‘Anything Of Oz’ is a watercolour idea for a book cover by my favourite illustrator John R. Neill.
As the main illustrator for L. Frank Baum‘s Oz series,
Neill’s next cover at the time was for Ruth Plumly Thompsons’ 1928 book: ‘The Giant Horse Of Oz‘ and It’s thought that this
‘Anything Of Oz’ was a sort of early working idea for the upcoming project.
Nobody really knows for sure but on the site run by his grandchildren,
The piece is up for sale.
The description reads:
“Original watercolor cover design created
before receiving the manuscript in 1928
for The Giant Horse of Oz.
Extremely rare.
6.5 x 9
$15,000”.
It’s an interesting piece.
Kind of like an outtake.
As an illustrator he must have had millions of ‘outtakes’.
I’d love to see them if anyone knows about any.
I’ve always wondered why he’s drawn the O & Z of the OZ Logo backwards.
Why did he do that?
It’s not like he had no experience of that logo is it?
Did he do it just for the sheer hell of it?
Maybe.
Incidentally,
The eventual cover for ‘The Giant Horse Of Oz’ ended up looking like this:
The Unravelling Of Al Cook... 
There’s a chapter L. Frank Baum’s publisher told him they’d drop from “The Patchwork Girl of Oz” called “The Garden of Meats.” The manuscript of the chapter is lost, but Neill’s illustrations for it exist. It shows plants growing people for their food.
Really?
Wow!
Have you ever seen them?
Is there anyway for me to see them?
I saw one… I’m going to post a message in an e-mail list for more information.