The tale of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is a classic loved by many. I personally love Judy Garland's portrayal of Dorothy Gale and the journey she takes on the yellow brick road to get to get back home to Kansas. I read the original story a while back and I saw quite a lot of editing done in the movie compared to the book. I felt it was much needed editing after I finished reading it. There was just too much filler. But, I decided to give Ozma of Oz a try because generally comics make stories seem better - at least I think so.



Ozma of Oz is the third book in the Oz series. The second one, like the introduction explains, didn't have Dorothy but this one does. I was curious who Ozma was and happy I could read a different Dorothy book so that's why I landed on this one to read out of all the graphic novels available for this series.

The story starts off with Dorothy Gale on a ship that's in the middle of a storm. She's trying to visit relatives in Australia with her uncle before this storm hits her. She gets thrown out of the ship and into this box crate - getting herself stuck with a hen named Bill who remarkably talks (probably not so remarkable based on Dorothy's past experiences). That's when the real adventure begins through this island full of creatures named Wheelers, to a castle with a collector of heads, to meeting new characters including the ruler of Oz herself - Ozma, and finally, onto the journey to save children from the evil Nome King. All done with animated characters and illustrations. Skottie Young, the artist, and Jean-Francois Beaulieu, the colorist, have great style. They made the characters come to life with their expressions and the beautiful colors across the page.



The problem I found with this story was the same I felt with The Wonderful Wizard of Oz - there is too much packed in. Plus, there are too many new characters. I know that's not Shanower's fault. He includes what's in the original story presumably. I did like elements of the comic like the main plot where Dorothy had to find the children who were turned into objects by the Nome King. If you really loved the original book, then you don't have the problem I have so I would recommend Ozma of Oz to continue your adventure - comic book style. ( )

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

Ozma of Oz is a bit of an oddity in the first six Oz novels: moreso than Marvelous Land, even, it's driven by plot, eschewing Baum's usual rambling journey narrative. After some independent misadventures in Ev (where she meets Billina and Tik-Tok), Dorothy links up with Ozma and sets off with her Royal Army on a mission to rescue the Royal Family of Ev from the Nome King. The book is one of Baum's better ones, and it's even better, I would argue, in the hands of Eric Shanower and Skottie Young, as like Marvelous Land, it introduces a whole new set of strange-looking characters for Skottie Young to draw the hell out of: his Tik-Tok is stalwart, his Wheelers are terrifying, his Nomes are wispy.

My favorite, though, was Billina-- Young always does a good job with the characters who are conventional animals (like the Cowardly Lion in Wonderful Wizard or Eureka in Dorothy and the Wizard), I think partially because we all know what, say, a chicken looks like, so he can get more expressive in the design in a way that he can't with a woggle-bug. His Billina is wonderfully sardonic, annoyed and unimpressed by the world she travels through and the company she is forced to keep.

I also like how Young handles Ozma: it's easy to forget in the novels that Ozma is a kid, and one only recently come into her true identity as royalty at that. Young makes sure you remember this: when she shouts, it looks like a kid trying to get her way. She's no less a princess, but it injects a certain amount of realism, even if via Young's cartoony style.

The third in Shanower and Young's very successful set of graphic novel adaptations, Ozma of Oz emphasizes both the strengths and weaknesses of the series. Young's art continues to be fresh and vibrant; special praise is due for his zaftig Princess Langwidere and her voluminous masses of hair, the world-weary and sarcastic glares of Billina the hen, and best of all, the wispy, furry little Nomes who populate the Nome King's Dominion. These are wonderful creations, and if his Nome King seems little more than a stressed-out, potentially inebriated take on the John R. Neill original, it can be forgiven as an attempt at authentically representing the text (where the Nome King is described as resembling Santa Claus). The demented energy of the character makes the reader question how he could ever be assumed to be anything other than the villain of the piece, but that's a choice Shanower and Young seem to have consciously made.

That's the sort of thing that brings up the shortcomings of these adaptations, though, and it's particularly glaring here in Ozma. As a life-long fan of L. Frank Baum's books, it's possible that Eric Shanower is simply too close, emotionally, to be a totally effective adapter. There are numerous sequences in all the graphic novels that simply don't need to be included, and the fact that they remain feels more like Shanower being unwilling to condense than anything else. There is, for instance, an entire scene where the Scarecrow and Tin Woodman pridefully compare themselves to Tik-Tok, the Mechanical Man; it's a nice character moment, but there's no real reason for it to be there. Similarly, there's a moment where Tik-Tok runs down and Dorothy is forced to return to an earlier location for his wind-up key; it doesn't add anything to the story, and it just fills a few panels. There are no less than three long flashbacks to earlier events (including one recounting The Marvelous Land of Oz, the previous Oz story), and the ending is just as anticlimactic as it ever was in the original novel. All of these elements could have been tightened up. Shanower also has a habit of leaving Baum's slightly Victorian dialogue absolutely unchanged, so you have characters making all sorts of formal declarations ("...We will hold a solemn conference to decide the best manner of liberating the royal family...") when some even slightly modernized or compacted dialogue would be, frankly, far easier to read.

Despite my criticism, all I'm really doing is calling attention to what keeps this from being a full five-star graphic novel. It is still very, very good indeed, and as an Oz fan, I enjoyed it tremendously. I just can't help but think it would have been even better - and the Shanower/Young series might have lasted longer - if Baum's original texts hadn't been treated as sacred objects. ( )

In this volume Dorothy finally gets a chance to visit Oz again and meets Ozma who is traveling to the the land of Ev to free their rulers from the gnome king. The artwork was just phenomenal again. I love the artists work on this. The story was interesting enough but I wanted to know how Ozma was faring with all of the changes and there wasn't a ton of info on that which made me a little sad but since it follows the original closely I can see why that wouldn't have been addressed at that time period. (Trying not to give away spoilers from book 2.) ( )

In this volume Dorothy finally gets a chance to visit Oz again and meets Ozma who is traveling to the the land of Ev to free their rulers from the gnome king. The artwork was just phenomenal again. I love the artists work on this. The story was interesting enough but I wanted to know how Ozma was faring with all of the changes and there wasn't a ton of info on that which made me a little sad but since it follows the original closely I can see why that wouldn't have been addressed at that time period. (Trying not to give away spoilers from book 2.) ( )