COMICS: Dorothy

I love The Wizard of Oz mythology, even though I've never read any of the Baum books, because I'm an ass. But the Judy Garland movie, Geoff Ryman's Was, Salman Rushdie's "At the Auction of the Ruby Slippers" (found in his essay about the 1939 film), Gregory Maguire's Wicked, even the Oz Squad comics from about a decade ago, in which Dorothy and company were a gun-toting, crime-solving team -- anyone else remember that one?


And now comes Dorothy, a fumetti (if that is the word I'm looking for, and I don't really care if it is) style comic book that reimagines young Dorothy Gale's first trip from Kansas to Oz.

I was so pre-sold on this comic it's not even funny. What a pleasant surprise that it should turn out to be so well done.

The first two issues are often beautiful, with photographs of live actors (primarily Catie Fisher as Dorothy) mixed with computer effects to create the cold, gray world of Kansas and the strange, colorful, alien world of Oz. The page layouts are strikingly creative, and the non-human characters are wonderful to behold.


Dude. Flying monkeys. FLYING MONKEYS!!!

The photography and artwork is handled by Greg Mannino, and the script is by Mark Masterson, whose LiveJournal I had been reading for months before the comic ever came to my local shop. It's fine writing, especially good at creating the sense of detachment and alienation Dorothy feels from both Kansas and Oz, but I wish a little more of his hilariously weird sense of humor had made its way from his LJ to the comic.

Now to quibble, because I'm a dick.

The covers of the two comics are printed on flimsier paper than the interior pages. I don't like that. So there. At five bucks each, the price is steep, although considering the high production quality, and the greater-than-average page count (31 story pages in the first issue, counting the inside front cover, 33 in the second, and both with no advertising whatsoever), I can live with it. And something has to be done to make the photos a little more... active, I guess is the way to put it. In too many panels, Dorothy is all-too-obviously posed, which detracts from the reality of the comic. For example, in one panel, with her in a walking position, you can see both her feet planted flat on the ground. That ain't walking. That's standing still. In another, in which she is supposedly in mid-dive, mid-air, it's easy to see she's simply standing on her toes and spreading her arms wide. I don't know how that can be fixed -- more computerized blurring FX to simulate motion? I don't know. I just know it looks off.

My main complaint is an odd one, for me: Dorothy is aimed at mature readers. Dorothy, the character, is foul-mouthed and does drugs (well, she talks about past drug experiences; she's not, like, smoking a bong on-page). Now, I'm 100% pro-artistic freedom, 100% anti-censorship. I don't find the content morally objectionable or offensive or obscene. Watch: fuck. See? But... I don't see any reason for it. I think Dorothy could very easily have been an equally successful all-ages book -- more successful, in fact, in that it would have a much wider potential audience. I don't think it would have been difficult to make Dorothy just as believably disaffected a youth without cusswords; I don't think making her all hard-core and shit adds anything to the experience. "All-ages" doesn't have to mean childish, or simple, or bland; it doesn't mean Dorothy has to be squeaky clean, and doesn't have to limit her exclamations to "Golly gee!" I'm just sayin': I don't see the point. Maybe this was an intentional, market-savvy choice on the part of the comic's creators: perhaps research indicated no adult would be interested in a Wizard of Oz photo-comic that didn't have the word "motherfucker" in it somewhere. Perhaps this is just me. But there you have it.

I think the highest compliment I can pay this book is that it makes me feel like a chump for not having read the L. Frank Baum books -- an oversight I plan to correct soon. But, while it's faithful in many ways to the original creation, it succeeds at being its own thing; you don't need to know Oz to like Dorothy. This is an imaginative and entertaining comic. I'm eagerly anticipating issue three -- the Scarecrow!