(Almost) Weekly Update: It's Friday!

I didn't blog last week, but I am back, so don't worry about it.

Anyhoo, After the Wizard will be available at Redbox kiosks on October 23rd. There will be a red carpet screening of the film in Memphis, Tennessee on Saturday, October 27th with star Jordan Van Vranken in attendance. Tickets are $5 and all proceeds will go to the John McCormack Foundation and the Ronald McDonald House. The Facebook page for the event says "this event will sell out, so get your tickets early".

Our friends over at L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz has released a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the visual effects in the film. You can watch that below...



Designs for limited edition Oz the Great and Powerful Vinylmation figures were released online recently...

The Wizard & Finley - Photo Courtesy of Vinylmation Kingdom.

Glinda & The China Girl - Photo Courtesy of Vinylmation Kingdom.

Jared and I were recently discussing how Oz the Great and Powerful could affect in-development Oz films such as John Boorman's 3D-animated adaptation, Dark Oz, Wicked, Drew Barrymore's Surrender Dorothy, Oz: The Return to Emerald City, and even Todd McFarlane's Twisted Land of Oz. 

If Oz the Great and Powerful is a huge success like Tim Burton's Alice was a couple years ago, it could very likely get the bigger studios like Warner Bros. interested in developing Oz-related films. If Oz:TG&P bombs like Disney's $200 million John Carter did recently, that could mean that... well, studios won't really be interested in making a movie like that. Feel free to leave your thoughts about it in the comments!

That's it for this week! Enjoy the weekend.

Mary Louise

This is one case where I'd read absolutely nothing about the L. Frank Baum book I was about to read. It was great to finally come upon something I had no expectations about.

What kind of got to me while reading Mary Louise is that this is the last series Baum created before his death. Not only was he writing the Oz books up until he died, he was also writing the Mary Louise series under the "Edith Van Dyne" pseudonym.

In my last blog about the Aunt Jane's Nieces series, I mentioned how that series had reached a stopping place (made even more final in the revision), and to keep multiple forms of income going, "Edith Van Dyne" needed a new series.

Thus, back to basics. Reilly & Britton issued the new series as "The Bluebird Books." I can only presume they wanted to keep the options open, which would not be realized until after Baum's death, when the series was continued by Emma Speed Sampson.

Mary Louise opens with the titular character, Mary Louise Burrows (named after Baum's sister, and one may well wonder if the last name beginning with a "B" is not coincidence) at school. She appears to be a very moral girl, and sincerely devoted to her grandfather, who she lives with. However, her grandfather gets word of something and he and Mary Louise's mother suddenly have to leave, and Mary Louise is sent to stay at school.

While discussing arrangements at school, Mary Louise is questioned by a man from the Secret Service: her grandfather is wanted for some crime and he wants to know where her grandfather and mother went. Mary Louise staunchly believes her grandfather is innocent, and refuses to answer any questions; anyway, she doesn't know where they went.

However, word gets out at school and locally that Mary Louise's grandfather is a criminal, and soon, all the schoolgirls make Mary Louise an outcast, simply because they think she has "bad blood" in her. Finally having enough, Mary Louise sells some jewelry for a train ticket to Dorfield and escapes one night, noting that she's being dogged by a mysterious man.

In Dorfield, the man reveals he is, indeed, a detective, Mr. O'Gorman by name, and he was following her. He's concerned because she obviously underestimated the cost of her journey and expected to find her grandfather in Dorfield. However, Mr. O'Gorman pays for her board at a hotel and informs her that her grandfather is not in Dorfield. He does give her his card in case she's in trouble.

Mary Louise goes to stay with her old friends the Conants, who have with them their niece Irene, who is wheelchair-bound. The Conants manage to send a message to Mary Louise's grandfather, who tells her to stay with them.

The Conants and Mary Louise go stay in the country at a friend's summer cabin, where they meet a few colorful characters: the servant boy Bub, who "hates gals" (hmmm...) and the visiting neighbor Agatha Lord, who seems friendly until Irene finds a letter in a box of second-hand books Mr. Conant bought and says it's about Mary Louise's family. Then Agatha begins to act suspiciously. Mary Louise and Irene begin to wonder who they can trust.

