Mr. Wogglebug, the Frogman, and Terry Volume 1: How the Truth Can Heal

by Cynthia Hanson

This is not meant as a contribution to the famous Oz series. It is exclusive to WogglebugLove Productions. This is essentially the same story by Cynthia Hanson that had been first published as being titled "Professor Wogglebug and the Frogman of Oz" published by Tails of the Cowardly Lion and Friends. And Cynthia Hanson desires to have all people who have a copy of the previous edition to get rid of it and purchase this one. It is the one and only true edition. As the previous edition contains alterations to Cynthia's original text due to Chris's ignorance in understanding her intentions. After Chris unexpectedly betrayed her trust in him, she decided to never allow him to publish for her again, also also demanded for him to discontinue his edition of her book. Cynthia retains all rights to her own work as she now publishes solely on her own. She cares not what Oz fans expect. Namely, she refers to the Wogglebug character always as "Mr. Wogglebug" and never as "Professor Wogglebug." This is to help to make it clear to all readers she is in no way portraying the Wogglebug character so many devoted fans of Oz books know and despise, but the one who was from the earliest years of Oz, and the one she adores and wishes to help others to understand why. This story was originally written with no intention to ever be published and was only published so as to make sure an evil enemy Cynthia had would not get away with an attempt to deliberately steal her intellectual properties contained within. Plot: When the Frogman discovers he is in need of finding a cure for the curse put on him from long ago by the Truth Pond, his best friend and confidante, the brilliant and tender hearted Mr. H.M. Wogglebug T.E. resolves to find such. The clues to it point to a fourteen-year-old girl in Ohio named Terry who has her own troubles. When she is transported to Oz, she reveals to them the legend of the Fountain of the Pure Waters of Healing which can cure any ailments of any living creature. Then the three of them set out together on a quest to reach this in hopes of it curing the Frogman's curse. Along their way they journey through uncharted islands, mountains, and enter the land of darkness where they must face their fears before they can reach the valley of light. The first in a trilogy with themes of how dark and light go together with learning of truth. Mike Leuszler provides a total of 30 black-and-white full-page illustrations. In addition to the original 18, he also includes another 12 for the true edition. His art is gorgeous, talented, and very much compliments the style of the story and visions of the characters. The Wogglebug has rarely before been drawn as so adorable.

220 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 10, 2013

Reviews

[Rose · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's an Oz a WogglebugLove tale! Professor Mr. Wogglebug helps the Frogman to get cured of his curse of truth-telling. This involves a trip to the waters of healing. A Mary Sue character Terry from America is somehow involved in all this.

So - welcome to yet another installment of me reading weird books written by strange internet personalities!

This book is definitely from the odd end of the scale. It's a children's book. Based on the Oz universe. My first gut instinct would be to say that this is a really, really odd choice for someone writing what basically amounts a Mary Sue-ish fanfic. At this point, I should probably say "hey, sounds good, we need more variety anyway, and it's better to build on public-domain properties instead of just the latest and greatest in the pop culture, right?" ... but I'm afraid I won't be saying just that.

All things considered, the story itself isn't entirely bad. The story itself is pretty readable, and it does have the happy shiny charm that Oz stuff had - though I'm personally not that familiar with the source material.

The only big problem with the book is the fact that it really, really should have gotten an editorial treatment. There's just the barebones plot here and it's doesn't have much meat around it. There's lots of repetition, many scenes that just make you go "wait a frigging second", and the Terry character doesn't contribute anything to the story. The Kindle version suffers from the same problems as many other self-published Kindle titles - wonky formatting and bad spacing, and in a few instances it was even worse - obvious copy/paste errors of repeated paragraphs, even on the last page. And this is the second edition with improved artwork. (Of which I can just say this: the author commissioned these from another artist who did... a bit sloppy copypastey work through and through. I hope she chooses better artists next time, as it seems she seems to be generally spending lots of money on artists whose work leaves quite a few things to be desired.) Oh, and did I mention the silliest part? $12.39 on Kindle for a relatively short ebook. For comparison, I got the entire Harry Potter series for €50 in all conceivable ebook formats, and that includes some absolute total doorstoppers.

I will not comment much on the author here. Suffice to say the author is a huge fan of Wogglebug rather than Oz universe itself, and seems to want to build this into a distinct franchise of sorts. Why? I have no idea. Will it work? The way things are progressing and with the attitude she's having, probably not.

All in all, it ended up being better than I thought it was, but it simply lacks substance as far as the story goes, and the amateurish mistakes and somewhat laughable artwork isn't helping things. The nicest thing I can probably say is that it's pretty readable.