Happy Halloween!

All hail to the true Pumpkin King!

Grimm Fairy Tales goes to Oz

Zenescope Entertainment has recently added Oz to their list of magical realms that their Grimm Fairy Tales comic series takes place in. This connects several fairy tales and childrens stories into one collected universe, although some of them exist in seperate realities. The comic primarily deals with Sela who gains the ability to travel to different fable lands, and tries to set things right in them, kinda like adult-Disney version of Quantum Leap. Sela has to deal with her evil genie sister Belinda who keeps screwing up fairy tales. Spinoff titles from this included several Wonderland series, Neverland, and an Arabian Nights comic featuring Sinbad.

A while ago, it was hinted that Oz was connected to this whole mishmash of fairy tales. Then, in issue #64 of the regular Grimm Fairy Tales comic, it was revealed that Oz was one of four other magical worlds created at the beginning of the universe, along with Wonderland and Neverland. They bring up a previous chapter featuring Thane, the "Warlord Of Oz"(no relation to that other comic!)who is an anthropomorphic version of the Cowardly Lion that teamed up with several other heroes from other worlds to stop the menace known as the Dream Eater that threatens to destroy all the fairy tale worlds.

The prequal comic of Grimm Fairy Tales: The Library shows a teenage Sela who gets trapped in a mystic library where the books in it open doors to the worlds they take place in. Sela accidently releases dinosaurs from one book, and then she is cornered by the Wicked Witch of the West and her flying monkeys. This is a 5-issue series that is more intended for all-ages, although it doesn't seem to bleed into the regular comic series much.

Oz Video Of The Month: HorrOz 1 & 2

Sam Milazzo has put together two fanfilms that basically take several different Oz movies into horror movie trailers. HorrOz is done as an Alfred Hitchcock movie, and HorrOz II: Hall-Oz-een is supposed to be a Wes Craven sequal. Sam has also done several other Oz fan videos worth checking out.

Oz Video Of The Month: Out Of Oz trailer

Sorry I'm a little late with this month's video. This just came out as an official trailer for the upcoming Out Of Oz book due this fall.

The Legend Of Oz: The Wicked West comic

Big Dog Ink is going to release a new comic book series this Oct. titled The Legend Of Oz: The Wicked West. In this "weird west"(see Cowboys And Aliens!)story, Dorothy is a gunslinger in the mid-1800s Kansas who while riding on her horse Toto follows a golden brick road into a strange land of living scarecrows and other weird creatures. The comic is written by Tom Hutchinson, and drawn by Alisson Borges. There is a currently a preview comic available, with 50% of the proceeds will go towards tornado relief efforts, plus a limited edition 12 x 18 print.

Out Of Oz coming this fall

Gregory Maquire is finally releasing the fourth and final part of The Wicked Years book series, Out Of Oz, and will be released by Harper Collins on Nov. 1. This story features Glinda under arrest by Emporer Shell, Brrr on the run, Elphaba's granddaughter Rain, an Emerald City/Munckinland war, and the triumphant return of Dorothy. It's hard to say how much this will keep in context with Land Of Oz and Ozma Of Oz, although we've already seen Tip and Mombi shown briefly in Son Of A Witch, but how this will play out in the Wicked universe is yet to be seen.

Ozma's Birthday

Aug. 21 is officially Ozma's birthday. Not sure how old she is exactly, but she beats out Bilbo Baggins by at least a decade if you count her premiere in The Marvelous Land Of Oz in 1904.

Comic Review: Cinderella-Fables Are Forever(conclusion)

Since I've already done some reviews of the Fables spinoff mini-series from Vertigo, Cinderella: Fables Are Forever, I'll be reviewing the conclusion to the comic which just finished up.

In this story, Cinderella is a secret agent for the Fables community, and she has been recently stalked by Dorothy, who was working for a rouge society of Fables in the "mundy" world. She's had a vendetta against Cinderella for decades, and finally decided to get her revenge on her. Using the Silver Slippers, Dorothy disguised herself as Cinderella's current love interest, Ivan Durak, and lures her across the Deadly Desert with the help of Bungle. Now, this is a little weird as its unknown where this Cinderella series fits into the regular Fables timeline, because Bungle is currently on the run with Bufkin and some other refugees trying to free Oz from the Nome King, who still rules it after the Advesary's defeat.