A working girl named Sarah Judd pops up, claiming she was hired by the actual owners. However, it becomes clear that there's more to Sarah than meets the eye. (Particularly when she takes a tiny booklet containing a cipher out of her hair...) Unknown to Mary Louise, Agatha and her maid Susan are both working for the Secret Service as well, and they surprisingly say they want to clear Mary Louise's grandfather's name, as they are sure he is innocent. The letter seems to be a key piece of evidence, but Irene attempts to hide it.

Things come to a head when word is sent that Mary Louise's mother has died, and it looks clear that her grandfather will be coming to see her. This is indeed the case, and when he arrives, all three women, Agatha, Susan, and Sarah drop their disguises, and Mr. O'Gorman has arrived as well. Sarah is actually his daughter, Josie, who's training to be in the Secret Service herself.

Since it becomes apparent the letter needs to be exposed, Irene reads it, revealing that Mary Louise's late father turned military secrets over to a foreign country, and when he died, he tasked his wife with completing the task. When she was caught, her father took the blame, causing them to live on the run. Since the letter proves this, and the military secrets are now irrelevant and the government doesn't wish to publicize this case further, all charges against Mary Louise's grandfather are dropped, meaning he can finally live in peace with his granddaughter.

Baum gets to play with espionage, not a wholly new subject for him, but I can't recall government espionage in any of his other books. The mystery of Mary Louise's grandfather is quite the driving point to catch the reader's interest.

The problem is, this comes at a great sacrifice to Mary Louise's personality. While she is a smart, kind, trusting young girl, she is quite the most generic featured female character I've read that Baum created. The most interesting thing she does is managing to get herself out of the school and to Dorfield. She gets showed up by both Irene and Josie, as they prove to be much more interesting characters than herself.

In fact, Eric Shanower spoiled future books for me, saying that Mary Louise in the later books generally winds up calling in Josie, who winds up solving the plot's problem.

Baum wrote five books in all for the series before his death. Three more Mary Louise books were written by Emma Speed Sampson under the "Edith Van Dyne" pseudonym, and then two books were issued as a spin-off Josie O'Gorman series, which Shanower commented was practically giving the series over to its rightful heroine. These Emma Speed Sampson books are really highly priced, so don't expect me to be covering them. Maybe I'll get lucky and pick them up eventually, but for now, I'll be focusing on Baum's series.

So, while Mary Louise started off as an interesting character, she failed to become really interesting in the end. Still, it's a worthwhile story for Baum's characterizations and plots. It's just a pity the main character got skipped when it came to characterization.

The Royal Podcast of Oz: Journey Back to Oz

Jared and Sam discuss Filmation's first film, Journey Back to Oz!

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

   
   
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Dorothy of Oz Prequel #4

Okay, this mini-series is finally done.

There's really no way to tell about the plot of this without spoiling it, so consider this your spoiler warning:

Heading back to the Emerald City to find a prism for the Rainbow Mover to bring Dorothy back to Oz, the Scarecrow, Tin Woodman, and Lion are attacked by Winged Monkeys. Meanwhile, Glinda catches up on the current events using the Book of Records (I'm thinking this is a shout-out for book fans, I wouldn't watch for it in the movie), and we see how Dorothy's doing in Kansas.

The story feels insubstantial, and this has been keenly felt throughout the series. Issue #2 was really good, but overall, it doesn't look like Dorothy of Oz really needs a prequel. Especially when you consider that we'll have to wait about a whole year to see this movie.

This series just offers some likely to be unnecessary back story. Issue #2 provided some good action scenes, but the series would have been much better if the Scarecrow, Tin Woodman, and Lion had tried to confront the Jester, been defeated, escaped back to the Emerald City and used the Rainbow Mover. Which has the worst name ever. (This actually would have been a bit in line with the Russian Magic Land books by Volkov, in which they'd call on Elli and later her sister as a last resort.)

It's nothing against the writer, they likely had to work with what they were given so it'd be in line with the movie, which they definitely couldn't have seen. And I sure won't blame the artists (though I am not a fan of the designs still, I guess I can live with them), since they have to adhere to certain designs. They do great with what they got to do, but overall this series really wasn't impressive.

So... waiting for the movie now...

All-Action Classics: The Wizard of Oz

Another comic book adaptation of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz? How many have we had in the past 10 years? This is about the seventh one!

Well, that art looks cool.

