Oz Comics

From August 1904 to February 1905, Baum authored an Oz comic page. This was titled Queer Visitors from the Land of Oz, and was drawn by Walt McDougall, one of the earliest comic strip artists. I was fortunate to purchase a nearly complete run of the strip off of eBay several years ago. I'm still missing 4 episodes - but I'll track them down someday.

The stories dealt with Oz characters visiting the United States and the seeming strangeness of this non-magical land. Toward the end of the run, the stories turned into more of Baum's American fairy tales rather than anythng particularly Ozzy.

A gimmick which ran with the early episodes of the strip was the What did the Wogglebug Say? contest. Each strip ended with a question, and readers could mail in an answer to win prizes. Two pinback buttons were distributed to advertise the contest - I've pictured both.

Denslow also did his own Scarecrow and Tinman comic page during the same time period. This followed the two main characters through various locales. Unfortunately, I don't have any of those pages!