I illustrated The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum! You can buy it in print here. Rice Boy Comics / Patreon
Dorothy and Oz.
I’ve tweaked Dorothy’s post-Winkie costume a little, and haven’t updated all of the art on this blog yet to reflect it. She gets a gold belt, to match all of the other gifts given to the party by the Winkies, and to have her dress match the shape of the blue dress she was wearing at the start. The belt is not in the text– she’s given a bracelet instead, but that’s too small to be legible as I’m drawing, and the belt makes more visual sense! I constantly get the sense that I’m paying way more meticulous attention to details like this than Baum ever did; there’s a looseness and a discontinuity sometimes in how he deals with the stuff.
Maybe the dress should appear green here, actually, because she’s in the City. Ok.
Many other people than me have illustrated the Wonderful Wizard of Oz! Here are some of them.
W. W. Denslow illustrated the first edition of the book, and set up a look for the characters and setting so iconic and inextricable from the text that they’ve informed most later interpretations, and the two co-held the book’s copyright. Denslow’s background in cartooning is clear in the illustrations, which are dynamic and personable and look more modern than they are, I think.
The Folio Society published an edition of the book illustrated by Sara Ogilvie recently. I really love the texture and simple treatment of color in these, and the design of the book and slipcase is just absurdly fancy, which is good.
Spanish illustrator Juliá Sardà did a series of lush painted illustrations for the book, which I only just found. They seem to be for a print edition but I dunno?
An edition illustrated by Lisbeth Zwerger was published in the 90s. This was the only edition I’d seen when I started this project, and I really love it. Zwerger’s illustrations are all watercolor, and emphasize a dreamy distance that I think can be read into the text. Much less character-focused and dynamic than a lot of interpretations, but I think that’s ok. Also the book came with a pair of green glasses to wear while reading the Emerald City parts which is a VERY COOL IDEA. It’s out of print but there’s a lot more art here.
There are many more. It’s fun to see how many distinct angles can be taken with illustrating this text– it’s written in a way that’s kind of loose and mythic. I’ve tried to support what I feel is important in the story with my own illustrations, and have ended up emphasizing my own personal angle on the text. I am running a Kickstarter to publish my own illustrated version. Did you see that I’m doing that
Just launched the Kickstarter for the print edition of the Wonderful Wizard of Oz, with the full original text and 88 of my illustrations!!! More on that later.
Here’s the last chunk of chapter illustrations, covering the journey south from the Emerald City (the first part is here, the second part is here). There’s some bits in this last part of the book that are among the weirdest, and most unfamiliar to people because it was mostly discarded for the movie adaptation. The China Country is one I was very excited/daunted to draw; it’s very unexpected!
Oh and I put up a grid of all of the chapter illustrations together but I made it for the Kickstarter and I thought it was fun to look at
I’ve made 24 full-page illustrations and around 70 spot illustrations to go throughout the complete original text, in a 192-page book. Most of them have been posted on this tumblr. I’ve tried to support the text without distracting from it, and I’ve emphasized the sense of being lost in a strange, colorful place. I’m really happy with how it’s turned out so far, and having it as a nice printed book has always been an exciting possibility!! It is looking like a thing that will probably happen, thanks to Make That Thing and YOU YOU YOU
The revelation of the real Wizard of Oz, and his rewards for the Woodman, the Scarecrow, and the Lion. These are from chapter 16; I skipped ahead a bit.
For three days Dorothy heard nothing from Oz. These were sad days for the little girl, although her friends were all quite happy and contented.
Chapter 17! Skipping around a little here. This is actually the very last drawing I made for the Oz book: I finished it last week and now the book is DONE AND READY TO GO VERY SOON. I’ve been posting art early on the Patreon.
Witches & Wizards of Oz: the Good Witch of the North, one of the Wizard of Oz’ incarnations, the Wicked Witch of the West, and Glinda the Good Witch of the South.
The THIRD book of my webcomic series Vattu is finally available in print, with Topatoco. Really happy with how it turned out!!!
I’m mere days from finishing work on Island Book 2, and then will get back to updating Vattu online– now into its FINAL BOOK, and things are really starting to come together. Hope you can follow along!!! thank y’all
