25 February 2020

Art for “The Axman’s Arm”

At Skookworks, David Lee Ingersoll has just shared his illustrations from the 2006 issue of Oziana magazine, which I edited and produced for the International Wizard of Oz Club.

David created the art for a story I wrote called “The Axman’s Arm,” a horror tale exploring what happened to the Tin Woodman’s left arm after it was chopped off in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. That arm wasn’t around for the assembly of the character of Chopfyt, introduced in The Tin Woodman of Oz—so where did it go?

I rarely tell horror stories, but the Oz books’ premise that people and animals can survive being sliced up leads inevitably to that mode.

For that issue of Oziana, David also illustrated Adrian Korpel’s poem “Rivals” with pictures of the Scarecrow, Tin Woodman, and Cowardly Lion looking bitter and angry—and yet completely recognizable. I’d seen some of the pictures David drew for the Oz Squad project, so I knew he could do a great job with that challenge. I don’t view those poems as “canonical,” but they offered an interesting alternative view of favorite characters.

11 February 2020

Helping Stupendo Take Off

This picture shows Stupendo and Secret Girl, a superhero team I dreamed up a couple of years ago in a burst of short comics scripts for kids.

Stupendo is a very strange visitor from another planet. Secret Girl is a young suburbanite determined to help Stupendo to fit in and be all the hero he can be.

They’re being made flesh by Brendan Tobin, the artist behind Tolerable Tales of the Adequate and The Protagonist. Check out his blog.

Brendan and I are sharing “Hero Helper,” Stupendo and Secret Girl’s first published adventure, in Boston Powers, an all-ages comic book featuring original stories of superheroes from greater Boston. Conceived and edited by Dan Mazur, this project just launched its Kickstarter campaign, and it’s got a delightful video. Check it out!