We learn about Dorothy's history after being cast out of Oz the first time and into the mundy world. She rejected being a part of the Fables community, and became a secret agent for the rouge Fables society. She was later on reunited with her old Oz travelling buddies after she was captured in the Jack Of Fables comic, but was freed with the other Fables there, and then ditched her friends to go and get the Silver Slippers out of the Deadly Desert that she lost at the end of the Wizard Of Oz. She ties up Cinderella, and plans on leaving her for dead in the middle of the Deadly Desert. Cindy manages to trick her into fighting, and makes off in the blimp Dorothy kidnapped her in. Dorothy uses the Slippers to teleport up into the blimp, but Cinderella defeats her, removes the slippers, and tosses Dorothy out into the Deadly Dessert. Whether Dorothy actually hit the Desert(which if you'd seen Return To Oz, you'd know would kill her)and died is unknown. This might lead into the upcoming storyline in the regular Fables comic, Inherit The Wind, which is set for Issue #108 which continues the adventures of Bufkin's revolution of Oz from the Nome King.

I personally liked this series, althought I was really disappointed with how they turned Dorothy into a cruel, vindictive sociopath. No real explanation was given to this change, or whether she was always like this in the context of the story. It'd be interesting to see this grown up Dorothy meet up with the still childlike Ozma who recently had a brief stint as the superhero, Super Witch. I loved the previous Cinderella mini-series, From Fabletown With Love, because it was a good sendup of spy movies, but this one was more of a "spygirl vs. spygirl" storyline. They could've had way more fun with this, and turned it into something where Dorothy and Cinderella had to team-up to fight a common enemy like the Wicked Stepmother or something. However, even as a mature readers comic it was more gratuitous and cliche than it needed to be. DC Comics will eventually release this 6-issue series in a trade paperback.

Wicked in Top 100 Sci-Fi/Fantasy

Wicked was recently voted on NPR's as part of their Top 100 Science-Fiction/Fantasy Books list as voted by fans online. Wicked is ranked at #80, although the actual Wizard Of Oz book is listed at all, possible because its considered more of a children's book than a standard fantasy like Lord Of The Rings.

Oz Video Of The Month: Mellow Brick Road

This catchy original music video to Pogo's Mellow Brick Road was the winner of a contest the creator was holding for artists to put together a music video to. The winner was Reed Gauthier. All the video entries can be seen here.

Book Review: Rainbow Connection

Hi. Sorry it's been a while, but I've had some other reviews to finish up. I picked up this from the author at a con in TN. a few months back. Rainbow Connection is a new short novel from Blackwyrm Publishing. It was written by Ian Harac who has prominmently worked on RPGs like D&D and GURPS. This is an interesting piece for anyone whose a regular goer of fan conventions, or stories involving alternate realties.

Matt Anders is a part of a special agency that deals in contraband from parallel universes. Apparently, in this continuity, travel between other dimensions is slightly common, although not totally known to the general public, and there's an underground network that traffics illegal items from other worlds to the story's main Earth, referred usually to as "Prime". But instead of being something like death rays from some robot universe, its the selling of unsolicited media to the geek market, like the missing 4th Season of Star Trek. So, basically Matt is an FBI agent tracking down bootleg copies of the Star Wars prequals from a reality where they actually didn't suck. This usually has him frequenting sci-fi cons in search of unauthorized nerd exports.


Matt tracks down a possible smuggler at a convention, but discovers a dead Munchkin in the man's apartment. This leads to him getting help from an interdimensional smuggler named Bobbi. She manages to get him and herself to Oz as her hideout is hit by the fuzz. Once there, they end up running into mad Tik-Tok knockoffs, spurned Munchkins, and cybernetic flying monkeys. They then manage to find their way to a depression-era version of Kansas in yet another reality. Matt and Bobbi eventually return to Prime where they confront the true mastermind behind the trafficking from Oz.

This was a fairly good story, which for my opinion should've played more of an emphasis on its wormholes into other worlds instead of it being an Oz-themed book. Oz fans might be a little miffed that there are none of the original characters from the books in this story, although it presents a slightly fresh take on Oz from a modern day outsiders point of view. I'd probably suggest getting the E-book edition of this as opposed to spending the extra cost of the paperback. But definatley look it up.

Oz Video Of The Month: Land Of Oz TV special

Sorry we took a month off, but we're back now with July's installment. This was a TV special that aired in 1981 of The Marvelous Land Of Oz performed by the Children's Theatre Company and School of Minneapolis which is still in business today. They are planning their own version of The Wizard Of Oz starting this Nov.