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[MarkWarner]

As we are still Christmas mode (just) I thought a mainstay of Christmas TV and also the festive stage might be appropriate, and this book fits the bill admirably. It will also help shift back into "normal" mode. Whether that is good or bad, I am not sure.

Dell Junior Treasury #5  - Wizard of Oz can be found at https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=31681.

[SuperScrounge]

Being so used to the famous movie version, I wondered if the comic should have started out in black & white. 

Never read the novel so I couldn't say how true the comic version was to it.

I do not care for the way they have comic panels and text passages underneath them. It goes completely against how I read comics, and I have to stop and reread the panels to get the story. I assume the text passages are there to carry the flavor of the novel or even quote passages from it.

Other than that annoyance it was a nice story.

When The Toy Dog Barks - Eh. Not a big poetry fan.

The Rescue of Rab - Uhhhhhhhh... yeahhhhhh... odd little piece.

[paw broon]

This is not a comment on the comic.  That will be later as I have yet to read it.  Having only seen the movie once, many years ago, and never having read the book, this could be a treat or a letdown.
I only want to make the point, again, that there are many examples of comic book story telling.  The one most of our members and others in N. America are familiar with is the word balloon type of book.  This one here is a mixture of a balloon strip and textstrip.  Actually it's not that unusual and I'm not uncomfortable with it, having grown up with comics in textstrip, balloon strip, and amalgamations of both, formats.  Oddly, Prince Valiant is, to all intents and purposes, a textstrip.  It's just that the text is placed differently in each panel, making it look a bit more like a regular comic.
There are examples of textstrips and balloon/textstrips on CB+, especially in the UK section. 
Also, Dutch comic books, at least titles such as Kapitein Rob, Eric de Noorman, Piloot Storm etc.  are balloon strips, with Rikki Visser appearing in both text and balloon strip formats.  In the UK, Rupert is the most well known of the textstrip comic strips.
I suppose it's a lot to do with what we were brought up with and I haven't yet looked at more than a couple of pages of this week's choice, but I am looking forward to it.

[crashryan]

First off, no one reading this book should miss the inside-front-cover introduction. I especially like the line, "a fact-centered, know-it-all child would be a monstrosity." While I agree with some of the author's points, the essay reminds me of the old Pogo story in which a censor strives to protect the Tiny Tots from fairy tales.

I found this comic confoundedly hard to read. By trying to look more like a storybook than a comic the creators wrecked the narrative flow. The biggest obstacle is the caption under each panel. Half the time the captions repeat what's in the panel, but that isn't the problem. The problem is that panels often have no top borders but always have bottom borders. while the captions have no borders at all. Consequently captions seem to belong to the panel beneath them rather than the panel above. A great example is the last panel on page 7. The upper caption ("Dorothy packed a lunch...") aligns with the top of the preceding panel and looks for all the world like it belongs to panel 5. In reality it's the caption for panel 3 above it. I fought with this stupid system throughout the story, which is why I'm wasting so much space complaining about it. It's almost a deal-killer for what is otherwise a good comic.

Mel Crawford was a capable artist who could do cartoony and realistic stuff equally well. His drawings are quite charming and he invents convincing versions of the famous characters. Reading this comic in today's media-saturated world I kept comparing it to the Judy Garland movie. Later it occurred to me that in 1956 no one had seen that movie for many years. Child readers would have had nothing with which to compare the comic except the novels with Denslow's and Neill's illustrations. So movie comparisons are irrelevant.

The story is enjoyable, though it covers a lot of ground and moves rather quickly. I think it would have held my interest if I'd read it as a kid.

Overall I give this the thumbs up, while wishing Dell hadn't been so defensive about publishing comics that they created odd hybrids like this to distance themselves from other publishers. It would have worked much better as a regular comic.

[paw broon]

I enjoyed this.  Not being that familiar with the story, curiosity kept me interested, apart from anything else.  I understand the difficulty with reading a comic with this hybrid storytelling style, for those who haven't been exposed to it much, but it was more the odd placing of the text panels and the lack of borders that were the main drawbacks imo, as crash points out.  Being used to this sort of mix of balloons and text panels, I wasn't discomfitted by it.  But I understand why others were and would have been.
It's a good kid's fairy story and the comic moved quickly along, not giving time for young readers to get fed up.  The art was well done - well, I thought it was and I think younger readers would have enjoyed this book.
I'm not a great expert on the American Dennis the Menace but panel 2 on our page 34, looks like a Dennis panel, but I'm sure I'm wrong.  Still, there is something...........
Going back to the style in this book, can I refer you to The Funny Wonder in the UK section? Also Illustrated Chips, Jester, SecretService, Funny Wonder.  There are piles more examples but we don't have them on site

Modifying this to add that having re-read the comic, I enjoyed it all over again.  It really does charge along.  I also realised that a couple of the text panels don't completely reflect what is going on in the picture. 
Does the "old" house just stay in Oz? Because Dorothy lands back home near her aunt's "new"  house. 
So, never mind younger readers, this old reader rather enjoyed this book.

[Mazzucchelli]

As Mark mentioned on his introduction, this story and the famous movie is a regular on the festive season in many countries

[jimmm kelly]

I don't find this at all hard to follow or read. But then, in the last three years, I was volunteer reading with kids between the ages of five and ten. And the picture books they chose to read were done in many different styles--and each kid had his his or her own way they chose to follow the story and pictures on the pages.

The format is consistent which is better than many comic books that get confusing with their balloon and caption placement. After the first two pages, it's easy to figure out the system and follow the story from then on. As well, all the comics in the DELL JUNIOR TREASURY use this system*, so once you've got one issue, all the other issues are easy to read.

The text (not really a caption) tells the whole story in the proper past tense--just like a real book. A parent or teacher could read this to the child and the whole story would be told. The call-out panels illustrate the story for the child and the child could follow the whole story just by looking at the art.

I started out reading comics, as a toddler, by just looking at the pictures. Sometimes an older sibling or a parent woulld help me out by reading the balloons and captions to me. But I didn't consider these important. As I got older, I learned to read some of the words on the page, but I only bothered with them if I had time.

The balloons in these TREASURY books are part of the art, which is in the present tense. I don't know why we assume that this has to be below the text. It's purely a matter of conventon. But there's another convention where you show what someone imagines as happening above them (it's in their head). It's like if someone told you a story--they would probably tell it in the past tense, which is normal for the English language--but you would imagine the story in your head as it happens, so in the present tense.

In other words, the picture arises out of the text.

*Edit: I should say most of the issues--in the early half of the run--use this system. Later issues do different things and the final issue (10) uses the regular American comic book style for TOM SAWYER.

[Drahken]

The story is quite accurate to the original book version (or at least as close as I remember, I only read it once, several years ago). Details such as the shoes being silver, the unnamed good witch of the north and glinda of the south being 2 different witches, the magic hat controlling the monkies, the green glasses (strongly implying that the emerald city isn't actually green), the fact that dorothy was actually gone for a while instead of just asleep, are all accurate to the novel. (So far I seem to be the only person here who HAS read the book.)

I find the mix of balloons and text fields tedious and annoying, it really screws up the flow. Either one alone would have been fine, but the mix is just a pain.

Anyone who wants to compare this to the novel can read the book online, or download in different formats over at gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/55

[narfstar]

I can not read a book after I have seen the movie. The same applies to comics it seems. I only got a few pages in before I thought whats the point. I also do not watch reruns until about ten years later. If I know, well, what is going to happen then it does not keep my interest. After the other comments, I read only the balloons. The narrative was not needed and the word balloons would have made the story read well. Had I not been so familiar with the movie, I think that would have been the best way to read it, and I would have enjoyed it.

[bowers]

I'll have to give this one a "just ok". Art was serviceable and the adaptation was closer to the book than most.
I grew up reading the early-edition Oz books, not the heavily edited ones you find today. The Oz books were not cutesy kiddy stories. They were whimsical yet somewhat dark, a bit scary, and in some cases incredibly violent. That's probably why kids loved them. Take the Tinman, AKA "Nick Chopper". His axe was cursed by a witch, and went on to "accidentally" remove his limbs and head one by one. These were replaced with metal. Other characters included Mombi the witch who kept a cabinet of heads so she could change when she wished. Also the Hungry Tiger who had a taste for "meat people" but refrained to eat them just to be polite.
The early Denslow illustrations were cutesy/bizzare and quite good, but the later John R. Neill renderings truly captured the  feel of the stories. Google him to see some of his incredible pen and ink work.
To get a feel for the "real" Oz try watching the 1985 film "Return to Oz". This was not a commercial success but still a must-see for the true Oz fan. Cheers, Bowers

[MarkWarner]

Firstly, I found the text under the panels a bit confusing and it just didn't seem to work for me reading the balloons and then the underneath text. This is what I did, but I think the best way is to read it twice once using the balloons and the next time using the text.

