Dec11
Con Schedule
CGS Super ShowApril 6-7, 2013
Reading, Pa. - Meg only
TCAF
May 11-12, 2013
Toronto, Ontario - Isa and Meg!
Philadelphia Comic Con
May 30-June 2, 2013
Philadelphia, Pa. - Isa and Meg!
Where to find Meg
Where to find Isa
The Adventures of Ellie Connelly
All New Issues
Amya
Dar
The Devil's Panties
Dovecote Crest
The Dreamer
Eerie Cuties
Everblue
Fall on Me
The GaMERCaT
Girl Genius
Girls With Slingshots
Gloomies!
GRONK: A Monster's Story
Lackadaisy Cats
The Meek
> Seed
Phoenix Requiem
Red String
Roza
Something Positive
Subculture
Xylia Tales
YU+ME dream
Metacarpolis
GGAR
Sister Claire
> Blaster Nation
> 9.18 The Fan, radio
“I can’t mock you, you do that so well by yourself.”
Got a few issues with her brother has she? And a temper. Perhaps she should seek the help of a proffesional to try and deal with some of these issues.
Selva’s brother — one Warrick, apparently — rules the West (which is to say, Winkie country)? Hmmmm.
Two possibilities occur. Either we’re a very long way back in Ozian history, or Selva and Warrick are themselves Namesakes/outsiders just as Emma is. In canonical Oz chronology, the only place to put Warrick as ruler of the Winkies would be before the time of the Wicked Witch of the West we know from The Wizard of Oz. Which is possible, but would also tend to limit later appearances by most of the better-known Oz characters. The alternative — that Selva and Warrick are also outsiders, playing Wicked Witches to Emma’s hypothetical Dorothy — looks rather more promising.
I’m presuming they’re outsiders because the names don’t fit, and because her behavior is very un-Ozian; yes, witches can be wicked, but I don’t think a normal Ozite would know what “accessory” is in that context, let alone have the same attitude of a 21st-century spoiled, over-rich brat.
Jelia Jamb and Jinjur were pretty spoiled. Not to mention Jinjur loves her dresses and hats and jewels.
Jinjur was, but the language is all wrong for the Ozian equivalent, is what I was saying. Unless Oz has gotten modernized by some process, I suppose, but then I’d expect to see the Yellow Two-Lane Highway at the least.
People in Oz had their language stylized for the time the books were written. Emma’s world evolved. So did Oz. Stuff will be explained on that eventually.
I love people who think these things through.
You’re right to suspect them to be something they are not! But I won’t tell you what just yet.
And I look forward to being enlightened in the normal course of plot development. (Or at least, no less impatiently than anyone reading/watching a serial ever waits for the next installment(s) to appear….) Meanwhile, we’ll just go on speculating irrespective of how right, or wrong, we happen to guess.
…Sorry. Brain is exploding at the concept of Warrick being scheming or bad guy~ish. I mean… I know who he had to be, but all the sketches… Sorry. brain has shut down. Warrick is coming. Warrick is coming. Warrick.Warrick.Warrick. >:3
EEEEE.
Oh yeah! First Warrick mention! *is excited!*
I obviously don’t know enough about Baum’s Oz. You all are really making me wish I had those books right now. If only I had the money to buy them, or the time to read them. Drat you all!
So far they’re not using much from Baum’s Oz (well, after the initial intro of the YBR and the Munchkins), or at least nothing which should be puzzling you . There are no Selvas or Warricks in Baum’s work that I can recall, anyway — that’s just not the way he did names. For example, the names of prominent Ozites from the books would be Ozma (princess), Mombi (wicked witch), Mrs. Yoop (yookoohoo, a magician specialized in a particular type of transformation magic), Coo-Ee-Oh (“Krumbic Witch”), Ugu the Shoemaker (what it says on the tin, but then he found a cache of magical tools and recipes), Ruggedo/Roquat (the Nome King). The only Warrick I know is from CSI (Vegas).
You don’t have to buy the Oz books — they’re in the public domain and all of them are available online at Project Gutenberg. The time is a little less easy, although as the books are targeted mostly at the 8-10 year old crowd they’re fast reads.
