Addams in Oz....

Well, not really...but there is a cartoon by Charles Addams from the June 6, 1939 New Yorker magazine that makes me think of Oz. This was prior to the August release date for the MGM film - but could there be a connection?

This electrical creation strikes me as a mix of the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman... maybe with a bit of Tik-Tok tossed in for good measure!

This original artwork is currently available from the Lewis Wayne Gallery on eBay.

Zazzle!

I've finally pulled together a Zazzle shop - the OzShop - using the paintings I've been doing based on illustra- tions of Oz characters by John R. Neill. These are featured on typical Zazzle products - mugs, magnets, coasters, etc. A flash panel is installed at the bottom of this page - Take a look!

I'll continue to add new characters. And be sure to let me know if there are combinations or products you'd like to see - the possibilities are fairly endless.

The Tik-Tok Man

Here's some more fun, early Oz material, thanks again to the resources of the New York Public Library digital gallery.

While poking around on their site, I ran across these two sheets of photos from The Tik-Tok Man of Oz - contact prints of characters and group shots from the 1913 stage show.
This show was a moderate success, but never made the trip to Broadway - apparently many critics found it to be too derivative of The Wizard of Oz. Still, L. Frank Baum managed to turn it into his 1914 Oz book, and it's fun to see another, live action if you like, take on some of the characters!

I've picked out a few of the photos and enlarged them - the quality isn't the best, but they're still fun to see.

Betsy & her mule, Hank.

Private Files and the Rose Princess - in the show, I believe her name was Ozma, which I've always thought must have been confusing for young fans of the books!



Betsy, Tik-Tok, Polychrome and the Shaggy Man.








A chorus of what appear to be gardeners and roses.









The Nome King and his sprites.

Queen Ann and her army.

Tik-Tok with a chorus of living clocks.









This looks like an act finale, featuring all the main characters! All these photos will enlarge if clicked upon.

Teddy Bear Bread

This weekend I went to a local antique show, and ran across a fun little item - a set of postcards by W.W. Denslow advertising Teddy Bear bread. This set only has 3 cards, which read as a complete series, but there should be a fourth card - the final one which says "I'll Buy It!"  and shows a boy purchasing a loaf from the teddy bear. I'll have to keep an eye out for that one! (See comments below - there's actually a fifth card as well!)

I love the fact that Teddy Bear Bread would be found for sale at "conscientious grocers". This was the time period of the pure food movement, and the Pure Food and Drug Act had been passed in 1906, to control adulterated or mislabeled food. Obviously, this could be turned into a selling point!

Another Scarecrow

I've mentioned the New York Public Library's digital galleries (here) in the past, as a good place to look for interesting images. I happened to visit the site tonight, and found this magnificent poster which I've never seen before!

Here we have Fred Stone as the Scarecrow, in the third act of The Wizard of Oz. Seeing something like this just makes me wonder how many other pieces might be out there to be discovered. I imagine there might have been a companion Tin Man poster, or possibly other characters as well - this show certainly had its share of beautifully lithographed posters!

Prince Inga

This illustration in L. Frank Baum's Rinkitink in Oz has always intrigued me. It's a portrait of Prince Inga outside a castle, but the odd part is the domed structure on the left side of the drawing. This has always looked to me like John R. Neill left an unfinished portion of pencil sketch that somehow got printed with the rest of the drawing.

On the right, I've removed that part of the image. This way the drawing feels more finished to me. Admittedly, it leaves a large area of white space, but I find the overall piece much more pleasing!

Neill did do a fair amount of sketchy work, but this particular illustration has always felt like an odd combination of a lovely finished drawing and a rough sketch!

Fun Fabric

As followers of my blog know, my main areas of collecting are books and artwork - but occasionally fun items pop up that I can't resist!

I recently ran across this shirt, and couldn't pass it up. What I found fascinating is the fabric, which is an adaptation of a 1903 Wizard of Oz poster. The main characters are seen in the poppy field, surrounded by the deadly flowers. I love the fact that someone took the time to rework what would have been a fairly obscure image into a printed fabric! As you can see by comparing to the picture of the original poster below, some extraneous characters were dropped, and a bit of rearranging was done.