Okay, so I caved and bought this adaptation. While we longtime Oz fans and comic collectors may tire of seeing the story done over in the same medium so many times, this one actually shows that there is more than one way to approach it.

Ben Caldwell's approach is not a straightforward approach by any means. Instead of retelling the Baum story or going the Marvel route and closely adapting Baum's dialogue, he instead reworks the story into an action-packed, colorful, funny romp.

Kansas isn't fleshed out much, and rather than showing a stressed relationship between Dorothy and her guardians, it instead shows Dorothy wanting to see more of the world before the Cyclone strikes.

In Oz, after Dorothy sets off down the Yellow Brick Road, things really start kicking into gear as she quickly gains her companions (the Lion keeps trying to eat Toto, Dorothy having to remove him from his mouth—twice). The adventures down the road are markedly different, starting with them finding the Queen of the Field Mice locked in a cage by a Kalidah, who soon appears, prompting the crossing of a gap using a fallen tree. After this escape, they roll into the Poppy Field, which the Lion identifies as the "Poison Poppies." Everyone falls asleep, but are rescued by the mice.

The Emerald City has a big nod to the "Wash and Brush Up" company of the MGM movie, mixing it with the "Green Girl" (later Jellia Jamb) from the book. They are warned that the Wizard may appear in any form, and a panel shows a fairy, a fireball, and a hideous beast, but all the friends are shown to the Wizard at one time, and he uses the Great Head form, which has been accentuated with a big beard this time.

The Wicked Witch of the West is a little similar to how the Good Witch of the North looked: a diminutive, plump lady who'd look funny if she didn't look so wicked. The attacks are done differently: the Scarecrow manages to just scare the crows away, the wolves break off their teeth on the Tin Woodman, and the Lion manages to scare away a bunch of Kalidahs the Witch sends.

While Dorothy slaves away as the Witch asks her for the slippers (explaining that they must be given or found for the magic to work), the Scarecrow's pieces manage to reassemble themselves, and soon the Tin Woodman as well. They head off to rescue Dorothy, but not before Dorothy manages to take care of the Witch herself.

The adaptation takes a page from the film version of The Wiz, having the Winged Monkeys drop Dorothy and her friends off right at the Wizard's palace, so they catch him unprepared.

The Wizard gives Dorothy and her friends placebos for what they wanted, and the Good Witch of the North appears and tells Dorothy how to use the slippers. (Glinda was mentioned in the beginning as being "mostly good.") Dorothy does ask her why she wasn't told before, and the Good Witch tells her that she never would have helped out her friends and the Land of Oz would still be in the thrall of the Wicked Witch. (I think this North Witch is only "mostly good" herself.)

So, Dorothy goes home. The end.

The art is pretty fun and cartoonish. Dorothy herself, I gotta admit, is pretty cute, even with the gap in her teeth. The Tin Woodman looks kind of French, though, and the Lion has a weird bulbous nose that looks like it has the standard nose painted on. The art's pretty pleasing.

Overall, if you're not tired of comics adaptations of Oz, here's a rather faithful one with some fun twists!

Get your copy on Amazon.com.

Thanks, blog readers!

After a hard week of advanced Algebra homework, Angelo opted not to blog today. So, I'll step in real quick.

The Kickstarter for L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was successfully funded today, bringing director Clayton Spinney and writer Sean Gates $5,312 (minus whatever Kickstarter claims for using their service) to finish filming the live action elements for their film.

A little over a week ago, I posted a blog encouraging people to contribute, and thanks to the contributors (whether or not my blog spurred them on), they not only got to their goal of $5,000 but also surpassed it!

Angelo's proud that he'll be voicing a couple characters in the movie, so he had a bit of a professional reason to promote this (I auditioned for Mr. Joker, but I couldn't quite get the voice they wanted), so we're all glad to see it funded. We're told Sam made a sizable contribution. Angelo and I are betting we'll see "Executive Producer: Sam Milazzo" in the end credits!

In any case, this success will hopefully get us a really unique Oz movie sooner than later! Thanks, from a fan, to all the contributors. I'm proud of us all.