If you get the chance, definitely look up the free (and legal!) copies of the books online. I really should add links to them to the site extras, that will probably make things a bit easier for those wanting to check out the original stories.
Keep in mind that the Oz we’re working from is based off the first six books and that’s it. Isa mentioned this at some point in the past as well. Also, Baum was very much making things up as he went along. Certain things keep reversing themselves – like the Scarecrow was stuffed full of money in the second book, yet by the sixth book money was reviled in Oz. Part of the fun of reading Baum is trying to puzzle him out to begin with.
As far as broad-based Oz continuity goes, there’s really not much significant detail that comes up after the sixth book. It really wasn’t till Oz fandom started producing independent pastiches and sequels — long after the “Famous Forty” had been closed out — that people started to wade seriously into early Ozian history, and very few of those have ever been available widely enough to be generally accepted as anything more than sheer speculation.
The one notable exception — such back story as Mombi was given — doesn’t come up till well into Ruth Plumly Thompson’s reign as Chief Historian and writer of sequels. And even that is (a) obscure enough that almost nobody will notice any potential contradictions, and (b) odd enough that it raises nearly as many questions as it resolves.
So as you observe, the fun lies entirely in trying to figure matters out as one goes along, and in observing the particular “spin” any new material happens to take. And whereas I may not be much on Maguire’s Wicked, so far I quite like the spin I’m seeing here, and at some point I really need to get a look at Syfy’s Tin Man.
Baum wasn’t big on worldbuilding as we understand it today. He was writing kids books and tended to either write travelogues of weird lands that he made up (often out of references to concepts or movements in the Real World) or fairly straightforward adventure stories THROUGH such lands.
Making those consistent, giving them background? Not so much. The Fairy Princess Lurline connection, for instance, was … muddied from its beginning. One story makes Ozma one of Lurline’s original band, while others are clear that Ozma’s just one of a long line of descendants of whoever the original Oz/Ozma was. And if these people were, well, PEOPLE (i.e., act as living human beings), then one can presume that the Wizard’s return in “Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz” would not have been nearly so simple and would have involved a lot more complex discussion and pain on both sides. After all, no matter HOW you decide to explain away certain things, ultimately the Wizard was responsible for having Ozma transformed and sent away in the “care” of Mombi.
Yes, you SHOULD watch “Tin Man”. I thought I’d detest it, but it turned out they created something strangely Ozzy in the end, even though at first you think they don’t “get it” at all. But they DO, in fact, “Get It”, at least in my view, and the ending is very much exactly an Oz ending.
By contrast I couldn’t read more than a few pages of “Wicked” without having to put it down to keep from throwing it at something. And as the book belonged to the bookstore that probably wouldn’t have been a good thing for my continued employment.
Heh. I finished Wicked, mostly because I’d been co-opted into reading it for a book group, but then made a point of very carefully throwing the book across the room just so I could say that I’d done it. [And afterward I sold the book back to Powell's with a firm resolve never to buy anything else of Maguire's.]
“Some things can only be redeemed with fire.”
Ryk is right, all Oz books are available (for free) online on project gutemberg. (Right here: http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page).
But really, it’s not necessary to know the Oz books to follow Namesake. All original material is explained, all quoted book materials are explained and some of it is movie material. And a lot of it is our own version of Oz. This is way past the “dororthy” we know and love… So Oz has evolved.
I’m following the comis just fine. I meant so I could follow the discussions in the comments. I’m an obsessivly knowledgable fangirl in many things. This is not one of them.
The comments are turning into their own storyline ahaha!
I get what you mean though. whenever I get into a new series, I become obsessive on learning everything about it and the source material.
But the Oz books are a really fun read. It’s worth it. Oh! Marvel started releasing the original books in a comic formal (original text and gorgeous drawings). So if you’re more of a “visual” person, you should check these out : http://www.comicbookbin.com/marvelcomicsnews421.html
My favorite Oz reference site is The Royal Timeline of Oz, which is encyclopedic in three or four different dimensions at once. Besides having detailed chronologies, it documents about 90% of any Oz story anyone’s ever written to one degree or another.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH. Shiny! *saves link*
Don’t worry about not being an Oz Geek™; it’s purely luck that two of us happened across Namesake at just the right point to make it interesting to theorize wildly in the comment threads. You don’t need advanced Oz expertise to follow this any more than you need to be a Baker Street Irregular to enjoy Sherlock Holmes movies. We’re just indulging our mutual depth of trivial knowledge to its maximum potential.
