I think one of the more interesting comic book series I’ve been following has been The Wizard of Oz which is illustrated by Skottie Young. This is the cover for the Oz Primer which will be released in March, 2011 by Marvel Comics. I really love how Skottie has liberated his artwork from the 1936 MGM film and reinvented the characters to make them his own.

The Marvelous Land of Oz #5 hits the street next week on Wednesday, April 21st — if you haven’t seen this series do yourself a favor and get your hands on it. I love the fact that Marvel is doing a series that doesn’t involve superheroes — and then add the fact that Skottie Young really has a unique visual style that you don’t get to see anywhere else in comics these days. I wouldn’t be too surprised that given the Disney takeover over Marvel that one day we might be lucky and get to see an animated version of this series.

After months of looking at preview art I’m happy to see that The Marvelous Land Of Oz #1 will be hitting comic book shops next Wednesday. It was an act of bravery for Marvel to not only tackle such a well known property — but to bring in illustrator Skottie Young to do it. What I also love is that Marvel isn’t doing the old bait-and-switch where Skottie does an amazing cover and the insides of the book are done by a lesser talent in a hurry. The inside of Oz is 100% Skottie and I like what I’m seeing here:

Attention Disney: Are you looking at this thing? Smells like storyboards for an animated film to me…

Marvel has has released a series of comics based upon classic books which have been unimpressive on every level, but a wonderful exception to this has been the The Wonderful Wizard of Oz which features illustrations by Skottie Young. It’s hard to reinvent the universe of Oz because the visual style of the story has been so defined by the 1939 film — but Young manages to reinvent this world while staying true to the story. Issue #5 in the series comes out this Wednesday, above is a detail of the cover art and it just looks great. I also love the powerful palette of colors by Jean-Francois Beaulieu who brings Skottie’s drawings to life. Below is another wonderful panel:

Here are two pages from the book — I can’t wait until Marvel puts this together as a graphic novel:

And check out this page where the man of straw takes pleasure at destroying crows:

I wish Marvel would do more of this sort of thing — perhaps start by cloning Skottie Young!

In January 2009 Marvel will be putting out the second issue of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz which features cover art and pencils by one of my favorite artists Skottie Young. One of the nice things that Skottie did with this cover is that he’s reinvented the visual look for Oz which has such a well known history – by ignoring the books and the famous MGM film he’s given the title a fresh start. It’s also great just how cartoony this cover looks too, which is something that you don’t associate with typical Marvel comics which seem so obsessed with Photoshopped realism. Speaking of Photoshop notice how good the coloring is? Young has a very washed out water-colored looking palette instead of the over saturated primary tones you see too often today. And all of this is just the background to the character designs which have a wonderful whimsy to them. Here’s the description of the issue:

“Double origin issue! Find out how both the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman came to be. Romance and dismemberment, spontaneous life and evil spells-this issue has all sorts of surprises. Plus, you’ve never seen a Cowardly Lion before like Skottie Young’s big bashful ball of fur! Join young Kansas farm girl Dorothy on the road through the Land of Oz as she collects companions with severe identity issues.”