Another One of Them Fancy Hybrids

J. L. Bell of Oz and Ends might want to take a look at Abadazad: The Road to Inconceivable by J. M. DeMatteis and Mike Ploog. The book, like Travels of Thelonious, is a hybrid of graphic and traditional novel. It deals with contemporary children entering the world of a series of nineteenth century books by the fictional Franklin O. Davies (Frank L. Baum?) about a world called Abadazad (Oz?). Just as Lewis Carroll didn't get the Alice story right in The Looking Glass Wars, Davies doesn't get the Abadazad stories right in The Road To Inconceivable, the first in a series. One change he makes is particularly striking.

While I found the narrative voice in Abadazad a little flat, the book is finding fans elsewhere and getting plenty of attention. It has an interesting publishing history because it started out life as a comic book.