That said, I likewise encourage reading the originals, which are well worth seeking out.
Exactly. As Oz Geeks (TM) we do tend to talk a lot when we encounter each other because these days there’s relatively few of us. For me it’s like encountering another Doc Smith fan; they’re becoming more and more scarce, partly because — like the Oz novels — the world and language of today is so different that anyone who picks up the books has to be willing and able to set their mind to the era in which they were written; otherwise social mores and assumptions that were perfectly normal and acceptable in those days may cause quite a jolt to the reader.
For a wonder, there do seem to be a few Oz fen wandering ’round the Internet, although the “official” organization — rather like the BSI in the Holmesian world — doesn’t seem to have fully embraced the Web.
For instance, Oz has been a recognized fandom in the legendary “Yuletide” fanfiction exchange for some years now, and that’s produced some interesting results. Be warned that the foregoing link may be toasted before too long, as the archive is supposed to be migrating to new Webspace soon.
Hmm, finally reading the “Extras”, I see that Selva comes from a character parodying something in Slayers. I’m guessing Naga, the White Serpent, especially as there’s a “Lina” out there somewhere and so far Selva seems totally self-involved and not all that bright. Lina may be an egotistical girl but she’s very quick on the pickup and her way of “ranting” isn’t to babble on about what other people do, it’s “DRAGON SLAVE!”. (or whatever you use to substitute).
Warrick’s based on “Link”? As in “Legend of Zelda” Link? Tsk, tsk, Link Gone Bad?
The original Selva was actually based off Sylphiel, but a highly morphed version of Sylphiel that evolved during previous comic storylines in Isa’s LiveJournal. It’s kind of hard to explain without really delving into the fun parody-making of 3-4 years ago. Suffice it to say that while shades of the original parody characters are in Namesake (along with some of the better lines like Selva’s speech), we also steered away from the parody as much as possible in order to avoid charges of Mary Sues/Gary Stus/copyright infringement.
Pretty much, the original parody boils down to … a third of chapter 2 and a couple pages in chapter 3. Everything else from there is original.
Yes, you’ve changed the original to nearly unrecognizable, given that the original Sylphiel was just about an angel without flaw aside from limited self-assertiveness. And even that she got past to a significant extent by the end of Next (Double Dragon Slave, anyone)?
If she’s anywhere near as powerful as Sylphiel was, Our Heroine does indeed need to Tread Carefully.
Also, Link is Isa’s boyfriend, not the Legend of Zelda character.
Oh, darn. And here I was hoping for a riff on Capt. Link Hogthrob (Piigs Iiin Spaaaace!!!!), or maybe Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp….
[exits rapidly, dodging thrown vegetables, stage left]
Last pannel. Those eyes do not bode well for a painless future.
No, when the magic-user goes all glowy-eyed you need to look out.
I just realized that Emma’s in a perfect position to give Witchy-poo a Chuck Norris Kick to the Face! Then drop to the ground, sweep her legs, and give her a hammer elbow to the throat, she’s finished! FLAWLESS VICTORY!
… What?
She actually looks a bit drunk in panel 5. Haha…
I really like the page with colours. Just to say. =)
The Oz books actually follow many legends or stories. You can find that in the creation myths of many religions and in fairy tales too. So such ambiguity is expected. Also Baum may not have cared if it wasn’t consistent. Some writers are that way. They are more interested in story than all the pieces coming together.
Eeps. I hope Selva NEVER gets THAT angry EVER again in the future. A mad Selva is a super scary one. *lol* especially when she starts off looking all sweet and calm, before she let’s her rage takes over and starts looking all white eyed and demonic looking. *lol*
By the way, LOVE your email address (I can see it on the backend). ^_^ Wicked smart to claim that name!
Thanks.
Selva appears to be using Byakugan on the last panel.