#one of the first comic books I read as a kid

[mask131]

Normally I would have reblogged this to my Oz side-blog but I will reblog this here first because somehow there's more Oz fans here than on my Oz sideblog? Tumblr is weird...

Upon seeing this very popular post I have to add my two cents of a thoughts... Because while I agree with half of it, I disagree with another half, and it's mostly a question of nuance.

My main point is: It is not because people dump on Wicked that in return people should dump on Baum's Oz. I am saying that in regard of the "Oz originally doesn't have any continuity". I admit myself I am one of the first people to put forward the fact Baum was a bit of an anti-Tolkien when it came to Oz because at one point he didn't care about logical and coherent worldbuilding and just threw whatever he wanted at the wall... HOWEVER! I realize now how these words might mis-guide people because it doesn't mean Baum didn't care about continuity at all.

The early Oz books are actually trying to form a coherent whole. When Baum wrote "The Marvelous Land of Oz" he was not FORCED to do it because of "popular demand". He wanted to do it. Partially because he wanted to adapt it as a musical once it was over, but when he wrote the novel he still intended it to be a logical, continuing sequel to his Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and he worked to refit elements taken from his musical adaptations (like Pastoria) into the world of Oz as presented in his first novel. Same thing with the third novel, Ozma of Oz - when you read these first three books one after another they are cohesive. Just because later Baum decided to abandon a bit continuity and do massive retcons for the sake of telling new stories doesn't mean he never cared about continuity, and the start of the Oz series was an effort to make one complete world that made sense. Oz first became a series because Baum wanted it to be ; the whole thing of a "sense of duty towards the fandom" (which wasn't actually a sense of duty, his others works just didn't sell while everybody bought his Oz books) came later.

Yes, after the sixth book (which was meant to be the great finale but didn't work to end the series), Baum ended up making a LOT of books that openly contradicted the worldbuilding established in the first novels... But they still were coherent and cohesive in their own right. It is just that Baum chose to retcon and massively shift some worldbuilding rules in order to have a setting perfect for a kid-friendly long-running series where he could include everything and anything - but once he established these new rules, he stuck to it and explored them in various ways (such as the rule of "No living being can die in Oz", which of course contradicts the early books, but becomes a core principle of "later Oz" and is explored in various novels - such as the one introducing the Tin Soldier). Yes Baum contradicted, shifted and retconned, but to say he had no sense of continuity or canon is frankly way too harsh.

We were having a talk with @themousefromfantasyland about Baum's The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus novel, and he did make a point that this books contradicts the "anti-Tolkien" reputation of Baum as in there you have a strong, solid, complex worldbuilding working very well for its own little Christmas epic, self-contained in one sturdy novel. And that's the thing with Baum: outside of his Oz series, each of his individual works had a strong and solid worldbuilding, or nice continuity in the case of mini-eries. Oz was an exception just because it went on for way more than what he already planned, and Baum had to juggle between various media (the Oz franchise he run wasn't just novels, it was also stage musicals, movies, and even early comic books).

My second point is this: I do agree people shouldn't entirely reject Maguire's novel out of it being "non-canon" to Oz. Because it is part of a long series of revisionist works inventing, reinventing or twisting Oz in various ways. The MGM movie was first, but you have so many, from The Wiz to Emerald City, passing by Tin Man, or Lost in Oz, or to have something more akin to Maguire's 90s dark, edgy, sex-and-drugs counter-culture approach to Oz, the Oz Squad comics. HOWEVER! HOWEVER! I do think it is important to remind people Maguire wrote his own thing, on his own side, and that "Wicked" is its own thing.

What do I mean by that? Very simple... I have seen, looked at, chatted and interacted with a concerning number of people who are convinced Wicked (be it the musical or the novels) are "canon" in the sense that... somehow they believe when Maguire named his Wicked Witch of the West Elphaba, it retro-actively baptisez the Witch of the West in Baum's novel. Or that the Wicked musical was actually allowed or produced by the MGM as an "official" complement to their movie, meant to act as a real prequel to it. You should not underestmate how POPULAR Wicked was compared to other Oz revisionist works or adaptations, resulting in a lot of people ending up knowing only the MGM movie and the Wicked franchise, sometimes with Return to Oz, and not knowing anything about the novels. This results in fascinating though very puzzling misconceptions. I have seen people insist that Evillene in The Wiz should be called "Elphaba" because it is the "official" name of the Wicked Witch of the West. I have seen people claiming to adapt the Wizard of Oz by Baum but really just doing adaptations of Wicked the musical, and not realizing they were using tons of stuff that were copyrighted by the musical creators and not in Baum's original novel. I have seen a lot of people claim that Baum intended Glinda to be called "Galinda" and that it is more correct to refer to Glinda by this name...

Yes, Wicked is its own continuity and branch of the large Oz family tree. Just like the MGM movie and its various adaptations. Just like Disney's Oz the Great and Powerful, or Return to Oz. Just like the Wiz. Just like Volkov's Tales of Magic Land (well... cough cough there's a bit of more unclear legal things down there but you know). Just like Tin Man or Emerald City. People should be aware that Oz is a LARGE franchise of many, MANY media.

