16 July 2006

Another comic with Dorothy, Alice, and Wendy

Though Lost Girls is getting all the attention, another comic artist is using the characters of Dorothy Gale, Wendy Darling, and Alice. Andy Weir's Cheshire Crossing, launched in June 2006, brings the three girls together at a sanitarium where they'll all be treated for delusions of traveling to magical worlds. Or so they think.

This comic's Dorothy Gale is based on Return to Oz, with a dollop of the MGM movie character. In her entrance scene, Dorothy says that American sanitariums "use only the very latest technology! And lately that seems to involve a lot of electric shocks!...Um..."

The governess is obviously based on Mary Poppins, but the creator appears to have kept away from making the identification explicit because that character is still protected by copyright. Of course, so is Return to Oz.

So far, I'd say, the pace seems slow, the scripting leans more on mild shocks than deep characterization, and the Flash-anime artwork makes me yearn for the graphic subtlety of Space Ghost. Plus, if we're going to treat Alice, Wendy, and Dorothy as historical figures, wouldn't it make sense for their behavior and values to reflect the Victorian era they came from rather than our post-feminist times?

No comments: