BIG New Oz Reprint Coming in 2009

I hear there's a very big Oz project coming our way next year. Sunday Press Books, publisher of the massive Winsor McCay collection Little Nemo in Slumberland: So Many Splendid Sundays, is planning to issue the full run of L. Frank Baum and Walt McDougall's Queer Visitors from the Marvelous Land of Oz comics pages in the same format.

That means the pages will appear at their original broadsheet size, and in color. They've almost certainly never been reprinted that way since their original appearance in 1904-05. The same oversized volume will include some of W. W. Denslow's rival Scarecrow and Tin Woodman comics.

Folks who want to get onto the mailing list for more info about this title can write to "Oz" at sundaypressbooks.com.

And as long as money's no object, the Woggle-Bug button above, also from about 1904, is one of many Ozzy artifacts now on sale through Gasoline Alley Antiques. My favorite is the poster of posture advice from the Patchwork Girl and the Scarecrow.