OZ COMICS THAT NEVER LEFT THE DRAWING BOARD
by Michael Gessel
Originally published in The Baum Bugle, vol. 31, no. 3 (Winter 1987), pgs. 8–10
Citations
Chicago 17th ed.:
Gessel, Michael. “Oz Comics That Never Left the Drawing Board.” Baum Bugle 31, no. 3 (1987): 8–10.
MLA 9th ed.:
Gessel, Michael. “Oz Comics That Never Left the Drawing Board.” The Baum Bugle, vol. 31, no. 3, 1987, pp. 8–10.
(Note: In print, this article was supplemented with images that have not been reproduced here.)
Through the years, a number of Oz comic projects were started and, unfortunately—for lack of legal rights, money, or interest—never made it off the drawing board into print. That’s too bad, since some, if completed, might have added greatly to Oz lore. Of those would-be Oz comics, all we have left are unpublished drawings or, in some cases, just sketches.
A Ruth Plumly Thompson—John R. Neill collaboration on an Oz comic page sounds too good to be true. Though a comic strip combining their talents was planned, it never got far. In the late 1920s, Thompson wrote scenarios for at least two strips, and Neill began work on one page which was never completed.
Discussions were held with King Features to syndicate the strip. It is not clear why the idea never went further, but it might have partly resulted from the difficulty in securing the rights to the Oz characters.
Another attempt was made in the mid-1940s by Dan Dowling, the editorial cartoonist for the Omaha, Nebraska World-Herald. Dowling got in touch with L. Frank Baum’s son, Robert Stanton Baum, and secured the rights to produce a Sunday strip based on the Oz stories.
“It was a great idea,” remembers Dowling, now living in Carmel, California. Dowling had enjoyed the Oz books as a child and was confident that the stories would take well to the comics. “It would be a fine Sunday page. Why it hadn’t been done before I don’t know.”
Negotiations between Dowling and Baum carried on for some time. Dowling hired another artist, Walter Lahue, to assist with the strip. In 1949, the art for one episode was completed. Dowling recalls that he wrote it and drew some of the faces, and Lahue drew the background. The Globe Syndicate expressed interest in taking the series. However, Baum apparently did not like the way Dorothy was drawn, and no deal was ever concluded with Globe.
About that time, Dowling left the World-Herald and moved to New York to work as an editorial cartoonist for the New York Herald-Tribune Syndicate. He was required to draw a cartoon each day for the syndicate and no longer had time for the project.
The one episode which was completed remained unpublished. It was called The Wizard of Oz, and it followed Dorothy’s adventures from Kansas until she arrived in the Land of the Munchkins. It was labeled “Book 1,” suggesting that Dowling had planned to do additional Oz books.
Marvel considered bringing out the entire Oz series in comic book form in the mid-1970s (see accompanying article). This resulted in unused sketches for The Wizard of Oz and the entire finished art for Ozma of Oz which was never published.
Oz Royal Artist Dick Martin briefly collaborated with James Lawrence on a strip tentatively entitled Wonderworld of Oz. Lawrence proposed the idea to Martin in 1978 after the publication of The Oz Scrapbook. Recalls Martin, “The prospect was flattering to me as he is a veteran ‘scripter’ who has – at various times—written the continuity and dialogue for such classics as Joe Palooka, Captain Easy, and Buck Rogers. Also, he had a good knowledge of—and respect for—Baum’s and Thompson’s Oz books.
“We discussed plotlines for a couple of episodes, to span four to five weeks each. The introductory one would establish the main characters, and a week’s continuity was to be developed in more-or-less finished form for submission to several newspaper syndicate editors.”
Lawrence decided that, since most readers would be familiar only with the 1939 MGM movie, their story would have to begin where the movie ended. Explains Martin, “We started out with Dorothy and her Aunt Em and Uncle Henry visiting the Kansas State Fair where Dorothy could once again meet with the Wizard of Oz. She volunteered to join him in the finale of his magic act, a stuntflight in a make-believe space ship— but, far away in the Emerald City, her old friends the Scarecrow and Tin Man planned, with Ozma’s help, to make the flight a real one and bring them to Oz. Midway through the journey, though, a villainous sorcerer from another planet would intercept their space ship and . . .
“Alas, the space ship never got off the ground. I had completed a Sunday page in pencil, and blocked out six daily strips to follow it. Armed with these, and a scenario of several more weeks’ storyline, Lawrence sounded out his various syndicate connections—with no luck. By the beginning of 1979, our own enthusiasm for the strip had hit rock bottom so, when my collaborator proposed that we put it out of its misery and give it a decent burial, I wasn’t a bit sorry!”
All was not completely lost, though, In 1984, Martin did ink drawings traced from the title heading and two panels for the Sunday strip and included them in his Oz Picture Gallery, published by the Oz Club.
Sgt. Rock, a war story book published by DC Comics, seems a most unlikely place to find Oz. But, in 1984, it almost ran a two-part story by Eric Shanower, then a student at the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art in Dover, New Jersey. Kubert was the editor of Sgt. Rock, and students who did stories based on war themes had a shot at getting their work published in his book.
As an assignment during his last year at the school, Shanower did the first part of a story called “General Jinjur of Oz.” To avoid copyright problems, the story was based only on characters appearing in the first three Oz books. Shanower did the writing, drawing, and coloring of the episode.
The story begins where Ozma of Oz leaves off. The Nome King is mad at the Oz people because they stole his Magic Belt, so he sends his Nomes to march against the Emerald City to recapture it. Ozma discovers this in her Magic Picture and sends General Jinjur and her Army of Revolt to fight the Nomes. General Jinjur is taken by the Nome King and thrown in prison.
The first installment ran four pages of a projected eight-page story. Shanower wrote the script for the second part, and he did layouts which Kubert approved, In part two, the Nomes were to capture a giant lizard which they would use to cross the Deadly Desert, but the lizard turns out to be a female! She lays eggs, which are deadly to the Nomes, and the plot is foiled.
Shanower’s story was good enough— and had enough war scenes—for Kubert to accept it for Sgt. Rock. It would have run in late 1984 or early 1985, but Shanower withdrew the story for a variety of reasons. He was not comfortable with the work he had done on the second half so, after withdrawing part one, he never did any more work on the story.
This tale does have a silver lining. While Shanower’s story was being considered, DC was planning a line of children’s comic books. Nick Cuti, editor of the proposed line, saw Shanower’s piece and wanted him to do an Oz comic book. In response, Shanower came up with a proposal to do new Oz stories in comic book form. The idea for the children’s line was later dropped. But it was that proposal for DC that Shanower then took to First Comics of Chicago and which became the popular First Graphic Novel series, with three Oz titles already in print.
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