This possibly dates from the 1970's or so - there's no real indication other than an original price of $2.98 (marked down to $1!). There seems to have been far more variety in the presentation of Oz characters prior to the 1980's and the 50th anniversary of the MGM film. The appearance of Dorothy and friends as seen in the film became the norm on merchandise - it's refreshing to see something a bit different.

An Interview with Baum

L. Frank Baum was clearly a master of self promotion, and of the "story that suits the moment" style of interview. Consequently, I tend to take most of his statements with a large grain of salt. A fun example of this is an article published in the August 1909 issue of The Theatre magazine. Titled L. Frank Baum and His New Plays, this interview covers Baum's then-current theatrical projects, none of which were to make it to fruition.

According to this article - and this all sounds very optimistic, as the descriptions of the various projects are very vague for shows opening in a month or two - the fall season was to see a comic opera titled The Pipes o' Pan, an extravaganza titled either Ozma of Oz or The Rainbow's Daughter, and the opening of a new Children's Theatre in New York. Another comic opera, possibly titled Peter and Paul, was being written for Montgomery & Stone. Both this piece and the coming Ozma of Oz were said to be starring Montgomery & Stone, so there would seem to be a conflict!  

Ozma of Oz did finally see production in 1913 as The Tik-Tok Man of Oz, which played in Los Angeles and toured. However this is not quite the same show described in the article - for one thing, a different composer wrote the music, and Montgomery & Stone were nowhere to be seen.

Baum does discuss Oz as well. He manages to add a year to the run of The Wizard of Oz - the show started in Chicago in 1902, and here in 1909 Baum states that it has been running 8 years. At the time of the interview, Baum also mentions that he is working on The Road to Oz, and that there will be only one more Oz book.

But the part I like best about this article, is the correction that the magazine had to publish in the next issue! While talking about the possible Peter and Paul production, Baum mentions that the music is being written by Arthur Pryor, the famous trombonist who played with John Phillip Sousa's band. Baum is quoted as attributing the success of Sousa to Pryor, something which apparently did not go down well. In the next issue of the magazine a correction was published, including a letter from Pryor expressing his astonishment at Baum's statement. The magazine wrote to Baum for an explanation, but there doesn't seem to have been a reply....perhaps this contributed to the non-existence of the Peter & Paul show!

The full article can be read here, on the Hungry Tiger Press website.

Birthday Time!

Happy Birthday, Ozma!

Another Oz Window

Once again, work and Oz are merging for me. A client has ordered a stained glass window based on the endpapers from Ozma of Oz. This is scheduled to be made in the next few months, and will be a fun project to work on.

Oz has been a part of our business from the beginning of our studio, over 25 years ago. One of the first things I made when I was learning stained glass was an adaptation of Ozma and Dorothy from the cover of Ozma of Oz. After a fair amount of rethinking and refining, this became the first in our ongoing series of Oz panels. I happened across the very first version of this panel in our basement recently. It's fun to compare that first attempt (on the left) with the final version!

Bradford Exchange, Book 2

A couple weeks ago, I received my second Oz book from the Bradford Exchange. A question was raised in my earlier posting for this series, as to why I would bother buying this set of books since I already have the series in first editions. As to that, facsimiles fascinate me, partially due to the fact that they're never quite the same as the original thing.

A very nice job has been done with The Marvelous Land of Oz. In the comments for my posting on the first book in the series, David Maxine of Hungry Tiger Press pointed out the lesser quality in the color printing of the book, and it's true that the color plates were not quite the flat, bright images they should be. I have to say that there is a certain rough, grainy quality to the color plates in this title as well.

On the right is a comparison - a first edition plate on the left and a facsimile on the right.

But these are the best facsimile versions I've seen done - the only other attempt that I'm aware of are the Books of Wonder series, which do a very nice job of presenting the original material - but there are some deletions and certain editorial changes which have caused controversy, and the bindings are not true facsimiles of the originals. However, they are a very nice set of hardcover color-plate books available at a lower price point than the Bradford Exchange series.

Bradford is working hard to create the real heft and feeling of the original books - the stamped fabric covers have been very well done. With Wonderful Wizard, a decision was made to reproduce the book in its earliest state, with several misprints and details that were changed in later printings. Marvelous Land is a hybrid of the earliest state binding, with no silver outline to the title, but the second state text - some swapping of illustrations and a publishers line added to the copyright notice. I'm not sure why they didn't follow the same first state idea for this volume. Anyway, these are quibbles and the books are quite attractive. In the end, the only way to have a true first edition Oz book is to buy a first edition Oz book - but these make a very decent substitute.

Mid-Summer

Summer always seems like a time to have an Oz project in the works - and this has been quite a summer with heat waves and storms! Here's another shot of some of my growing batch of Ozzy portraits based on John R. Neill drawings.

I still haven't come up with a particular use for these, although I've been looking into Zazzle.com. Here's a coffee mug using some of the paintings!

Father Goose Music

I've been lucky this year, in being able to fill a couple holes in my collection of books by L. Frank Baum. I posted about The Navy Alphabet back in February, and now I've acquired another book published by the George M. Hill Company, The Songs of Father Goose.

I've had a later Bobbs-Merrill version of this book for quite a while (on the left), but I was happy to run across a nice copy of the first edition. It's a book that frankly holds little interest for me, as it's basically a rehash of Father Goose, His Book with the addition of music. W. W. Denslow created a new cover design, and his illustrations are reprinted within the book, in black and white - the lack of color is unfortunate. Still, it's nice to have a good example, and interesting to see how much better the printing was on the first edition, as opposed to my later copy, from approximately 1920.

The songs must have been popular in their day - the publishers issued the music in sheet music folios (which are now very scarce) as well as the book format. In fact, the cover seen on the later Bobbs-Merrill version shown above was first used on the song folios. There were also newspaper supplements, two of which are shown below. And a certain immortality was added to the music when, in the 1944 movie Meet Me in St Louis, Judy Garland asks Margaret O'Brien if she would like to sing "Did You Ever See a Rabbit Climb a Tree?" - the first song in The Songs of Father Goose!

Judy Judy Judy

This is just too surreal not to show - Dorothy dolls being created by R. John Wright.

Book Fair!

Our local summer book fair was held this weekend, and this year there were quite a few Oz items in the booths. The highlight was a first edition copy of Mother Goose in Prose, with an inscription by L. Frank Baum - "2 the 2 VerBecks - (Pa and kid)".  This would be Frank VerBeck, who illustrated A New Wonderland for Baum. I'm afraid this one was not in my price range!

I did pick up a very nice jacketed first of John R. Neill's Lucky Bucky in Oz, which will be a good upgrade from my previous copy. A feature of the first state dustjacket is the letter from Bucky, printed on the rear flap, urging readers to buy victory bonds and stamps. After all, this was World War II, and as Bucky says, "The Nazis and Japs are harder to beat than the Nomes." !

My other acquisition was not Oz related, but a piece by another artist I collect. H. J. Ford illustrated the Fairy Book Series of colored fairy books and story books, compiled by Andrew Lang. This drawing is from The All Sorts of Stories Book, published in 1911. I have a couple other drawings by Ford, from The Yellow Fairy Book and The Arabian Nights. His style of dense line work is impressive, and it's always a thrill to run across another piece of his original art!

Winkie Programs

One of the highlights of the past two Winkie conventions has been the program book created by David Maxine at Hungry Tiger Press, incorporating essays, artwork, interviews and other Ozzy surprises. A number of people have contributed work for these books, and they make a handsome addition to a collection.

I just received a copy of this year's program, the third in the series, with the convention theme of "Oz Under the Sea". Convention attendees receive a copy of the program as part of their registration - an additional perk for attendance! It's not too late - this year's Winkie Convention is July 8th to 10th, and convention information can be found here.

