Access a version of the below that includes illustrations on my blog.

Dorothy and the Wizard is probably my favorite of the original six Oz novels, partly I suspect, because it's the only one of those I owned as a kid in an edition with high-quality reproductions of the original illustrations: my others were either low-quality Del Rey editions without color (Ozma and Emerald City), poorly re-illustrated versions (Wizard and Marvellous Land), or just had no illustrations at all (Road)! So to me, the underground world of Dorothy and the Wizard has always seemed particularly lavish and detailed-- and, as a result, alien. This means it's, as always, well-suited to the illustration talents of Skottie Young.

Dorothy and the Wizard is probably the darkest of the original six Oz novels. In the others, most of the people Dorothy meets are reasonably nice, and/or are evil thanks to external influence, and/or there's a clear end goal. For the most part, Dorothy and the Wizard lacks any of these: almost every environment Dorothy and her friends encounter is somewhere between actively hostile and completely indifferent, and there's no obvious destination for the group. There's no route to Oz that they're following, they're just trying to stay alive by moving onwards from each terrible place to another, hopefully-but-not-actually less terrible place. I wouldn't like it if every Oz novel was like this, but this one does what it does well.

Its terrifying Mangaboos and Gargoyles give Young so much to work with, but as I came to realize when reviewing Ozma, he best shines with the "normal" animals, this one having Eureka, Dorothy's conceited kitten (but then, aren't they all?), and the Wizard's nine tiny piglets. Because of this, Shanower and Young even manage to rescue the book's extended coda about Eureka being on trial for murder. It drags in prose, but put Young's amazing rendering of Eureka at the center, and every moment of her attitude is a joy. Plus, Shanower even uses the opportunity to smooth over some hiccups in Baum's improvised history of Oz. Another Shanower and Young triumph.

This is the fourth book in the Marvel’s Oz comics. This was a great installment in this series, it wasn’t as good as Ozma of Oz, but it was still very entertaining.

This time Dorothy, her cousin Zeb, and her cat Eureka are swallowed by an earthquake. They end up as prisoners of the Magnaboos and run into the Wizard of Oz who helps them escapte. They end up fleeing across the Invisible Valley. Eventually they end up back in the Emerald City where all of our favorites are in residence.

My favorite part of these books continues to be the fantastic illustration throughout. I just feel like Young’s illustration style matched the tone of these stories absolutely perfectly.

I missed some of my favorite characters in this book. We don’t see much of Ozma or the Tik Tok Man. Most of our time is spent with Zeb, his horse, the Wizard of Oz and Dorothy. The Wizard of Oz isn’t my favorite character either, so I didn’t enjoy reading about him as much as other characters in the series. I really did enjoy Zeb’s horse though, he is hilarious throughout.

Overall this was a good installment in this Oz graphic novel series. I didn’t like this book quite as much as Ozma of Oz but I do continue to really enjoy the illustration. This continues to be a very high quality series that is appropriate for all ages. I definitely recommend for all those Oz fans out there and for fans of fantasy graphic novels in general. ( )

Eric Shanower has got my attention. Now I watch Amazon religiously for the next collected omnibus of his Oz books to hit the shelves. While I don’t appreciate his art (with sickeningly sweet-looking characters that seem at times to fall into the uncanny valley), I do appreciate his fandom to Oz, something I share with him, and hopefully to the same degree.

I don’t think, though, that I would have been as intrigued by this series if it wasn’t for the illustrations of Skottie Young, who deviated strongly from the MGM-inspired Oz ambiance that has run so prevalent since 1939. His characters, somewhere safely outside of the uncanny valley, are reminiscent of Bill Watterson, one of my all-time favorite comic artists. But Young takes a very creative approach to illustrating these books, giving them an initial appearance of being slapdash, but giving the astute reader a sense of wonder as they realize how meticulous the drawings actually are. Young captures the very essence of Oz in a way that nobody has done before.

In Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz, the latest collection of these books, Dorothy finds her way into a mysterious land, this time accompanied by her cousin, her cat, and a cab horse. Shortly before meeting an untimely demise, she reunites with the Wizard. The group (now including nine little pigs brought by the Wizard) escape from one impending death to another, racing through non-Oz until they eventually catch the attention of Ozma, who wishes them to the safety of Oz and reacquaints them with all of their friends.

Shanower does some interesting things with this story. First, he makes Ozma’s wish less a deus ex machina by introducing the concept ealier. Second, he makes careful use of the dialog when Ozma and Oz first meet, taking Baum’s words, which conveniently forget that the Wizard was responsible for Ozma’s kidnapping as a child, and make the scene between them much more awkward that in the book. In the end, his choices, and Young’s corresponding illustrations, were a marked improvement, as Baum tended to break his own canon from time to time.

If you’re like me, you’re already eagerly awaiting Shanower’s Road to Oz, and the reintroduction of Toto (and, if I’m not mistaken, his only spoken line) and the introduction of the excessively creepy but lovable vagrant, the Shaggy Man (whose depiction by Young I look forward to seeing). However, I may, in the meantime, get over my qualms with Shanower’s illustration style, and look up his other works of Oz fandom to tide me over until all nine issues are published and then released in a single volume.

While each issue’s end makes me wish each volume was twice as long, I wonder too: when will it end? Will they do all the Baum? Will they diverge and give us Cap’n Bill and Trot to fill in the blanks before they become citizens of Oz? Will they do the Famous Forty? Or just those that are in the Public Domain?

Nevertheless, as long as Marvel prints them, this Oz-nerd will read them. ( )