Annabel

I've written about L. Frank Baum's young adult works, and I've mentioned the book Annabel before. It was published in 1906 under the pseudonym Suzanne Metcalf. As you can see, I don't have the original edition (nor the reissue in 1912), but two reprints by Hungry Tiger Press: it was released in Oz-Story #6, and later it was released in a single volume hardcover, containing all the illustrations by H. Putnam Hall and Joseph Pierre Nuyttens (it was newly illustrated for the 1912 edition, and it's a rare case where a Baum book was re-illustrated in his lifetime), as well as new decorations by Eric Shanower.

The Hungry Tiger Press edtion notes that this is Baum's first young adult novel. I'm not sure where this conclusion is from, but I haven't exactly researched the book. It came out the same year as a large batch of other Baum books under his name and pseudonyms: John Dough and the Cherub, Sam Steele's Adventures on Land and Sea, Aunt Jane's Nieces, The Last Egyptian, Daughters of Destiny, The Twinkle Tales series and Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad. Counting each of the Twinkle Tales separately, that's thirteen books in one year. It's quite possible that Reilly & Britton stockpiled Baum books to release under pseudonyms and Annabel was the first young adult book to be turned in. (I must note that The Last Egyptian was not published by Reilly & Britton.)

You have to remember, Baum was in a unique position. He was a big author and had a lot of ideas for stories, but releasing too many "Baum books" in one year wasn't a good idea (as evidenced by the sales in 1900-1901 for a lot of Baum titles). This new publisher could reprint and issue new editions of older books, but they needed new content as well. Thus, their answer to not be just another reprint company was to issue Baum's books disguised as non-Baum books! Baum's creativity needed an outlet, and Reilly & Britton were only too glad to be that outlet.

So, we come to Annabel, set in the small American town of Bingham. Vegetable boy Will Carden is a friend and chum of the Williams family, but Mrs. Williams doesn't approve of him as a playmate for her children, placing social class above personal traits.

The oddest thing is: Will's father actually helped keep the Williams family rich. Through a strange series of circumstances, Will's father developed a way to make steel easy to use while not affecting its strength, but had to sign his profits over to an Ezra Jordan for money to go to England, except the ship he was on sank, and there were no survivors. Jordan has licensed the method to Mr. Williams, who runs a big steelworks factory. Jordan boards with the Carden family to provide them some income.

Dr. Meigs, the local town physician, takes an interest in Will and helps him expand his business to growing mushrooms in his shed with his disabled brother Egbert (quite possibly one of the most pitiful characters in Baum, and one of the least defined as he is deaf and mute), which quickly takes off and becomes popular, Will planning to make enough to make his family independent of Mr. Jordan so his mother can take it easier.

Will gets back in the good graces of the Williams family when he rescues their daughter Annabel from drowning during ice skating, and while the two form a fast friendship, Dr. Meigs and Mr. Williams begin re-examining the case of Mr. Carden's disappearance. The more they look at it, the more suspicious it becomes. It's clear someone's not being very honest and the Cardens are unwitting victims. What levels has Jordan sunk to, and how can it be cleared up?

Baum effectively depicts an enterprising yet humble young man in Will and Annabel gets to mature after her near-death experience and although they have no idea of the suspicions Dr. Meigs and Mr. Williams have of Jordan, they do prove instrumental in that plot line.

However, that plot line of Jordan's trickery really becomes the main plot line of the book. It's intriguing though, and showed promise for Baum's later works when the young people would move into leading roles in the plots. (You may remember I noted a similar problem in Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad.) It's not Baum's greatest, but it's definitely one of his better non-fantasy books.

And I really enjoy it, a trademark common for Baum, but really evident here. While Baum might have problems having the most important characters take on the roles they should, his stories are always enjoyable.

Santa Claus in Oz

Here's Richard Capwell's second Oz book, following up from his first book The Red Gorilla of Oz, which I reviewed in August.

In Santa Claus, Capwell expands on concepts introduced in Red Gorilla. For those wondering about the title, yes, Capwell is very aware of Baum's take on Santa Claus and bases his characterization of Claus on The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus (the subject of many December blog entries here). However, Santa's reindeer have the classic names from The Night Before Christmas, but then Jack Snow did the same thing.

Santa arrives in Oz to ask Ozma for help. He appears to be dying. The Mantle of Immortality appears to be losing power, and slowly, Santa is beginning to fade into nothingness! Taking Button-Bright (who often gets called Saladin) with him, Santa Claus follows a magic compass and begins to find the homes of the Wicked Witches of Oz where they find clues as to what to do next.

