Stratovania

Having just recently seen Skottie Young's drawing of the Ozian field-mice for the comics adaptation of The Marvelous Land of Oz (I have the first issue, but haven't been keeping with the later ones, and might just buy the collected version when it inevitably comes out), I thought these mice might be a good topic for a post. The Queen of the Field-Mice, who wears a tiny golden crown, is prominent in both of the first two Oz books. In Wizard, after the Tin Woodman saves the queen from a wildcat intent on eating her, she and her subjects drag the Cowardly Lion out of the poppy field on a cart made by Nick Chopper. I'm not entirely sure why the poppies' fumes don't seem to have any effect on the mice themselves, but I guess the Lion wasn't really that far from the edge of the field. The queen tells Dorothy and her friends to call if they need her help, but when they actually do require assistance, Dorothy uses a "little whistle." That Baum never actually described the girl receiving this whistle is one of the more obvious gaffes in the book.


In Land, the whistle is said to be silver, and is in the possession of the Tin Woodman. He and his friends find a field-mouse village on their way to the Emerald City, and the Scarecrow hides a few of the mice in his straw, so that he can use them to scare away Jinjur and her stereotypically girly soldiers. The Queen of the Field-Mice also helps the party get through the illusions that Mombi throws in their way.


The Queen is not named in the Oz canon, but the Russian Magic Land books give her the name Ramina. In the apocrypha, she assists Eureka in David Hulan's Eureka in Oz, in which she reveals that she has a transportation spell provided by Glinda. She and her subjects also appear in Jeremy Steadman's Emerald Ring, and provide Trot and Button-Bright with a magic necklace, which provides light and sends Trot back in time.

Ruth Plumly Thompson introduced many small kingdoms throughout Oz, but one of her most famous and most visited is Pumperdink, in the north central Gillikin Country. The name is a typical one for Thompson, having a silly sound without coming across as TOO ridiculous. I'm inclined to think it's sort of a combination of "pumpernickel" and "Humperdinck." Actually, Pumperdink predates Thompson's Oz books, having been the setting of several short stories and poems that Thompson wrote for the Philadelphia Public Ledger. Most of these feature the royal family, but they're somewhat vague on the actual identities of the monarchs. When she brings the kingdom into Oz in her second Oz book, Kabumpo in Oz, she's much more specific about these characters. The ruler is King Pompus the Proud, whose personality is about what you'd expect from that name, but is a good king when his infamous temper isn't getting the best of him. His wife is the kindly Queen Pozy Pink, and their son is the handsome and dashing Prince Pompadore. The most famous inhabitant of the kingdom, however, is Kabumpo the Elegant Elephant, an honorary member of the royal family.


The plot of Kabumpo involves the elephant accompanying Pompadore on his quest to find the proper princess, and hence save Pumperdink from a spell cast by the evil wizard Glegg. Kabumpo initially thinks the proper princess must be Ozma, but after she refuses, Pompa ends up marrying Peg Amy of Sun Top Mountain. At some point in between books, they have a daughter called Princess Pajonia, who is four years old at the time of Purple Prince. In this book, Pompus' brother Kettywig teams up with the bitter old crone Faleero of Follensby Forest to take over Pumperdink. This time, Kabumpo and his new attendant Randy seek the help of Jinnicky in restoring the status quo.


During the course of these tales, we learn some interesting facts about Pumperdink. One is the tradition of lawbreakers being dipped in a well full of blue ink. The well isn't used much these days, so the current Chief Dipper's position is largely ceremonial, and he spends most of his time writing poetry. The well was used quite a bit during Faleero's brief reign, however. Another important official in the kingdom is the Prime Pumper, who's basically a prime minister. At the time of Kabumpo, the Prime Pumper is a timid and foolish man who tries to rush Pompadore into a marriage with Faleero. In Purple Prince, the Pumper expresses support for Kettywig in an attempt to save himself, and flees into the woods when Pompus is restored. The King gives the position to General Quakes, the leader of his army, but we don't know whether Quakes also took the title. Considering that the old Prime Pumper is never given a name but simply referred to by everyone as "Pumper," it's quite possible that Pompus prefers not to use the title anymore.