But there is also a frightening amount of people who take literaly what Maguire wrote: "it is the real story of the Wicked Witch of the West", they take it literaly. Mind you this was more prominent in the 2000s and early 2010s - I think things got better recently because people are getting much more aware of the original books and of other alternate Oz media... But you know, at one point there was a need to point out "Hey guys, you know Maguire invented stuff, right? That he is basically parodying and twisting stuff and creating his own thing not in the public domain? Please stop saying Elphaba is public domain, she is not. This little wrinkled one-eyed hag is."

I've seen a lot of people lately harping about how "Wicked isn't canon to the Oz universe", "it's just glorified fanfiction", etc., and I can't express how silly that is, and how annoyed it makes me every time I hear it, lol. Baum's original Oz books were never meant to be some canonical series — they contradict each other constantly; Baum called it a "fairy story" with loose cohesion at best; and it only became a series at all because the first one got popular enough that Baum felt a duty to the fandom to keep making more (even after he had wanted to end it). And the 1939 film is every bit as much "fanfiction" as Wicked — it changes the story in both major and minor ways, including a complete shift of framing (i.e., making Oz into a dream rather than a real place).

Maguire's great contribution to the overarching legacy and lore of Oz was to harmonize the very weak "canon" of the older works with a different shift in framing: recontextualizing all of the prior Oz material as a revisionist history (going off of Baum's own idea framing of himself as a "Royal Historian of Oz"), and attempting to tell "the true story" behind the other works (fictively of course — we're never meant to literally think Maguire's version preceded Baum's, irl). In literary studies, this is called an urtext. The Wicked Years and its adaptations are as much "fanfiction" as the 1939 film: it's just self-aware of that fact in a way that earlier works weren't, and uses that perspective to deconstruct the material and explore deeper (and darker) themes — not simply adapting or reimagining the original text (as the 1939 movie did), but actively challenging it; interrogating it. It's not meant to be "canon" as such: it asks you to ask whether (and why) there is such a thing, and what that might say about the stories that we are meant to literally believe in, in real life.

[voraciouspangolin]

Thread of my second read through The Days Have Worn Away

his stupid smile . I want to put him through a food processor

ok one of them came out wearing an eyepatch i think soldier got cheated on and zhanna had a kid with demo

he proposed with a grenade. and. and he pulled the pin and put the ring on zhanna's finger. and threw the grendade

tbh I fear for the person who becomes the centre of her devotion next

she is willing and ready to use her powers for evil

new sniper lore dropped too. He can fly bush planes

hes so real for this

i think these are the team classic characters... There's a plaque missing on the stone statue at the bottom, I wonder what was on it.

I like how everyone at… Administrator HQ is wearing purple

So earlier we got miss pauling's first name initial, f. Pauling.... so this is a confirmation that her name starts with F, and she's on first name basis with engie. Flo- like, Florence? Florida?

This might be a stretch but I think that these paintings on the wall, I think they're like, the BEST of the best mercernaries of their respective class. Pyro is looking at a hard to make out person surrounded by flames, and demo is looking at a high tech looking demoman

look at all these stupid idiots. i love them

she's SO done dude. SO DONE

also this whole thing. Love the detail that spy is checking his watch pompously . and how everyone else is lined up waiting for them to continue walkign

And this one... god, that smile she gives scout. The way scout beams

The art in this comic has improved so so much, its absolutely gorgeous. The way its layed out, the emotion it conveys without needing dialogue.... magnificent. I like how Miss P's undone hair shows itself as more messy. She's at her wits end- she's past the point of anxiety, past the point of tightening and adjusting her hair so that no strand sticks out.

I think this is the most creature like I've seen pyro and I'm so here for it. E's got eyebrows over the mask lol. Also medic's stupid ass tippy toeing to see over heavy

I love the placement of this context we're getting for how Helen became involved with the Manns. It immediately makes you think to the place where The Naked and The Dead ended, with Helen fully perked up on the final bits of australium she had. Yet its a look into the past

big fan of this painting. Three rifles... and these book titles. So silly i love it

New competitor for Most eyebrows, Zepheniah has two eyebrow spikes, beating medics mere one spike

A whole graveyard of Manns.... I like the one thats just a giant M. Really hammering in the notion that the Mann last name is an identity of immense value, that takes over your whole life. oh, and that panel before the final one, its so full of tension... so good

And here's the actual moment we get to see her in all her insanity. What a woman. I like that the screens all face him, constantly displaying the products of redmond's and blutarch's failure to follow the family line of succession. His eyelids constantly forcefully open, unable to speak, yet his brain still processes the information his body is percieving. He's like if Mr House (fonv) had a dominatrix

me too, scout. me too

big fan of how heavy's eyes are the only ones that are dots

her and miss pauling both, they share the Devotion, the ability to pour their entire beings and lives into one single thing

I bet that thing felt like jerky. who said that

Absolute cinema. Amazing. Magnificent. Wonderful. No notes

[pirateprincessjess]

OOoooohhHHH!!! I'm the evil creature!~

PREPARE TO MEET YOUR DOOM!!!

Wait wait wait, which evil creature exactly?

