New Emeralds Swag(FOR A LIMITED TIME!)

Since we've run out of the 2010 calendars, we now have several Emeralds different items for sale, but only for a limited time! First up is this 10.5 x 3.5 bookmark featuring the main cast for $2.00.

Plaza Theatre's 70th Oz-iversary!

The Plaza Theatre in Atlanta, GA. just celebrated its 70th Anniversary Gala. It is Atlanta's only independent cinema, and recently became a non-profit establishment. This special event was hosted by Robert Osborne from Turner Classic Movies, Karl Slover who was one of the original Munchkins, and the cast of Blast Off Burlesque masqueraded as characters of from the Wizard Of Oz movie.The Plaza also had several screenings of the 1939 film, along with other films from its first year, including Gone With The Wind and Gulliver's Travels. In honor of the Plaza's 70 years, the local Alcove Gallery now has a special Flying Monkey t-shirt by H.C. Warner for sale.

Book Review: Magician Of Oz

James C. Wallace II recently sent me a copy of his book to review, Magician Of Oz, which is supposed to be the first of at least a 3-part series. The story takes place in modern day where Jamie Diggs is the great-grandson of Oscar Diggs, the original Wizard of Oz. Jamie and his family lives in Indiana, and aside from knowing his great-grandpa was a famous magician, he had now idea of his life in the fairy realm. His family opens up an old trunk of Oscar's, which contains several old magician items. This sparks Jamie's want to become a magician himself, but the illusionist-type and not the actual wizard-type. He joins up with the Brotherhood of Magicians, and learns some of the tricks of the trade. Two of his prizes which belonged to his grandfather are a mystical coin and a somewhat enchanted pocket watch. Later on, while exploring the woods near his home, Jamie ends up being transported to Oz. He is then taken by Polychrome to the castle of Glinda, where he mmets the good witch along with Ozma and Dorothy. Ozma reveals that she had Jamie brought to Oz so that he could be Dorothy's friend, and while he's there he realizes that he can use actual magic if the right choice of words are used in a spell. However, like all Oz stories, there has to be a main antagonist, and this time around its the trees! Apparently they're still p.o.'ed about from when Tin Woodman used to chop them down. It's unknown if he was the only woodchopper in Oz, otherwise they'd be campaigning against every ax-men there. Headed up by the disgruntled Leader of the Sycamore and his Council of Trees, the collected flora of Oz head out to the Nick Chopper's castle, but Jamie is able to use a magic spell to make them forget their hatred. Granted, the idea of just taking away someone's anger with magic is a little too easy. It's like if someone killed your brother, but your anger would cause some kind of major political upheaval or inconvenience for someone in authority, that using magic to give the victim amnesia about it somehow justifies it. This is one of the few flaws I always had with the Oz stories is that Ozma was shown as being a just ruler who cared for her people, but if someone was try to bring up something like women's liberation or the use of free magic which might shake up the system, the "monarchy" only wanted to set things to a state of stability without really wondering why an underappreciated party(in this case, talking trees)might have a legitimate reason for their grievance. But anyway, Jamie eventually goes back home to Indiana despite how much he and Dorothy seemed to have clicked. The book follows a good narrative, mainly more for younger readers, although I'd recommend adding some illustrations to it in future editions. Copies of this are available in paperback at Amazon and Lulu, and the second volume is due out this spring.

Video Review: The Princess Of Oz

Eduard Cao put together an original independent film(which could be viewed as a "fan film")recently titled The Princess Of Oz. This was originally supposed to be a children's play that was turned into a movie as a take on The Marvelous Land Of Oz but with a few twists, like Dorothy being in the story(again?), along with Scraps the Patchwork Girl, Lion, and Tik-Tok. The story involves mainly involves Dorothy coming across a strange peddler who presents her with her silver shoes last seen in Wizard Of Oz, and gets sent to Oz. There she runs across the girl Tip and Jack Pumpkinhead who she "grew in her garden". While this is going on, the witch Mombi allies herself with General Jinjur and her lackeys, the Jinjettes, as they plan to take over Oz. Sometime later, the living life-sized ragdoll Scraps befriends Jack P., and eventually the Scarecrow who is now King. The story unfolds to reveal the true heir to the throne of Oz(guess who!), and Scarecrow & Scraps fall in love. The movie is shot like an old silent movie, although there is spoken dialogue in it, and was largely inspired by the original Patchwork Girl Of Oz film from 1914. The production is currently incomplete, but Cao is planning on finishing it up sometime soon. There are clips of it, behind the scenes footage, and interviews with the cast and characters on Cao's YouTube page.

