Monday, September 23, 2013

Oz Story Magazine, No. 1

1995, first edition, from Hungry Tiger Press
David Maxine as Editor-in-Chief, Eric Shanower as Art Director
Oz Story Magazine, No. 1
Bought new for $14.95
Worn paperback
C+

Despite the title, this annual, which ran through 2000, is in the format of a tall paperback book of over 125 pages.  It includes contributions from Oz historians Baum, Thompson, and Cosgrove, as well as artwork by Denslow and Neill, although it also has more modern contributions, not just from Shanower of course but a not-bad comic page called The Pathetic Losers of Oz.  Overall, the pieces are uneven, with Baum's almost-50-pages-in-this-format Sam Steele's Adventures on Land and Sea, a boys' adventure story, mostly forgettable (except for the unfortunate repeated use of the N-word).  I most enjoyed the reproductions of the comic strip The Wonderland of Oz by Sprouse, with new text by Shanower.

The decade tags represent when these works were originally published, which in some cases is in this issue.

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