The introduction is cool and I agree with the rather bold statement:

" those adults who have lost childhood's desire for the marvellous are spiritually ill "

But I am not sure that The Wizard of Oz is the 100% wholesome family friendly book that the text states. So we start on the main story and not long to wait (our page 5 bottom right) until this suspicion is confirmed. We now have one comically squished and very dead bad witch. I am not over familiar with the film and I read the book many, many moons ago. So I am not sure how close this comic is to either of them and indeed how close book and film are. but it's a ripping yarn and kept my attention from beginning to end.

A very nice one page poem followed by Rescue of Rab all about imagination
A funny little one-pager, a map of Oz and a really nice back illustration. And we finish.

Verdict: I couldn't get used to "the split dialogue" and the colors were very slightly washed out. However, as we all know (and reinforced today) it's a great story! Maybe because of the end of season hurrah and the jolly mood that I am in this scores a massive hit from this reading group member.

[jimmm kelly]

But I am not sure that The Wizard of Oz is the 100% wholesome family friendly book that the text states. So we start on the main story and not long to wait (our page 5 bottom right) until this suspicion is confirmed. We now have one comically squished and very dead bad witch. I am not over familiar with the film and I read the book many, many moons ago. So I am not sure how close this comic is to either of them and indeed how close book and film are. but it's a ripping yarn and kept my attention from beginning to end.

To me the movie of THE WIZARD OF OZ has always been a horror movie. When I was growing up it was always shown on TV at Christmastime and every year I had nightmares after watching it.

There are two things that utterly freaked me out in particular. The first was the scene after the house has landed on the bad witch. In the movie we see her feet sticking out from under the house and when the ruby slippers are taken off, her feet curl up. She has striped socks on her feet. Those striped socks gave me nightmares and eversince striped socks have always disturbed me as a result. The second thing that really scared me was the flying monkeys.

But I don't see the contradiction in the story being at once a wholesome, family-friendly tale and being a child's nightmare. There are many children's stories like that. You could almost argue that any truly great children's story should nave the power to absolutely frighten children and leave them shivering and crying. That's how you know that the story has hit a nerve with kids and pushed them to the emotional brink.

[Drahken]

To me the movie of THE WIZARD OF OZ has always been a horror movie. When I was growing up it was always shown on TV at Christmastime and every year I had nightmares after watching it.

I've always thought it extremely bizarre that the movie was always shown around xmas & thanksgiving time, as it has absolutely no connection to either of those holidays. In contrast, it would be absolutely perfect at halloween.

[paw broon]

See, this is odd as I've only seen the film once and that was decades ago.  Obviously didn't enjoy it enough to watch it again and it's been on the tv umpteen times.  That's why the comic story was almost new to me. It seemed more of a dream than a nightmare.  So the movie must be much darker than in my faded memory of it.

[Mazzucchelli]

To me the movie of THE WIZARD OF OZ has always been a horror movie. When I was growing up it was always shown on TV at Christmastime and every year I had nightmares after watching it.

You know, I understand you...

Having watched the movie recently and having read the very book in the past, as well as reading this comic book here that we

[SuperScrounge]

I don

[bowers]

Amen, SuperScrounge. These books were wildly popular with America's young readers, so they must have hit the right chord. They were not cutesy kiddie tales, as the film may have implied to some. Neither were they so grim as to terrorize the young ones. Instead, Baum created a world where good would always triumph over evil, although it had to fight like hell sometimes. Baum never denied to his readers that evil existed, but showed children that it could be overcome. Courage, persistence, and friendship would always save the day. Were these stories scary? Sometimes. Were they violent? Sometimes. Were they entertaining? Always! Baum treated his young readers as adults and with respect and the children loved him for it. And these kids also made him a very wealthy man! Cheers, Bowers 

[narfstar]

Man I watched the movie as a little kid. I never had any problem whatsoever with it. I never thought it scary but much of it cute.