By the way, do Thompson's other Pumperdink stories take place in the Ozian kingdom, or just another imaginary place with the same name? As I'm generally someone who likes to tie everything together, I prefer the former, but there are some difficulties with this. For instance, while many of the stories refer to a king, queen, and prince, "The Wizard and His Purple Beard" also mentions a king's daughter, and Pompus presumably doesn't have one of those. Incidentally, this story was adapted into comics form by Eric Shanower and Anna-Maria Cool, and this version (renamed "The Wizard of Pumperdink") pictures Pompus and Kabumpo. It also changes the wizard's purple beard to a purple polka-dot one, presumably so the story would work in black and white, but it also helps to explain why a purple beard would be at all odd in the Gillikin Country. Anyway, in order to resolve such discrepancies, I'd like to bring forth the possibility that these stories might take place at different times in Pumperdinkian history, hence the king is sometimes Pompus and sometimes an ancestor of his. The other Pumperdink stories that I've read are:

The Apple Pie Princess - A poem, reproduced in The Wizard of Way-Up and Other Wonders, about how the prince marries a girl who restores his appetite by baking him an apple pie. This prince obviously isn't Pompadore, but I kind of like the idea that it might be Pompus as a young man, with the Apple Pie Princess being Pozy Pink.

The Dragon of Pumperdink (originally called simply "A Story About Dragons," even though there's only one dragon in it) - During a harsh winter, a dragon from the mountains takes a position as furnace in the castle of Pumperdink. Oz generally doesn't seem to HAVE harsh winters, but perhaps Pumperdink's valley location makes it receive precipitation that most of the land doesn't get.

Christmas in Pumperdink (AKA "Christmas with the Prince") - Per the advice of Jan the Jester, the Prince (who could be Pompa, but doesn't have to be) gives away his possessions to the villagers, and gives his parents the pleasure of getting him all new things for Christmas.

The Laughing King, a Page Out of Pumperdink History - The King of Pumperdink abdicates, and decides to seek his fortune in laughing. Obviously not Pompus, who seems to be angry more often than jolly, but perhaps an earlier king.

Are there any other Pumperdink stories I haven't mentioned? Those were the only ones I could find in Oz-Story and the Oz Club's two compilations of Thompson's work. I do feel it worth mentioning that Sissajig and Other Surprises also contains a story called "The Fairy's Silver Trumpet" (hey, isn't that the title that arfies uses for her journal?) that takes place on Sun Top Mountain, the old home of Princess Peg Amy.

Is there a trick to getting celebrities to reply on Twitter? Yeah, I'm sure there isn't, but I'm still kind of amazed that I've received two replies from Amanda Palmer, who has 192,162 followers. The occasional reply to a fan is actually a really clever marketing technique, though. Even if you only reply every once in a while, it presents the illusion of actual conversation. I guess Amanda has always tried to maintain a good rapport with her fans, but I think it could also work for less sociable celebrities.

The constant changes to the Facebook interface just reinforce what I've pretty much thought from the first, which is that it's SUPPOSED to be confusing. It's chaos with small bits of order, which is the worst kind of chaos (except possibly the end boss of the first Final Fantasy). I have more contacts on Facebook than any other site, yet I check and update it considerably less than I do LiveJournal, Twitter, or Tumblr. I do try to link to my more interesting LJ entries, but I'm not sure how many people go here from there, although I know a few have.

This past weekend, I read through the archives of Questionable Content. I'm pretty sure I'd seen it linked from various communities before, what with its plethora of references, but I'd never read it with any regularity before. I'm actually kind of pleasantly surprised at how much I liked the characters; as bizarrely exaggerated as some of them are, they seem like people I'd want to hang out with. Too bad they're, y'know, fictional. That's the story of my life, though. As much as I love the magic, humor, and weirdness in the Oz books, a large part of their appeal for me (especially in my junior high years) was always how accepting the fairyland was of characters who didn't fit in elsewhere.

Speaking of web comics, Captain SNES has FINALLY resolved the standoff between Alex and the Sinistrals, and Chaos has shown up in 8-Bit Theater. Now that latter one is a comic where I DON'T want to hang out with the cast, as amusing as they might be. Too much chance of being stabbed or Hadokened. {g}

Hey, guess what? There's a new Chick Tract online! It's called "Some Like It Hot," but I see no sign of cross-dressing or Marilyn Monroe. Instead, it's more stuff about how the Devil controls every major world religion except the one Jack Chick believes (which he's actually claimed in other tracts isn't a religion at all, but I relationship with God; I fail to see the difference). I think there have been a few different Satans in the world of Chick, but I like how this one is a chubby little guy who walks around without a shirt on. It's certainly not one of the more majestic representations of the Evil One, but despite the horns he's not particularly beast-like either. I'm not sure whether or not it was Chick himself who drew this tract, but it's actually kind of interesting. I think Jack usually does his best work when he's making no attempt at being realistic, and that's certainly what we see here. The really cartoony Grandpa looks like a cereal mascot ("Eat Sin Flakes, a part of this completely blasphemous breakfast!"), and the hellhound is appropriately grotesque. (On the other hand, it DOES look totally different in the two panels in which it appears, unless those are actually supposed to two different devilish creatures.)

