19 March 2008

Dorothy, We Hardly Knew Ye

I'm intrigued by news of the upcoming Marvel Illustrated adaptation of L. Frank Baum's Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Not because we don't have lots of Oz comics to choose from already, but because this one will be scripted by Eric Shanower, creator of Adventures in Oz. The only disappointment is that he won't do the art himself. That task will be handled by Skottie Young, whose style may be more oriented to younger tastes today anyway.

Another intriguing detail about that Newsarama interview on the Oz adaptation is that it credits Baum in part as an "independent filmmaker." He was a partner in a Hollywood studio in the 1910s that went belly-up after only a couple of years. But I guess you can't get more artistic street cred these days than by being an independent filmmaker. (Thanks to Eric at the Wonderful Blog of Oz for the news.)

In other Oz comics developments...
This comics-format update on Oz titled Dorothy of Oz comes from Korea. The publisher's description:

When Mara Shin’s dog Toto gets lost one fateful day, she goes in search for him along a yellow brick road and ends up in the wonderful land of Oz! Everyone starts calling her Dorothy, but these aren’t the cowardly lion, scarecrow and tin man adventures you remember! This fantastic fairy tale features familiar characters...but with a definite Asian twist!
[Too many exclamation points! Cannot process!]

The further description mentions such things as "the Oz Military" and secret agents. I checked out the preview, and about all I can tell is that the inside has a lot of exclamation points, too. This page is supposed to show little Dorothy--after her transformation, of course.

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