This year marks anniversaries of both The Sea Fairies and Pirates of Oz, and the program includes writings on both these topics. It's also packed with artwork by John R. Neill, W.W. Denslow, and other artists - and features a cover by Eric Shanower!

American Fairy Tales

Here are two copies of L. Frank Baum's American Fairy Tales, published in 1901. I've had the copy on the right (with red flowers on the spine) for some time, but I just picked up the copy on the left with dark green flowers.

Both copies are worn, but this is a title that often seems to suffer from excessive wear. In fact, I've seen more copies on which the cover has nearly been completely obliterated than otherwise! I'm not sure why this should be the case - obviously white cloth tends to muck up faster than other colors, but I shouldn't think that would make the inks more vulnerable. Perhaps it's just an anomaly of the copies I've personally run across.

The green flowers seem to be less common than the red, and it's interesting to note that the copy with green flowers uses a brighter tone of red for the cover image than that seen on the version with red flowers. Also, in this case, the stamping has left a sharper impression in the cloth on the green flower example. It's all minor details, but for me that's a large part of the fun and interest of collecting!
 

Convention Time!

Summer seems to be the time for Oz conventions and festivals! Unfortunately, I don't tend to get to any, but there are quite a few to choose from.

In previous posts I've mentioned the Chittenango Oz-Stravaganza which was held last week, and the upcoming IWOC National Convention at The Land of Oz Park in Banner Elk, North Carolina (Aug. 5 - 7 ).

There's also a Chesterton Wizard of Oz Festival in Indiana in September, and this coming weekend is the Judy Garland Festival in Grand Rapids, Minnesota.

But the longest running convention is the Winkie Convention held in Pacific Grove, California, coming up on July 8 - 10. This years theme is Under the Sea, celebrating the 100th anniversary of L. Frank Baum's The Sea Fairies, and the 80th anniversary of Ruth Plumly Thompson's Pirates in Oz. There's even a WinkieCon Boutique on Zazzle, providing shirts and tote bags, featuring the two lovely images seen in this posting!

Judy's Birthday

Yesterday (June 10) would have marked Judy Garland's 89th birthday. So here's a silly little book in honor of the event, Judy Garland and the Hoodoo Costume!

This was published in 1945 by Whitman Publishing, as part of a series of books that built stories around popular stars of the day. There were titles starring Jane Withers, Betty Grable, Deanna Durbin, Ann Sheridan, Bonita Granville, etc. The dustjacket on this title even mentions that Judy's "unforgettable role in The Wizard of Oz marked the height in her career as a child star" - the movie itself wouldn't be released again until 1949.

The stories themselves are typical teen mystery/detective fare - but with the added spice of a Hollywood star! The whole thing is a bit of a stitch - as are the illustrations.....poor Judy!

Bradford Exchange Books

Today I received my first book in the series of facsimile Oz books currently being offered by The Bradford Exchange. I wasn't among the first to sign up for this offer, as I did have to convince myself that yet another set of the books was a good idea....but curiosity finally overcame any other objections!
These books are being produced to be as close to the original printings as possible - and judging by The Wonderful Wizard, they're doing an excellent job! All the first state points of the book are present, including the earliest green version of the George M. Hill Co. stamp on the spine. The only non-original material is a numbered page signed by Robert Baum. In fact, I can easily imagine these books might cause some headaches down the road for inexperienced collectors!

The one drawback to this book is the unfortunately designed dustjacket. As this series is obviously aimed at collectors, and much care has been taken to produce a lovely book, it's difficult to understand the reasoning behind not creating reproduction jackets. I can't help thinking the publishers missed an excellent opportunity to provide a truly complete facsimile series. This will be even more evident with copies of Ozma, Road, and Patchwork Girl, all of which used completely different images on their jackets than on the book covers. As these books are being offered as a premium object, it seems like a foolish choice not to provide a complete piece.

Anyway, I look forward to receiving my next title. And perhaps some enterprising person will produce a set of proper jackets, to truly finish a lovely set of books!