Some other noteworthy bits in this one:

• "I thought heaven was for sissies." That's pretty similar to what the one truck driver says in this tract, but has any real person ever said anything along those lines?
  
• Satan has a pretty nice big screen TV, doesn't he? I guess being the tyrannical ruler of Hell has its perks.
  
• How many Bibles don't include that verse from 1 John? Chick probably didn't just make that up on his own, but it's certainly in translations other than the King James, which Jack thinks is the only valid one.
  
• I assume Lucifer must have competed in the Olympics, since it looks like he's flying above the rings.
  
• Satan framed Jesus? How? From the accounts given in the Bible, it sounds like Jesus really DID break the law. It was just a dumb law. Then again, Jack probably thinks it was the Devil who made up the Roman laws in the first place.
  
• Sorry, Satan, but I think a fair amount of the Gospel does a good enough job of making itself look silly on its own. Maybe you should find a new hobby.
  
• The Devil didn't like Henry, so he's punishing Henry's relatives. I guess old Lucifer learned from the best in that respect!
  

Video games generally encourage the player to kill just about every living thing they see, and role-playing games are certainly no exception. When I'm playing one of them, I get into the habit of whacking anything that I run into in a random encounter. But is that really reasonable? I'm not saying you shouldn't kill the demons of pure evil and the like, especially since sealing them away never really works (and, for that matter, death isn't always a deterrent to their wicked ways either). But, for instance, one of the enemies in Final Fantasy VI is a stray cat. Does such an animal really need to be killed immediately? Come on, even the SPCA usually gives people a chance to adopt the cat first! And even with some of the more ferocious creatures, isn't it quite likely that they just want you out of their territory? Yet running away from the encounter means no experience points, and sometimes even the loss of money. You're rewarded for killing wild animals that sometimes don't even attack unless you do first. Is that really a good lesson to teach our youth? I think one reason I like the 8-Bit Theater comic (which is based on the original Final Fantasy) is that it acknowledges the heroes (well, most of them anyway) are jerks.

The original Phantasy Star does have the option of talking to some of the aliens you encounter instead of fighting them. When the communication is successful, your would-be nemesis simply says a trite line of dialogue and leaves, but at least it's a start. Tunnels of Doom, a game that I used to play on my old Texas Instruments computer when I was a kid, gave the option of negotiating with monsters. In true American spirit, however, "negotiation" really meant "bribing." Don't get me wrong; I enjoy slashing and burning various video game monsters. I just sometimes think it would be rather more ethical if you had other options (not counting running away, which tends to be frowned upon).

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.

I think it's about time I turned to the final installment in the Mario and Captain N cartoon series, known as Captain N and the New Super Mario World. Yes, apparently "new" is officially part of the title, despite the fact that it's now over fifteen years old. I watched this show when it was new, but even then I realized that it was quite lacking when compared to the earlier cartoons of the same sort. And those weren't exactly masterpieces, so that's saying something. The animation was even cheaper and more lackluster than before, and the plots even seemed a bit thinner.

The Super Mario World cartoon took place in Dinosaur Land, where, for some reason, Mario, Luigi, and Princess Peach Toadstool were living. Doesn't the Princess have her own kingdom to rule? Yoshi is there, but he's really annoying. I like Yoshi a lot, but I didn't care for this show's decision to make him into a bratty kid who speaks in broken English and baby talk. I think the Yoshi of the game was supposed to be an adult. I mean, he has his own house, and wrote a letter that Mario could read. Of course, there's more than one Yoshi in the game, but only one in the show. There are some other dinosaurs, though, as well as an indigenous human population that everyone calls "cave people," even though they actually live in a city of dome-shaped houses. As there's no hint of such people in the game, I don't know why they became such a central part of the cartoon. Mario and company are always trying to come up with ways to civilize them, which makes me wonder if their presence in Dinosaur Land is a Peace Corps sort of thing, or like a mission without the religion. Toad isn't in this series, supposedly because he wasn't in the game, but it's not like those cave people were either. There is a regular character named Oogtar, a badly behaved cave kid who has the same voice actor that Toad did in the earlier cartoons, but unfortunately he's sometimes even more irritating than Yoshi.

