Comic Review - The Legend of Oz The Wicked West #4

I’m not ashamed to say that I have a soft spot for “Fractured Fairytales” or anything that takes established characters and morphs them into a setting that is not exactly their comfort zone.  This includes the Shrek movies as well as the Fables series from DC (at least the first few years, I haven’t read them in a while).  I say this to tell you that I went in to The Legend of Oz with inflated expectations.  I really, really wanted this to blow me away.  I too have come up with various storylines that involve the characters of Oz and since mine are obviously unpublished I would love to find something that does justice to the source material.  Not only that but the publisher is Big Dog Ink and anytime a small publisher can knock one out of the park I am all for it. 

I really should have tempered my expectations because this was far from the masterpiece that I hoped it would be.

The Cover:

Yet more variant covers!  Gah!  For issue number four no less!  I don’t get it.  Anyway, it’s a fairly iconic looking image on cover “B” (the one I picked up) and even though it is not the best executed piece of art, the design of both the image as well as the cover itself, including title placement, is very well done.  Now the art itself, while it does some things right, it incorporates so many elements that are so incorrect that they are distracting (to me at least).  The thing is, as I noticed and jotted down some elements that were wrong, more things would emerge, it was like the worst set of dominoes ever. 

Let’s start with the positives:  The background, while not terribly involved is very well rendered and adds to the “wild west” feel that is the cornerstone of this book.  The horse is pretty well drawn and believable as a horse, and I like the flying monkey silhouettes in the background. 

Ok, now for the negatives:  While the horse is well drawn, I don’t understand the coloring on it.  Is it supposed to be three distinctly different colors?  Is that part of the plot somewhere?  If so than ok but right now it looks odd.  While I like the design for the witch, the execution in this area of the cover is really what ruined it for me.  Of course a lot of this you cannot see on the shelf amidst the other comics out this week, but once I actually look at the cover, especially for the sake of a review, I just have to stop and say “wait…what?”  A huge offender is the witch’s leg, the one in the stirrup that you can see.  It looks like it’s coming out of her body at a strange angle, plus it is inked far heavier than anything else on the page, making it look out of place.  I am not convinced that the foot/ankle placement is correct either but I’m not 100% positive on that as my horse riding experience is slim to none.  The color on the witch (the green on her face and hands) looks unnatural.  Not that green skin is natural at all, but if it was I doubt the highlights in the skin would be of a neon hue.  Finally, the glaring error on the witch is the white outline in areas on her body/clothing.  This would be fine if there were no black outlines on anything else, but as it stands now it just makes the witch look like a cutout that was placed over a backdrop.  Without that black line around her to anchor her to her settings it feels like she is floating off the page.  I can see what the artist (Nei Ruffino) was trying to do, but not only was the execution off, throwing white highlights on black would only make sense and only have the desired impact if the piece was entirely black and white with no color.

3/10 – for the design and the background, the character and coloring does absolutely nothing for me.

The Story:

There is a small blurb on the inside front cover that is supposed to catch you up on three issues worth of events.  It doesn’t.  The scene opens on what looks like three or four figures walking.  I assume one is Dorothy, and one looks like a lion, so I get that.  I had no idea who the guy on the horse was, and in the fourth panel an Indian girl shows up.  Eventually I assume that the Indian girl is supposed to be the scarecrow and the guy on the horse is the tinman (my only clue to this is that he has an axe, no other info is given).  In fact no one’s name is uttered except for the name Gale in reference to Dorothy a grand total of three times.  This is not a comic book, it is a chapter of a graphic novel.  I would like to think that if I read it all at once that it would be better, but after seeing it so far I don’t think I could bring myself to actually plunk down the money for a graphic novel.  I assume that the previous three issues are all setup and that this one is where everything happens, but not a whole hell of a lot does happen here.  The four travelers get attacked by bees, some flying monkeys die from bee stings (bees are equal-opportunity assholes) and the travelers get attacked by floating poppy petals.  There’s nothing that actually really happens aside from the fact that we find out that the scarecrow (if you can call her that) can take out all of her stuffing and survive.  Sure it’s useful but I don’t see much else about this comic that makes me excited to read another.

2/10 – I love the concept but the execution in this issue was not good.

The Art:

The coloring in this comic is decent, not too incredibly muddy like I see a lot nowadays. 

This gorilla, about halfway through the book has a pretty badass design to it.  Unfortunately that is where the positives end as Borges has trouble keeping the characters looking consistent from page to page and the uses of upshots on every page, while still trying to incorporate a horizon line just looks like we are seeing a giant so large that the curve of the earth is present under their feet.  And don’t get me started on this panel:

I really have a problem with the storytelling in this as well.  There are many panels and pages where I just have no idea what is actually supposed to be happening. 

It took a lot for me to figure out what is going on here.  I realize that it's hard to draw in terms of what is actually happening, but I get no context clues from the artwork here.  I have to try and figure it out through the next few pages.

Two things, one the finger/lighter in the last panel meld together around the striker/flame area.  That's just a poor job by the artist and colorist to clearly define what is where.  Also, it looked to me in the second panel like the monkeys were about to attack and yet they fall with a thud to the ground.  I don't know if the idea was to trick us, but if not then the storytelling needs to be a lot better.

This page comes right after the one I just posted but there is no indication that it is any later in the day except that the "Tinman" was able to build a fire.  At least give me some indication of a passage of time, even a caption box that says "later" would suffice.

I'm looking at a profile of a horse on a downshot, and the horse is not lying on the ground, what's wrong with that picture?

Is Dorothy walking or stretching?  What is going on with her arms?

The storytelling is ok here, as much as a montage can be, except for the big black hole that your eyes are naturally drawn to down at the bottom which halts any and all motion on the page.  Also, that Dorothy does not look like any other Dorothy in the book.

2/10 – That gorilla was awesome and that’s the only saving grace here.

Overall:  2/10 – I enjoy the fact that Big Dog Ink is trying to do a book with an established female heroine without turning it into blatant, poorly drawn cheesecake (Zenescope, I'm looking at you) but this was supposed to be so much better than it was, combining a “fractured fairytale” with a western. Alas it just wound up feeling like a poorly done comic from the late 1990s.  If you want a good tale about Oz, just pick up the Shanower/Young stuff from Marvel.  It’s not a reimagining or anything like that but it’s superb in its quality and execution.