Emeraids Influences: Jellia Jamb

The official Royal Maid of the Emerald City is the original cute maid character! Jellia is first described in The Wizard Of Oz as a short girl with green hair and glasses. Despite the nearly infinite amount of maids in anime, there are a few that played a part in developing the Emeralds version of her. One is Lettuce Midorikawa from Tokyo Mew Mew, or as she was known in the American version(Mew Mew Power), Bridget Verdant. She's one of the Mew Mews, a group of Sailor Scout-ish magical girls who fight evil aliens. Lettuce can transform into a superhero with water powers. She appears to be your stereotypical anime girl with glasses(or "meganekko")who is shy but smart, however she has alot more to her than just being another Sailor Mercury clone. Another character that went into Jellia's development was Eina(or "Ena")from the mecha series Gravion/Gravion Zwei. She is part of a team of mecha pilots that form the giant robot, Gravion, although her cover is as a clutzy maid at a mansion with most of the other pilots. Similar to Jellia, she has short green hair and glasses. Later on she apparently dies, which turns out was an artificial body while her mind remained on the moon. Eina returns in her original form, but with pink hair and no glasses. Like Jellia, Eina is sweet and innocent, although she sometimes lets her naiveity get the better of her.

Wonders Of Oz online documentary

Wonders Of Oz is an online series by Royal Kido Of Oz documenting the Oz legacy and its impact on America. The series is as of now completed.

Emeralds First Look: Dorothy

Here's the first shot of Princess Dorothy as she appears in Emeralds. She's just come back from her training as the new Eastern Witch under Scarecrow, and "yes", she's still a princess.

Comic Review: The Wonderland In Oz

Walt Spouse created a comic strip from 1932-1933 titled The Wonderland Of Oz(which had nothing to do with Alice In Wonderland)that ran in syndicated newspapers, and was later reprinted in The Funnies and Hi-Spot Comics. This was recently redone in black & white in three seperate graphic novels from Hungry Tiger Press. The story is a pretty accurate adaptation of the second, third, and sixth Oz books. It starts out with The Land Of Oz, followed by Ozma Of Oz, and then for some reason skips ahead to The Emerald Of Oz. I really liked Spouse's art style, which is remincient of the earlier Winsoe McCay's works like Little Nemo. I'd highly recommend picking these books up not only for Ozians, but those who appreciate the aesthetics of classic comic strips.

Little Adventures In Oz now out

Eric Shanower's new comic, Little Adventures Of Oz is now out from IDW Publishing. This collects two of the stories Shanower had previously printed in seperate volumes, then recently collected in the Adventures Of Oz novel. The new affordable manga-sized graphic novel contains The Enchanted Apples Of Oz and The Ice King Of Oz, along with bonus material previously only available in the hardcover edition of Adventures In Oz, plus a new original cover.

Emeralds Character Bios: Queen of the Field Mice

First seen in the original Wizard Of Oz, the Queen of the Field Mice is one of the rare group of animal royalty in Oz. She and her subjects helped drag Lion out of the poppies when he was to heavy for his friends to carry. She also assisted in Scarecrow's semi-failed attempt to retake the Emerald City from General Jinjur's army. In Emeralds, Queen Meadow has been granted the power to change into a human form at will by Ozma, and she has recently mated with Lion who has also gained the same ability. Meadow will be a very active member of the cast.

News on Todd McFarlane's Oz movie

About two years ago, Todd McFarlane(creator of Spawn)was working out a deal with Warner Bros. to do a movie based on his line of action figures, Twisted Land Of Oz. Lately, it was rumored that Dakota Fanning might be up for the role as Dorothy in it. The film was supposed to be in development with Warner and Thunder Road Pictures with Josh Olson who wrote the script for A History Of Violence to handle the screenplay. Although recently its been reported that Olsen was doing his own version for Warner titled Oz: The Return To The Emerald City where Dorothy's modern day granddaughter is sent to Oz to take on a new wicked witch. Whether this will meet up with what McFarlane had pitched with his darker version about a female arctic explorer that ends up in the magical realm of Oz is currently unknown.

Marvel to do Ozma Of Oz

Comic Shop News recently noted that Eric Shanower is adapting the upcoming Marvel Comics run of Ozma Of Oz. This will follow the series of Whe Wonderful Wizard Of Oz(now available in a collected hardcover)and The Marvelous Land Of Oz as drawn by Scottie Young. Ozma Of Oz is the third book in the Oz series written by L. Frank Baum where Dorothy finally returns to Oz to help her friends defeat the wicked Nome King. Expect the new series to be out later this year. This would be a first as the last time Marvel did their adaptations of the Oz books back in the 80s when they did the first two books as comics, but would've had to pay the licensing fees from the Baum Trust as the book wasn't in the public domain at the time.