Also included in the show was the third season of Captain N, although it isn't part of the Complete Series DVD set, due to some weird legal issues making CN and SMW the same show, while I guess CN and SMB3 weren't. The season actually consisted of only seven episodes (the remaining Mario cartoons were accompanied by trimmed-down versions of episodes from the first two seasons), and they cut a lot of corners. They were shortened to half the length of the earlier cartoons in the series, only one episode featured the entire N Team, and they cut even more corners with the animation than they had before.

( So, how's about we look at some episodes? )

It appears to be a sad but true fact that, despite the success of the Harry Potter franchise, fantasy movies (especially those based on children's books) aren't really doing too well. I liked both Inkheart and The Golden Compass, but I've heard that their box office returns were underwhelming. So it's probably not a great time for anyone to try a new Oz movie. Yet somehow, a movie based on the Oz comic series (later known as Dark Oz) has apparently received the proverbial green light. I've never read this comic series, but from what I've heard and the covers I've seen, it was largely book-based. It took a lot of liberties, I'm sure, but characters like the Nome King, the Wogglebug, and the Patchwork Girl put in appearances, proving that the writers' knowledge of the fairyland wasn't limited to MGM. What I'm wondering is why they would choose to mine a spin-off for film ideas before turning to the original books. Yeah, I know Return to Oz didn't do that well (although that WAS almost twenty-five years ago, and it's obtained somewhat of a cult following since then), but if the film industry thinks there's no market for movies based on the Oz books, what makes them think there would be for movies based on SPIN-OFFS of the Oz books?

I was somewhat randomly (by which I mean I'm sure there WAS a logical progression within my own mind that led to it, but I can't recall what it was, and it probably wouldn't make sense to anyone else) thinking of The Magician's Nephew recently. This is the book that describes the origins of Jadis, who came from a dying world with a red sun, and had super strength while on our world. Sounds kind of familiar, doesn't it?

I've been having a pretty uneventful weekend. I got my car's oil changed yesterday, and today I bought a copy of the second volume of Skottie Young and Eric Shanower's Wizard of Oz comic adaptation. I actually kind of like the look of the Tin Woodman with a mustache, although seeing him without his funnel hat is pretty weird. I also like the old crow, even if a bird with eyebrows and a beard really doesn't make any sense. And I've always imagined Nimmie Amee as a brunette, but Young's blonde version works as well.

Speaking of The Wizard of Oz (and yes, I know I do that quite frequently), I always found the part near the beginning when Dorothy informs the Good Witch of the North that "Aunt Em has told me that the witches were all dead--years and years ago." There's somewhat of a theme in Baum's Oz books and related works that magic USED to be possible everywhere, but civilization basically meant its end, and only countries that were never civilized still had witches and wizards. Was this a common theme back when Baum wrote, or something unique to him? I know Baum also wrote a poem called "Who's Afraid?", which presented dragons, giants, and witches as now-dead figures of the past.

Okay, I'll finish this post with some old Friday Fives, courtesy of slfcllednowhere:

1. What decade did you attend/are you attending high school or college? The nineties.
2. What clothing fashion from that time are you glad/do you wish went out of style? I don't know. I don't pay attention to fashion, really.
3. Do you still listen to the music from your high school/college years on a regular basis? If you mean stuff that was played on the radio in those days, then no. If I'm going to listen to something formerly mainstream with nostalgic value, it's really more likely to be from my elementary school days. I think a fair amount of the music I listen to came out when I was in high school or college, but it wasn't mainstream, and I didn't listen to it back then.
4. What hairstyle/hair color did/do you wear during high school/college? My hairstyle throughout most of my childhood can best be described as "messy." In my senior year of high school, I started growing my hair out, and I kept it long through college. Looking back, I don't think that look really suited me, but I guess that's the time for trying out temporary things.
5. What was/is "the cool thing to do" while in high school/college? Whatever it was, I wasn't doing it. And I was in the Honors College, which means the cool thing to do was probably discussing Plato or something.

1. What would you do right now, if money were not an issue? Not worry about having to go to work tomorrow, and possibly buy some stuff.
2. What would you do for the next three years, if money were not an issue? Probably not much of anything. As much as I hate to admit it, it might be better for my well-being that money IS an issue.
3. What is bringing you the most joy right now that requires little or no money? Well, I'm married, so I guess I'm supposed to say my wife, right? {g}
4. What types of things do you find enjoyable that require no money? Books from the library
5. Is there anything you've been meaning to do for a long time, but put off because of money? Getting our own place to live.