 L. Frank Baum's The Marvelous Land of Oz is the sequel to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and it's where we meet Tip, a farm boy who spends most of the book completely ignorant of his true identity as Ozma, the long lost princess of Oz, transformed into a boy when she was a baby. If you haven't read Marvelous Land of Oz, please forgive me for spoiling a 120-year-old book without warning. It's necessary, though, because the entire premise of this webcomic is an examination of the transgender themes inherent to Tip's story, which is Ozma's story because Tip is Ozma and Ozma is Tip. Such is the nature of gender! And yes, Ozma's story is inherently a transgender one even if that wasn't Baum's intention. She was literally assigned male in infancy (albeit by magic), raised as a boy, and voluntarily became a girl (and stayed a girl). 
Adaptations of Oz books tend to take creative liberties and Yellow Brick Ramble is no exception! The goal of this comic is to allow Ozma to figure out that she's a girl on her own without first being told she was secretly always a girl under an enchantment. If you're worried that I gave Ozma this agency at the expense of the twist ending, I assure you that still have some satisfying surprises in store.
At some point, I should probably also mention the biggest and potentially most controversial change I've introduced: the romantic focus between a teenaged Tip and Logan, another teenager who just happens to be a talking and living sawhorse. This isn't weird at all and is actually super cute. Trust me. The main source for this comic was, of course, the original text, which can by found here on Project Gutenberg. Additionally, I brought in characters and lore from Baum's other Oz books (he wrote 14* of them), a few of Baum's non-Oz books, the 1902/1903 musical stage adaptation, and even a character from the 1914 silent film adaptation of The Patchwork Girl of Oz. I also brought in Juni Jump, who is loosely based on obscure Oz protagonist Jenny Jump from John R. Neill's sequel Oz books, written after Baum died. I changed her into a talking rabbit. I'll cite my sources in more detail in the news posts for those of you who love that sort of thing. 
Various interpretations of Oz inspired this comic visually and narratively.
I'm going to drop all pretense here and just list Oz stuff I like: John R. Neill's illustrations, the 1986 anime series: Oz no Mahōtsukai, Disney's Return to Oz, The Wiz, Wicked, Alexander Volkov's Magic Land books, All of Eric Shanower's stuff, including the Marvel Oz adaptations illustrated by Skottie Young. I'm also a big fan of The Royal Historian of Oz by Tommy Kovac & Andy Hirsch. I may go more into detail about all this stuff in the EXTRAS section of this website. One incarnation of Oz I generally avoided as an influence was the 1939 MGM movie. It's a very good movie and was my first exposure to Oz, but it's just not what Oz looks like to me. I'm also purposefully excluding Ruth Plumly Thompson's "canonical sequel" Oz books from my personal canon. If you're familiar with her work, you know why. Sorry this description is so long! I tend to ramble sometimes... |
Daisy Finch McGuire is a queer lady webcartoonist living in Minneapolis.
You might know her from Gastrophobia, her webcomic about a single mom Amazon warrior in Ancient Greece, though she's been putting comics online since 1997. She's also done freelance work for Nickelodeon Magazine, Spongebob Comics, What Pumpkin Studios, and Iron Circus Comics. She is the one typing this. She is speaking in third person right now. |
| * Technically, Baum wrote 17 Oz books if you count Little Wizard Stories, The Sea Fairies, and Sky Island.
Art credit: John R. Neill for the first two images, from the original edition of Marvelous Land of Oz (1904). Alfredo Alcala with colors by Michele W. for the third image, from the Marvel Treasury Marvelous Land of Oz (1975) The fourth image is, of course, a self-portrait. |
