Our Oz — 100 Years Later: Building a New Oz Story in Public
Gary WhittakerOur Oz — 100 Years Later
We are building a new Oz story in public. The story comes first. Then we build its voice, sound and brand around what that story becomes.
Robert and I do not know exactly where this project will end. That is part of the point. This hub will document the research, decisions, rights boundaries, revisions, experiments, mistakes and finished work as they happen.
Everything in this case study is free to follow.
Why Build Oz Again — And Why 100 Years Later?
Robert Evans has spent decades writing in and around Oz. His history includes Oz books of his own, collaborative work with fellow Oz author Chris Dulabone, and an unusually deep knowledge of the larger Oz tradition. I come to the project from a different direction: creator systems, AI-assisted production, rights research, worldbuilding and the practical work of helping ideas become something coherent enough to build.
The phrase Our Oz matters. This is not Robert's Oz alone. It is not mine. It is not an attempt to replace L. Frank Baum's Oz. It is the particular world that emerges when Robert's history with the material meets my creator-development system, the public-domain source material we can responsibly build from, and the choices we make together.
The creative question is deliberately simple and enormous:
We are not answering that question with a logo, soundtrack or AI image first. We are answering it with a story.
Story First. Everything Else Has to Earn Its Place.
Before we decide what this Oz sounds like, how its characters speak, what its visual language should be, or how it should be presented to an audience, we need to know what happened to the world and why a new story has to happen now.
Our first working path is:
That sequence is a working path, not a promise that discovery will happen neatly. If research changes the premise, we will show that. If a character forces us to rethink the world, we will show that too.
This Is Where the Jack Righteous System Gets Tested
Much of my existing creator system helps people find the foundations of their creative identity: Find Your Sound, Find Your Voice and Find Your Brand. This project tests what happens after direction has been found.
Research the source world, define what changed, establish the conflict, create the characters and write the narrative.
Let the story determine narration, dialogue, humor, vocabulary, character expression and any voice technology we eventually use.
Let places, characters, themes and emotional beats determine the musical and sonic identity of the world.
Let the finished world inform symbols, typography, colors, maps, covers, trailers and the public identity of the project.
This Oz project is the laboratory. I am not turning BUILD into another site-wide training layer before we have demonstrated what it actually means through a real collaboration.
Make It → Mean It → Own It → Operate It
Build the story first. Later, build the voice, sound, visual world and other media that genuinely serve it.
Keep asking why this Oz should exist, what 100 years of change means, and what Robert and I are actually bringing to the work.
Track the Baum source material, later protected expression, Robert and Chris's prior contributions, our new joint material and AI-assisted provenance carefully.
Document versions, collaboration, assets, feedback, publication decisions and any future distribution or commercialization without confusing the build with the finished product.
Public Domain Is a Starting Point, Not a Shortcut
We already have dedicated JR resources that own the deeper rights questions, so this hub will not duplicate them. Instead, every time a rights decision affects the build, we will document the decision and point back to the underlying research.
Our working discipline is straightforward: we do not assume that every Oz element we remember is available simply because Baum's original material can be used. We separate source material from later adaptations and from original contributions made by other Oz creators.
Rules That Keep the Experiment Useful
We are not beginning by copying the visual or narrative expression of the 1939 MGM film. We are not treating every remembered Oz character, object or idea as automatically public domain. We are not automatically importing every element of Robert's earlier Oz books into this new continuity. We are not choosing an aesthetic before we know what story it belongs to. And we are not pretending that the ending of this experiment has already been decided.
The public value comes from watching those questions get resolved, not from hiding them after the fact.
Two Different Roads Into Oz
Robert's road into this project runs through decades of writing, Oz scholarship and collaboration. Mine runs through creator development, systems thinking, AI-assisted workflows and the question I keep asking creators: once you have an idea, how do you make it useful, clear and worth building around?
If you are new to either side of the collaboration, these articles provide the context without turning this hub into a biography.
Phase 1 — Build Our Story
This hub launches before the story has been locked. That is intentional. The next work is about understanding the material well enough to make our first meaningful story decisions.
Source / canon audit: establish the Baum foundation we are choosing to build from and the later material we are deliberately keeping separate.
Robert's opening: examine the “possible beginning” he has already written and determine what it tells us about the century between Dorothy's first adventures and our present-day Oz.
The 100-year clock: decide what “100 years later” means inside this project rather than using the phrase only as a marketing hook.
History: work out the events that changed Oz across that century.
Present-day pressure: determine what is happening now that makes a new story necessary.
Characters and rules: create the people, beings, institutions and constraints through which readers experience the new world.
Plot and draft: only after the foundations survive scrutiny do we begin turning the architecture into the story itself.
Follow the Decisions, Not Just the Finished Pages
#000 — September 8, 2026: Hub launched. We formally set the project rule: Build Our Story first; Voice, Sound and Brand follow the story.
Likely next: Why 100 Years Later? — defining the premise with Robert rather than treating the title as settled worldbuilding.
Also ahead: What Parts of Oz Can We Actually Use? — applying the rights research directly to the story choices we make.
The build log will change as the project changes. Upcoming entries are working directions, not a fixed publishing calendar.
Follow Our Oz As It Becomes Real
This page will remain the canonical project hub. New research, story decisions and case-study entries will connect back here as the build develops.
Explore the Creator Spotlight Series →
Editorial note: Our Oz — 100 Years Later is a developing creative collaboration and public case study. Publication of a working idea here does not mean every creative, rights, continuity or production question has been settled.
