Today we have Bill Bryan’s webpage. Bryan was the artist for “the other Oz comic”. It was a series of series and one-shots – Oz, Dark Oz, Land of Oz being the series.

I’d never actually read any of it until this morning. I finally pulled my copy of Oz: Mayhem in Munchkinland (a collection of the first five issues of the first series) off my shelf and took the time to give it a read.

It’s obvious that Bryan had a great time drawing it. His art is full of energy. Bryan has trouble with anatomy and controlling his lines. The art seems rushed and unfocused. As a result most of the characters look lumpy and unfinished.

The story, by Stuart Kerr and Ralph Griffith, about the retaking of Oz after its conquest by the Nome King didn’t do much for me either. Our heroes – a trio of teenagers (Twenty-somethings? I’m not sure. They’re not a well defined group.) and their dog got sucked through a dimensional portal into Oz after opening a mysterious book. They get separated after a Munkin attack. Mary joins up with the Freedom Fighters – a ragtag bunch that includes Jack Pumpkinhead, the Woggle Bug, a Winged Monkey, Jinjur, Tik-Tok and the Hungry Tiger. Pete and Kevin meet the Scarecrow, Tin Man and Lion and free them from enchantments that have made them Evil.

The series was published from 1994-1999. Not a bad effort for an independent series.

Yeah, yeah, I know. The 24th was yesterday. Big deal. Here we have a brief tribute to the Mechanical Men of Oz from Anina Bennett.

Evil Illuminati in Oz. A description of how The Wizard of Oz is actually a tool of the Satanist Conspiracy to rule the world. Most of the examples described are from the 1939 movie. The site’s author often confuses incidents from the book with incidents from the movie. The author also claims that all 14 Baum novels are rife with occult imagery, symbolism and programing clues. (Baum was apparently a member of the Theosophist Society, and, as such, aware of the Illuminati and their evil rituals.) Oddly, only Ozma of Oz gets a thorough examination. Seems like The Land of Oz with its boy as girl transformation climax would have been ultimately more Satanic.

The Turkish Wizard of Oz. I wonder how well this version syncronizes with Dark Side of the Moon?

I’m a zombie. One of the more articulate ones and one who may, in time, return to life. Unfortunately, I’m not so good at writing these days. So instead of posting thoughts and opinions and tales of ordinary mundaneness I’ll be putting up links to various Oz related goodness.

Today’s link was found by running LSD and Wizard of Oz through Google.

“Just as you can read between the gory lines in the newspaper on any day and discover clues issued by the Powers That Be – if you look hard enough – as to what is actually going on, such notice can also be found in the lighter fare, like the movies. Such a movie was The Wizard of Oz, an allegory for the new state of affairs in America in the 1930’s following the stock market crash and factual bankruptcy of the US Government immediately thereafter.”

Read on.

Evil animals. Or perhaps just misguided. Lots of corrupt squirrels and chipmunks.

Archeological anomalies. Giant bones. Misplaced technologies. “Modern heiroglyphs.

Look around the Worth1000 site. Lots more where these came from.

Found at Snopes. Click and watch.

Darkness Falls: Relies primarily on jump scares. The biggest thing missing for me was any sort of mystery. I like a little mystery in my horror stories. The movie starts with a prologue telling us what our monster is and what she does and that she’s been doing it for 150 years. Automatically we know everything we need to about the threat and it’s annoying that it takes our heroes so long to catch up. It was also pretty clear what was to be the fate of every other character that our heroes interacted with.

The Core: Fairly fun if somewhat implausible movie. (It’s not the main idea that I find implausible – it’s those moments when the characters have to do anything outside the protection of their ship. Their protective suits don’t seem even half adequate.) I can’t comment on the science behind the story. It sounds right from what little I know. An interview with one of screenwriters indicates that he was really trying to be accurate. Interesting to note a line change between the preview we’d been seeing on other videos and the line that plays in the movie. In the previews the supernerd is asking for unlimited Star Trek tapes. In the movie he asks for unlimited Xena tapes.

New image accepted at Epilogue.net – the first of my preview pieces from Oz Squad. This is Brother Lustig.

This evening the Bombshell will bring Scary home. Scary is a cat Nizzibet found licking catsup off woodchips in a park in Lynnwood. Scary had been declawed and was skinny enough to have been on her own for a while. Nizzibet brought the cat back to our apartment in Lynnwood – an apartment that already had a couple of cats lurking in it. No surprise that Scary didn’t get along with Paliki or Chainsaw.

Scary earned her name for the hideous yowl she made anytime one of the other cats got close to her. Having no claws her best defense was to make as evil a sound as possible and scare off any possible attackers. Sometimes it worked.

When we moved into our current digs the cats spread out and took separate territories, only occasionally squabbling. Scary spent a lot of time sleeping in the Bombshell’s room. And when the Bombshell moved out Scary went with her.

Sometime in the last few weeks Scary developed a painful disease. I don’t remember the details. I’m horrible at details these days. Suffice to say that whatever it is, it’s made the cat’s life too miserable to continue.

So tonight I help my friend dig a grave out back. Shitty way to end the day.