You got Baum in my Carroll!

[vovat]

While I've seen several crossovers between Oz and other fantasy universes in my day, the one that seems to be the most popular is Lewis Carroll's Wonderland (which I don't believe is ever actually CALLED "Wonderland" in the books, but I suppose it's as good a name as any, and better than most). That's not too surprising. While I believe L. Frank Baum wasn't a huge fan of the Alice books in general, he liked Alice herself, and used her as a partial model for Dorothy. And Ruth Plumly Thompson appears to have been a big Carroll fan, and she worked quite a few Carrollian references into her own Oz books, starting with Dorothy quoting "You Are Old, Father William" to the Scarecrow in The Royal Book of Oz.

One problem with a crossover between the two universes is that Alice's adventures were clearly identified as dreams, while Dorothy's (contrary to what the MGM movie would have you believe) were not. There are certainly ways to get around that (maybe Alice visited an actual place in a dream-state, or her dreams brought Wonderland to life, or something of the sort), but it's still a key difference between the two series. And Wonderlanders, as Ray Bradbury pointed out in an essay I read once, tend to be considerably meaner than Ozites. Still, I think that there's a certain similarity in the two fantasy lands that means characters from one would fit reasonably well into the other. I could see the Cheshire Cat visiting the Emerald City or the Scarecrow attending the mad tea party without much difficulty. And I'm obviously not the first one to think that, as evidenced by some of the already-existing crossovers. The first major one that I know of was The Oz-Wonderland War, a series of three comics with a somewhat misleading name, as the war wasn't between Oz and Wonderland. It instead featured residents of both fantasy lands, together with the rabbit superhero Captain Carrot and his Zoo Crew of anthropomorphic animals, joining forces to stop a Nome invasion. I honestly think the comics could have been done without Captain Carrot, not because I have anything in particular against the super-powered lagomorph and his friends, but because their presence kind of detracted from the focus on Oz and Wonderland. Oh, well. I guess they felt they needed to work a contemporary comic character into the adventures.

There's a more recent comic called The Oz-Wonderland Chronicles, that also contains a crossover between the two worlds. I haven't yet read any of this series, but I have the first issue on order, and there aren't that many others out at this point. I believe it's a semi-annual publication. Anyway, what I know of it involves a college-age Dorothy and Alice having to go back and save their respective fantasy countries.

I've seen several other Oz books that make brief references to Alice's Wonderland, and I feel like I would be remiss if I didn't mention Lost Girls, Alan Moore's graphic novel series that puts a grown Dorothy and Alice (plus Wendy from Peter Pan) into sexual situations. (I haven't read this either, although I'll admit to being curious about it, because it just sounds so crazy.) One fairly recent Oz book to dedicate a significant section to Carroll's fantasy countries is Visitors from Oz. Not the reprint of material from Baum's Queer Visitors comic series, but the novel by Martin Gardner, editor of the annotated versions of the Alice books and The Hunting of the Snark. I've only read small parts of this book, and from what I've heard, it's not very good. I did read most of the Wonderland section, and it was quite uneventful, mostly just consisting of the characters telling Dorothy and her friends that Carroll had misrepresented them. Not a bad idea, necessarily, but Gardner really didn't do anything with it other than have one character after another complain about Carroll's portrayals.

Personally, I recently came to wonder if the Red King and Queen might be former rulers of the Quadlings. And I remember The Dictionary of Imaginary Places speculating that Omby Amby might be related to the White Knight.

Comments

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

Oh, reading this knocked back into my head that I had a really screwed up dream last night that apparently took place in the Emerald City and involved huge exploding people and other things I'd rather not remember. Actually, I already remembered the dream, I just forgot the Emerald City part until I read this.

Actually I just finished reading a book that had a lot of Wizard of Oz references in it, which is probably where that came from.

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

I don't know where the exploding people part came from, though.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Well, Glegg exploded in Kabumpo in Oz.

[billiedoll.livejournal.com]

Don't forget Cheshire Crossing, which features Dorothy, Alice, and Wendy from Peter Pan as the heroines and has a team-up with Captain Hook and the Wicked Witch of the West.

[billiedoll.livejournal.com]

http://www.cheshirecrossing.net/ for the linky

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'd heard of that, but I've only read a few strips. I'll be sure to check it out.

[kevenn.livejournal.com]

i never read Lost Girls, but I read many, many articles and reviews about it, and I found the idea of children having sex and besitality in the same book with beloved children's book characters to be repulsive. The author (fucked up Alan Homeless-Looking Moore) argued that 1.) he respected the original authors' continuities, and 2.) that the girls grew up, so it's ok - forgetting that in Baum's books, Dorothy did not grow up, but remained a child in Oz, thus proving his two assertions wrong.

I find child pornography revolting, and even though these are illustrated depictions, I do not want to support that sort of thing.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Well, March Laumer had the Shaggy Man attracted to Dorothy. Maybe there's some kind of connection there.



Even if Dorothy is grown up in Lost Girls (and I guess she would be if she returned to the Outside World, as per Lost King), everyone knows her and the other girls as children. So while I suppose it's probably not really child pornography, the people involved in making it HAD to be aware that it would make readers THINK of child pornography.

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

I doubt they were aware people might make that connection -- artistic types often don't think in terms of what the average person on the street might take from their works. It's why so many artists are stunned when their work causes an outcry. In any case, Lost Girls does have Dorothy as being grown up, so at least it doesn't technically count as child pornography.

[samuraifrog.livejournal.com]

I really enjoy The Oz-Wonderland Chronicles. Every summer at WizardWorld in Chicago, I see series co-creator Casey Heying and buy the new issue(s) from him--I hope #4 is out by August! I wasn't interested in the crossover aspect, at first, but I think Heying and Ben Avery really understand what makes Oz and especially the logical illogic of Wonderland work. I can't wait to see how the whole thing turns out--it's not just Oz and Wonderland crossing over, either, and they hint at a larger background behind the whole work. I wish they could put this together more often, but I think it's worth the wait.

[jadavisofmo.blogspot.com (from livejournal.com)]

My take: http://newwwoz.blogspot.com/2008/06/alice-vs-dorothy.html

By the way, Martin Gardner's book was called "Visitors From Oz." No "The."

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the correction. I'll go ahead and fix it.

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

Really? I didn't know Alice was used in modeling Dorothy!

The Oz-Wonderland Chronicles, hm ...? I'll have to check that out. I've seen some examples and descriptions of Lost Girls, and although I'd be interested in seeing it I don't think it related to the "real" Oz or Wonderland any more than "Wicked" does.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I didn't know Alice was used in modeling Dorothy!

I think it was more of a case of the popularity of Alice influencing Baum to use a fairly ordinary girl as a protagonist, rather than anything specific.

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

Ah, I see. I've heard that Baum chose a child as a protagonist so the reader would have an identifiable POV character, which makes great sense. Which is not to say he didn't get the idea from Alice -- that also makes great sense. We're all influenced by the greats, after all.