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?

Pancake Park is a known location in Emerald City from the later non-Baum books. Just an obscure Oz Easter egg as an easily ignorable set dressing.

Whatever you say, Urfin Jus.

Usually, I'll reserve complicated backgrounds like the one in the last panel for establishing shots, but showing the background at this moment was narratively important in this case.

When I first started this comic, I drew a map of Emerald City based on existing maps of Emerald City to use as a reference. So, I can tell you exactly where our heroes are, though you can probably guess from context clues if you're clever. I've already shared the map on my Patreon, but I haven't added it to the Extras page. Maybe I'll show y'all the map in a future update?

The streets of Emerald city are concentric circles with straight lines connecting the streets. That one rectangular building is actually the museum that keeps popping up in the background, just from a different angle. The animal neighborhood is just one block clockwise and one block towards the city wall from here. The ball-shaped house is based off a John R. Neill illustration from Wonder City of Oz.

In my original thumbnails, I had drawn an Oz Cream shop here, but wisely got rid if i after consulting my map and seeing I had placed the museum to take up an entire city block.

Oh, hey, Mombi! Whatcha got there?

I got the perspective wrong the first time I drew the background in the first panel, so I redrew it and realized I based it on my original design for Emerald City, not the revised version, shown here on this panel from nearly 100 pages ago:



After redrawing this background twice, I noticed the building placement of the city from the southwest (southeast outside of Oz) corner angle is still a little off. C'est la vie!