Back in the Emerald City, the Wizard and his new apprentice Iliana (introduced in Red Gorilla), and they find a mysterious clockwork mechanism in the Fountain of Oblivion. Soon, they begin to discover the magic undoing the Mantle of Immortality, and soon discover the identity of the Wicked Witch of the South.

Yes, there is a third Wicked Witch of the South. Eric Shanower had one in The Enchanted Apples of Oz and Rachel Cosgrove Payes brought in the deliciously fiendish Singra in The Wicked Witch of Oz. Eric Shanower commented that these two don't necessarily contradict each other, but I don't think this one exactly fits into that. Thus, I have to think of it as separate from a lot of other Oz canon.

Still, this is no slight to Capwell's story. It's an exciting, fun tale, and quite enjoyable. Capwell apparently has a lot of fun writing Oz, and it shows.

Capwell also illustrates, but there isn't a lot of major illustration. The same style from Red Gorilla is maintained here. Figurines were a plot point in Gorilla, and all characters were shown as figurines in the pictures of that book, which normally featured a picture at the beginning and end of the chapter. Female characters get off nicely by having a skirt so they don't look fat, but male figures look rather chubby. This is especially true of the diminutive Button-Bright. They're charming nonetheless and work well, though it's not my favorite art style for Oz.

Get your copy on Amazon.com.

The Royal Podcast of Oz: Paul Miles Schneider

Jared chats with Paul Miles Schneider, author of Silver Shoes and The Powder of Life.

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

   
   
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Angelo Invades Chesterton!

This past weekend, my mother and I drove up to Chesterton, Indiana for their annual Wizard of Oz festival.

First, we checked out the Dorothy of Oz booth, where they were selling exclusive jewelry by Timeless Tresor. You had to buy an item from their jewelry line to get into one of the special clip screenings that producer Ryan Carroll hosted every hour.

As we were waiting for the noon screening to start, we stopped by Roger S. Baum's booth and bought the pre-release edition of his new book, The Oz Enigma. His wife, Charlene Baum was at the booth and they were both extremely friendly. He personally autographed everyone's books, which did take a bit for the people in line, but it's an honor to have met him and have an autographed message from him.

After that, we walked around for a bit and ran into Ryan Jay, who I had talked to online several times before. He is a nationally-syndicated film critic from Milwaukee, and is super cool. As some of you who have met me know, I am not typically a talkative person, so I didn't really say much.

I did a little shopping, and we headed over to the Dorothy of Oz screening tent. When we got in there, producer Ryan Carroll and Charley Cullen Walters, who does all of the public relations for the movie, were already talking up the flick and welcoming people. They showed about twenty minutes of various scenes from the movie, followed by a Q&A.

The animation certainly looked cute, and the score sounded really nice, especially in the first scene they showed where Dorothy arrives in Oz. One of the clips featured the song "Work With Me" written by Bryan Adams which was undeniably adorable and catchy. There was even a small appearance during the song by the Sawhorse and the Queen of Field Mice. There were also some genuinely funny moments in the scene where the Jester captures Glinda. Martin Short brings a lot of energy into his performance as the Jester, and Bernadette Peters seems to fit the role of Glinda nicely as well.

Courtesy of Summertime Entertainment. 

When asked about a release date for the film, Mr. Carroll never really gave a definite answer, but I did hear late next summer and 3,000 screens in there. I was charmed by the clips I saw, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we get to see the finished product sooner than later!

After the Q&A, we got something to eat and did more shopping. I bought a couple of things from Celeste Hertz's booth, too. She had a lot of cool items! Oh, yeah, and we saw this at some point...

I passed by John Fricke's booth, but didn't stop to get an autograph because I wasn't really interested  in buying his new Judy Garland book, and didn't want to meet him and then not buy anything. It was super crowded, but I was able to spot a few Oz fans I recognized from Facebook groups and whatnot.

Overall, I had a good time at the festival. I bought some really cool things like a Return to Oz puzzle, the Return to Oz storybook, a Wizard of Oz edition of UNO (because I can), two neat pillows from the iCollectOz booth, the Scholastic edition of The Magic of Oz, a couple of Dorothy of Oz dog tags, the pre-release edition of The Oz Enigma autographed by the author, a festival t-shirt, and a neat bracelet with removable Ozzy charms from Celeste's booth.