Cuz like there are some evil creatures that I would vastly prefer to receive my doom from over other evil creatures?

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to meet my doom, but I extra don’t want to meet my doom at the hands of a xenomorph.

But an evil monster like King Ghidorah? Very evil! And would be a super cool! If I had to meet my doom then at least I’d get to see a giant monster! It’s a dream come true!

So really, I’m not sure how to react here. Can you be more specific

[deadlyflan]

Hey.

I'm old TMNT. Not the oldest. But definitely one of the older.

1. I'd love to talk. I'm Kyabetsu. I fell in love with TMNT back in 1987 as a kid. I found online TMNT fandom in 2001. I have TMNT friends who were writing TMNT fic in 1990. (That friend is a grandmother now!)

2. Back when the internet was new(er) & small(er), it was more likely that us turtles fans would meet up at one of the big forums (a website message board), one of the big mailing lists (an email chain), the web rings of personal TMNT websites (public), or on a fanfic archive (public). There were fewer silos of little ponds of fandom: private discords, or blocklisted-twitters, or private Facebook groups or dedicated hashtags. Just because of the old structure of the old internet and the options available to us, we were more likely to meet more different kinds of turtle fans.

Good and bad with that.

Bad:: Fewer privacy and filter options. Less ways to use your phone easily. More "we all *HAVE* to get along here because we are all sharing a public space."

Good:: You met more people! It was inevitable that you would be sharing space with folks into different aspects of the larger TMNT canon. You were gonna meet people of different ages, talents, and experiences. You would get more info (whether you were looking or not) about facets of TMNT that you didn't even know existed. All because we were in the same pot of soup together, and you just got exposed to new things... which, I think was pretty cool, and I kinda miss about our new app-centric internet communities.

3. My point, which may be off-topic of fanon vs canon, but is at least tangentially related (I'll pull it together in part 4). Is that my experience in fandom has been one of multi-generational community. It was a gift I treasured as a young person. It is a gift I feel like I should share with younger fans now that I'm not that young person anymore. There are traditions! And creators who have passed! Websites that have disappeared! And cool turtle facts!

And it would be a crime if all that turtle joy ended with me and other olds.

4. So. If you *are* interested in talking turtle stuff with older people (me or other people) that's awesome! But lemme tell ya... generally speaking... Old-fandom people generally do not give a toot about policing how fans enjoy turtles.

Like...

Ship and let ship.

Don't like, don't read.

Your Kink Is Not My Kink And That's Okay

It's Okay To Not Like Things (Just Don't Be A Dick About it.)

These are great rules for fandom life!!

Because if you know that no one is gonna be mean to you, you feel safer sharing your own cringe AU. You feel more secure sharing your bonkers headcanons. You are happier releasing your OCs, your plot twists, your self inserts. If there's a 'No Bullying' policy built into the fandom, it's easier to be yourself.

5. Kya... for real? "Built into the Fandom?" No way. There's thousands of us. Surely, if this was THE TMNT RULE, we'd all know that?

Haha, *this* is one of those traditions I desperately want to pass down.

WE'RE TMNT FANS, DARLINGS!! MULTI-VERSE IS CANON!! THERE IS NO WRONG WAY TO TURTLE!!

The very first TMNT Comics were drawn and written by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird. They founded a publishing company called Mirage Comics in 1984 for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1. They would go on to publish 62 TMNT comics issues in that first series of comic books. All in black and white. All featuring our boys in green.

BUT EASTMAN AND LAIRD DIDN'T WRITE OR DRAW THEM ALL!

In that first set of 62 comics, they had TONS of guest artists and writers! Those creators made up their own turtle designs, their own turtle continuities, their own turtle mini-series and one shots!

YES. There is a 'Mirage Turtles' house style and some famous story arcs. But DOUBLE YES. Even in the original comics, alternate universes and timelines were *part of the fabric of the source material.*

Michelangelo is horribly injured and Splinter prays to animal gods to revive him? Canon.

Mini-alien-vampires kidnap Raphael and a cow while the other boys sleep in one big cartoon bed at the farm? Canon.

Leonardo is ambushed and nearly killed by The Foot? Of course, canon.

But so is the time a leech sucked out all of Raph's mutagen, turned him into a meeping baby turtle, and went on a rampage. And the time Donatello became a shaman. And the adventure when the boys weren't quite as intelligent as humans and couldn't speak, but Splinter commanded them in battle.

All this exists in the source material right next to the stories and characters that became the backbone of so many of the spin off cartoons.

We have had permission from the start. Multi-verse is canon. Anything goes. There's no rules. There's no need to 'measure up' to anyone else's ideas of what the turtles *should be.*

You're free.

It's okay.

Go nuts.

Be kind.

There's room for all of us here.

It's late. So I've gone on too long. But I'm around if y'all like talking turtles and all that.

Hope your winter is treating you kindly.

❤️💙🧡💜

--Kyabetsu

You know, I think a lot of us would benefit from talking with some of the older tmnt fans around here more, its eye opening and they've got some real wisdom. I don't even mean just 2012 folks, talk to people who were and are still into 2003, 87 and the old movies, etc etc. I mean this so for real you learn so so much.