Here, I reference The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, where the Witch of the North (who is not Glinda) tells Dorothy, "In the civilized countries I believe there are no witches left; nor wizards, nor sorceresses, nor magicians. But, you see, the Land of Oz has never been civilized, for we are cut off from all the rest of the world. Therefore we still have witches and wizards amongst us."

The framed print in the background is of The Gleaners by Jean-François Millet.

Also included is a quick cameo of Imogen the cow, who replaced Toto in the 1903 Broadway musical. You can see her on this photograph which I've labeled to the best of my ability:

So, on this page, I originally drew this stereotypical two-story farmhouse with a huge porch, but decided to redraw it. The description of the farm on the first page of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is of a much more humble building:



Technically, that house crash-landed in Munchkinland, but I don't imagine that they could afford a much bigger replacement house considering they end up losing the farm in book 6.

I feel exactly the same way sometimes, Dorothy.

I strongly considered coloring the rainbow in sepiatone, but ultimately it doesn't look like a rainbow if it's not in color. It's still a little more muted than I would normally color a rainbow, but you can't tell against all these gray local colors.

Hey, remember the dream Logan had on page 2 of chapter 12?
If you don't remember, you might want to re-read it.

Betsy Bobbin was originally created by Baum to replace Dorothy in his third stage musical, The Tik-Tok Man of Oz, because she was contractually tied solely to the 1903 Wizard of Oz broadway musical.

Betsy later showed up in the 8th Oz book, Tik-Tok of Oz, which was a loose adaptation of The Tik-Tok Man of Oz, which was, in turn, a loose adaptation of the 3rd Oz book, Ozma of Oz. So, Betsy Bobbin and Dorothy Gale canonically exist in the same universe as friends.

John R. Neill drew both girls with blonde bob cuts, which causes people to sometimes mistake illustrations of Betsy Bobbin as drawings of Dorothy. I've given Betsy a Judy Garland-inspired hair style and a height difference to differentiate them more.

The character designs for Betsy's idea of the Friends of Dorothy come from the 1933 Wizard of Oz cartoon, which predates the MGM movie!

You can watch it on YouTube here:

Happy 3 year anniversary of Yellow Brick Ramble!

Celebrate by going to daisyfm.storenvy.com to buy yourself one of the long awaited Dorothy pins!

WARNING: This is not a good first page to read if you're new to the comic!


So, which name did you think he was talking about?

The title of this chapter comes from chapter 22 of the original book, The Transformation of Old Mombi, which is where Mombi transforms from a flower to a shadow to a black ant to a griffin to her true human form. That's not in this story because it wouldn't really work with the changes I've made.

So, this chapter is entirely original to Yellow Brick Ramble. There's a tiny bit from the first book and a few other Oz references, but mostly this chapter blurs the line between adaptation and alternate reality fan fiction.

Obviously, Logan isn't capable of drinking potions.

Next chapter: LORE.

You can try this recipe at home and it'll really work!

Oh hey, it's that mystery girl who keeps popping up in fractured memories and dreams! I'm sure she's unimportant and this is the last we'll see of her!

Or maybe she'll show up again next chapter! Who can say?

In my original script before I changed it, the dialogue went a little something alike this...

Mombi: "You Americans think they know everything."
Logan: "A mare kin? I'm not a mare or a stallion."
Ozma: "Logan is free from the gender binary, Mom-bi."

Oh, that's where Logan went!

They used a bed instead of two couches in the anime for the thing with a gump head. I thought that was pretty clever and almost borrowed that idea! I decided to go the traditional route, though.

Of course, a clothesline was used in the original book.

This chapter is named after chapter 5 of the original novel despite being based more on events that happen much later. As you read this chapter, you might see that this title fits more than you might expect!

The chapter title page illustration is, of course, based on The Unicorn in Captivity, the most well-known piece in the famed Unicorn Tapestries series. The hardest part of this was drawing the fence with purposefully wrong perspective without making it look bad.

I originally wrote this page completely differently. Not surprising since I revised the script at least 10 times!

There was originally a big gag where Scarecrow argued the change was simply due to "exposure to magical radiation" because he's an atheist who doesn't believe in Lurline. Ultimately, I decided that aside didn't add enough to the story to justify how much it slowed down the pacing.

There was also, very early on, a scene where I actually sincerely included the Wogglebug's introduction, but I wasn't feeling it. In the end, that's what led me to bringing Mombi over to the protagonist's team instead. I'd already deviated so much from the original story, I figured why not go for broke?

And at this point, I'd like to announce a very short hiatus. Three weeks only!

Chapter 17 will start on January 13th. Maybe earlier on Patreon. You won't even miss me!

Moving right along.

OH MY GOSH WHAT IS SHE GONNA SAY???

Ha ha ha, what if I had Mombi take Professor Wogglebug's place as the 6th official protagonist in the narrative? lol

It's a real locked-room mystery, isn't it, Logan?