RE-INTRODUCING THE OZ GAZETTE
by Nick Campbell
Originally published in The Baum Bugle, vol. 62, no. 1 (Autumn 2018), pgs. 20–22
Citations
Chicago 17th ed.:
Campbell, Nick. “Re-Introducing The Oz Gazette.” Baum Bugle 62, no. 1 (2018): 20–22.
MLA 9th ed.:
Campbell, Nick. “Re-Introducing The Oz Gazette.” The Baum Bugle, vol. 62, no. 1, 2018, pp. 20–22.
(Note: In print, this article was supplemented with images that have not been reproduced here.)
What are the Winged Monkeys up to now? Does Princess Ozma give interviews? What are the Scarecrow’s book recommendations? And what would it be like if the Ozians ran their own newspaper? All of these questions and more will be answered. Look at the center pages of this Bugle. You will find a separate, related publication that you can remove and keep: The Oz Gazette! If you’re one of our younger members, I hope you like it: it’s been produced so that you can enjoy this newspaper, even if you’ve only read one, two or none of the Oz books. It also introduces a man to whom all the Oz Club members are deeply indebted: Lyman Frank Baum, the creator of Dorothy and her friends, and a fellow with a thoroughly interesting life. I hope it gives you a window into the wonderful world of Oz that long-standing fans have been reading, writing and talking about—on these pages and at conventions—for a good many years. More importantly, it’s going to be fun.
If you are one of these more long-standing fans, you may recognize the name of The Oz Gazette. I first became a member in the early 1990s, and I fondly remember receiving the Gazette (as well as a typed letter from Club secretary Fred Meyer and, of course, the Bugle itself). The insert was a mixture of puzzles, little features, and contributions from other young Oz fans. I can’t overstate how exciting it was to think that there might be other people of my own age, somewhere out there, with the same love for these characters that I had. Goodness only knows, back in those dark days before the internet, it was impossible to find other Oz fans, except through happenstance. I was having a nice enough time, reading and collecting and drawing and writing, but it was better to share all of it with others.
I now know that I owed the pleasure of those Gazettes to the hard work of our current club president, Jane Albright. Jane rightly saw the Gazette as a way to give the kids in the Club a place to share their love of Oz. “Growing up, I really didn’t have that,” she remembers. “Although some neighbors had Oz books, none of them embraced them like I did. But in these pages you could see that there were other kids out there as caught up in Oz you were. That made the work worthwhile.” It was important for Jane that the Gazette showcased the creativity of its young members, and she soon found herself the recipient of all sorts of materials. “Hardly anyone had email,” she says. “Contributors actually mailed me written letters, illustrations and photos to include. Some came from overseas. And sometimes I’d get entire packets from classrooms where every student sent something. I never knew what the mail might bring.”
Jane worked hard to make the Gazette a treat for members like me. “Often the Gazette was great fun to produce,” she tells me. “I’d have a fun member to profile, enthusiastic contributions from kids, and my pick of Oz art I could scan to include. When I had less content, I’d scour my Oz collection and appeal to Club friends to find things. I’d type in an entire Baum story, find an illustration to color, or create a word search. It wasn’t always easy, but I enjoyed it.” All of this made the Gazette a true labor of love, infused with members’ enthusiasm for this marvelous land and its chronicles. It was also approachable; today I can appreciate the Bugle’s scholarly articles, but as a kid I found some of it overwhelming. I couldn’t go to a convention, but I could still feel part of a gang.
When I recently rejoined the Oz Club, I was a little sad to see that the Gazette was no longer produced. I told myself that it was hardly a surprise, that there were fewer young club members today, and that they can connect more easily with other fans online. I was pleased to learn, however, that kids’ memberships in the Oz Club are on the rise, perhaps due in part to a series of unmissable Ozzy cultural phenomena in recent years: Wicked; Oz The Great and Powerful; and The Wiz Live! With innovations and reinterpretations, each of these continues a story stretching back over a century, encompassing Broadway extravaganzas, silent movies, the Golden Age of Hollywood, and countless comics and games, not to mention decades of madcap adventures in print with lovable friends. The audience of Oz is part of that story, and every few years it is renewed with new people making that wonderful discovery. It seems appropriate to me to welcome new and younger fans with something of their own and, in turn, continue an old tradition.
I’ve tried to make the first edition of the new Oz Gazette approachable and fun, whatever your Oz knowledge. Back in the day, Frank Baum used to tell his readers that he’d had the latest news from Dorothy and her friends via a magic telegraph machine—about as close as you could get to the internet at the time. If you wish, you can tell yourself that I’ve re-established com-munication with the Emerald City by the same means; we’re reading a publication produced by a scarecrow, a Kansas farmgirl, eight tiny performing piglets, and anybody else with a story to tell. The Ozians always have a story to tell, or a new location or strange personality to describe.
We’d all love it if young readers want to join in the fun, or just offer feedback. Let us know what you’d like to see in the Gazette—if you’re under 16, it’s your space. Online fandom has its place, but it’s always fun to make and write your own Ozzy things, as I’ve discovered again, this year. Send us pictures of your favorite Oz characters, reviews of your favorite book, movie or thing, and questions about Oz that you’d like answered (whether the fact or the fiction). As you’ll see in Dorothy’s editorial, there’s a chance some wayward magic might escape through the Wi-Fi from their world into ours, so let us know, for instance, if you spot a friend levitating or hear your dog sharing words of wisdom.
What if you’re not under 16? Well, the people who put together the Bugle hope you still find the Gazette entertaining; there are references and new stories everywhere for those of us who know Baum’s creations well already. Personally, though, I’d also love to hear your memories of the Oz Gazette. Jane tells me she’s more than pleased that a handful of those kids who once contributed to the Gazette are still part of her life. “Just the other day I stumbled across an issue and saw a contribution from Aaron Almanza. That would be the Aaron who just spent a Saturday counting Club books to get our inventory in order. I hadn’t remembered his name from the Gazette, yet here he is, up to his elbows, hands-on with work supporting the Oz Club.” It seems the Gazette helped inspire some people to play an active part in the Oz fan community, often in a big way. “…Like Sarah Crotzer, the new Baum Bugle editor, or Ryan Bunch, who’s the Club vice president right now,” Jane recalls. “I’m Facebook friends with fans in Israel and Italy who were frequent contributors as children.”
Did you read the Gazette? Did you contribute something? Did you, as I did, join TOPPA: The Oz Pen Pal Association? It’s this element that has had the longest influence on my own life. After years of sharing Ozzy opinions with kids who really weren’t all that interested, TOPPA meant I was able to regularly discuss Baum, Murch, Cinar and so on with someone who knew as much—in fact, a great deal more—than I did. Somehow or other, my Oz pen-pal and I have stayed friends for over twenty years. We still correspond, and we’re still talking about the same stuff (in fact, we now write a blog together). Without her, I probably wouldn’t be an Oz fan, and might not even have come back to the Oz Club.
Perhaps that’s why I care so much about the Oz Gazette. I hope I can do it justice over the coming months.
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