Classics Illustrated Jr: The Wizard of Oz

[ozaline]

Picked this up at last year's Ozcon... and it makes some interesting choices in adaptation.

8/28








Ah the green glasses, those aren't often included, well they have a pretty good pay off when the Wizard's humbugery is revealed, right?

Speaking of the Wizard...



Not gonna hide behind any fantastic apparitions? Just meet them yourself... okay.




Huh, we're gonna have the Silver Shoes show up here?

So they come back and meet the Wizard he's not really revealed to be a fraud, and they don't take the glasses off and realize the city isn't green.

Comments

[jaybee3]

It is ironic that "Marvelous Land" get the shaft (perhaps because people don't know how to deal with it - even stuff like the Gump's attitude or the Wizard's off-stage villainy - before Baum's retcons - or Jinjur's all-girl army which was a satire on suffragettes) because I think IS JUST AS GOOD a book as the first one and yet almost nobody knows it (even Return to Oz is a cobbled together version of "Ozma of Oz" with some names and factoids from "Marvelous Land" thrown in). Later, when Baum was going through the motions and almost all his books became travelogues, he never really reached those heights again.

[ozaline]

Yeah but the Shirley Temple and Liza Minelli adaptations are Marvelous Land just with the the trans themes dulled or removed outright, so it's not just a reluctance to tackle that book because of it's lack of Dorothy.

To be fair there are some exceptions there's a stage musical version of Marvelous Land of Oz... and a faithful though horrible film adaption. Plus there's the anime TV series dubbed by Cinar (actually there's a lot of Japanese storybook adaptations A LOT!) There's also a faithful Russian adaptation though it mixes in a bit of Volkov.

I guess the Army of Revolt is a bit tricky, especially if you don't know Baum was in favour of woman's suffrage, it really is more a satire of the hysteria against women in politics. The women will stop cooking, and then were will the men be???

Two or three waves of feminism later, and it's a harder sell but still you can mix up those elements pretty easily.

[ozaline]

Oh yeah then there's the magic of the Meglin Kiddies Land of Oz adaptation from before the MGM movie. I was lucky enough to see it at a previous Ozcon (though the sound is missing from the last 1/3rd). It has Tip, no Ozma and everyone escapes Mombi on a rocket powered flying Tin Woodman at the end!