingpen to name the FEW) and that makes the character's portrayal a bit more Believable. When there are editions that don't show the Tin-Limb-Replacement story, the look of the Tin Woodman can still work well (Paul Granger) and other times it doesn't (Evelyn Copelman).

Other times the origin story is revised to have the Wicked Witch of the East (sometimes the WEST Witch for whatever reason, which doesn't make sense) actually put a spell on HIM, TRANSFORMING the human into a tin 'humanoid' (?) - this has happened in the Cinar/Pan Media 1987 series, the Korean cartoon, the 'Beautiful Fables' anime series (though it could be suggested) and Muppets. Now, my belief is that if the Wicked Witch, East or West (but it should be EAST), really did magically Transform Nick into a Tin Woodman, then when she was killed by Dorothy her magic would likewise have died too and the spell would be broken, hence restoring Nick to his proper self and breaking himself free from the vines that grew over him in the past year. This is a case when an adaptation is too close to the knowledge of the story for its own good revised-points*. Most people don't think about this and it gets irritating (to me, at least). Remember, if you're revising a point in the story, DOES it still match the rest of the story?

Throughout the years, the depictions of the 'Tin Man' (while it is easier and faster to say, 'Woodman' explains the axe and location in the forest) could be organized into the following categories:
* Man in tin/metal Suit (Fred Stone 1902 Broadway Musical, 1908 Fairylogue & Radio plays, 1910 Selig short, 1914 Oz Film Manufacturing Co., Oliver Hardy 1925 Chadwick, Jack Haley MGM, Tiger Haines/Nipsey Russell 1975-8 WIZ, Heartless - Understandable, certainly in the early decades of the 20th century as puppetry or stop-motion would have been difficult, time-consuming and disconnecting from the story and other characters, while a costume would have been the only way to show the actor playing the character and keeping the chemistry)
* Tin (trash) Can with Skinny Arms & Legs + Feet & Hands (Evelyn Copelman is a prime example)
* Practical yet Believable Fantasy Man of Tin (1973-4 Russian stop-motion, Mauro Evangelista, Paul Granger)
* Robot, Cyborg or something Futuristic-like (Funky Fables, Oz: the Manga, maybe Maraja, Space Adventures/Wonderful Galaxy)

I do tend to forgot how a tin man was a NEW thing for fantasy back in 1900 and when coupled or compared with today's possibilities of animatronics (which could be the perfect tool in a definitive adaptation), how almost impractical the likes of which Neill and Denslow came up with; with Dick Martin, Dale Ulrey, Frank Kramer and such following suite. For the time, when he was introduced, the skinny-limbed look of the Tin woodman works better in the early century than it does now (but then again I could be wrong).
They have done great work illustrating the character for the book, but that approach cannot work as well on film, although some independent guys are showing some pretty impressive work that is well passable and truly acceptable in CG + live action (yep, you know who you are). In a definitive series treatment, an animatronic could visually follow the look of Denslow/Neill but could also be well capable of adding some more depth to the look and function, such as adding some thickness to the center of the legs in the transition stages of Nick Chopper from human to metalman. Maybe the upper body/torso doesn't necessarily have to be a simple round rectangular shape either, maybe a bit "body shaped"?


* In some versions of adaptations based on "Alice in Wonderland", Alice would meet the Duchess and the Cheshire Cat in SEPARATE scenes (1985 2-Part All-Star American TV Musical, Goodtimes video and Russian animation). Now the one big problem here is Alice knows that the Cat is a Cheshire Cat, but without the Duchess' introduction how could Alice know what it was, dream or no dream? Especially if there was NO Duchess in the Goodtimes version.