Introducing My Next Oz Illustrator!!!

You’ve already met Patricio Carbajal, the illustrator of the first story in my Oz book.  As 2012 winds to a close, two other incredible artists are working on the remaining stories.  To say that it barely seems real is an understatement!  But it must be real after all, because a few days ago I was thrilled to receive a set of preliminary sketches from the great Gabhor Utomo.

 Sadly, I can’t share any of those sketches with you – you’ll have to wait till the book comes out to see Gabhor’s vision of Oz – but I can point you to the website where my editor and I first found his work:

http://www.childrensillustrators.com/illustrator-details/GUtomo/id=2006/portfolio

 

Did you know you can go hunting for illustrators on the Internet?  Perhaps it isn’t so surprising, since you can scour the Internet for almost anything else known to humankind.  In fact there are sites for amateur artists and up-and-comers, and there are sites for established pros.  It was among the pros that we found Gabhor.  We immediately loved his compassionate, humane, child’s-eye-view of the world, as well as the sheer aliveness of his characters.  And it didn’t hurt that he bothered to post some of his line drawings as well as his paintings – a surprisingly uncommon thing these days, when kids’ novels mostly don’t have the beautiful and plentiful line drawings that were common in L. Frank Baum’s time.  Check out some of the other artists at http://www.childrensillustrator.com and you’ll see what I mean.

The sketches that Gabhor sent us are entrancing, and I know you’re going to love his Oz.  Of our three artists, his vision is closest to the traditional vision of Baum’s chief illustrator, John R. Neill.  But the pictures also have a look and a spark that’s all their own, as well as a clear and direct understanding of the feeling behind each scene.  The story that Gabhor is working on – The Law of Oz – is the longest in the book, so you’ll see a lot of his pictures inside.  And you'll see more of his work on the outside cover, since this is the title story.  I couldn’t be more excited!

You can see Gabhor’s other work at his own website:

http://gabhorutomo.com/

 And here is his bio:

 Gabhor Utomo was born in Indonesia.  He moved to California to pursue his passion in art.  He received his degree from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco in spring 2003.  Since his graduation he has worked as a freelance illustrator and has illustrated a number of children’s books.  His first children’s book, “Kai’s Journey to Gold Mountain,” is a story about a young Chinese immigrant on Angel Island.

 Gabhor’s works have won numerous awards from local and national art organizations.  His painting of Senator Milton Marks is in a permanent collection at the California State Building in downtown San Francisco.

 Gabhor lives with his wife Dina and his twin girls in Portland, Oregon.

MY ILLUSTRATORS:  MEET PATRICIO CARBAJAL

I promised you posts about the three illustrators of my own Oz book.  Here comes Number One!

It was my amazing friend and editor Joe Bongiorno who persuaded me that self-publishing is do-able, and that we could hire illustrators to make the thing look like a real Oz book.  It seemed to me at the time – and still does seem – incredible that artists would actually go to the trouble of producing pictures to go with my stories.  That kind of thing is for real authors, not for the likes of me.  But Joe found our first candidate, the Argentinian artist Patricio Carbajal, and sent me links to some of his work. http://patart-pat.blogspot.com/   If you’re like me, you will not look at Pat’s work and immediately think Oz!  It’s very grown-up, often sexy, and photographically precise.  You’ll find more of the same in his bio, at the end of this post.  But I believe in Joe, and Joe believed in Pat, and we struck a deal.

Almost immediately, Pat starting sending us character studies – and that was the end of my doubts.  He got the right idea at once.  In his enthusiasm, he even sketched some well-loved characters who barely show up in my stories!  Here are two of those:  Ozma and Dorothy.

 

I loved them right off the bat!  One of the cool things about Pat is that he respects the classic images while still putting a lot of himself into the characters.  For instance, Ozma appears with her usual poppies and the famous OZ insignia on her circlet – just as John R. Neill drew her – but she’s also looking very comfortable in sandals, which is a new idea.  Her outfit is distinctly different and lovely too, and so is her graceful, dancer-like pose.  Dorothy is very much in the Neill mode – shoulder-length blond hair rather than Garland-esque pigtails – but with an energy all her own.  Though these particular sketches will not appear in the book,  some of Pat’s character sketches will – including the ones for my two heroes, Button-Bright and Ojo, as well as several brand-new new characters who are making their debuts in this story.  In addition, there will be nine wonderful full-page illustrations.  I hope you’ll like them as much as I do!

The story that Pat illustrated is called Time Travelers of Oz – an adventure in ancient Oz history.  His work is complete now, but it was a joy and a pleasure to work with him and I’ll be proud to see his art in the pages of my book.  Now, as promised, here’s his bio:

Artist Pat Carbajal started as a political cartoonist at various national newspapers in Argentina.  He then changed directions and started working on realistic portraits for the financial newspaper Ambito Financiero, a local version of The Wall Street Journal.

He started producing art for the American market in 2007 with illustrated covers for Adamant Entertainment’s Tales of Fu Manchu and Foe Factory:  Modern.

Timeline of The Planet of the Apes, by Rich Handley, marked his first collaboration with Hasslein books.

In 2009 he painted the cover for Bluewater Productions’ Female Force:  Sarah Palin, a biography series based on the lives of influential American women. The controversial comic book sold out and it’s currently in its third printing.

Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon were all subjects of biographical comics in the Political Power series, with covers painted by Pat. Other politicians portrayed in Political Power were Vice President Al Gore, Senator Ted Kennedy and General Colin Powell.

These biographical comics have gained international media attention.

Rock stars were the next subject for Pat.  Bob Dylan, Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix were the legends featured in Rock and Roll Comics:  The Sixties, followed by Ozzy Osborne, AC/DC and Guns n’ Roses in Rock and Roll Comics:  Rock Heroes.

The first graphic novel completely illustrated by Pat was Allen Quatermain, written by Clay and Susan Griffith, published by Bluewater, marking his first foray into the realm of sequential art. Quatermain was adapted as a radio drama by Colonial Radio.

Together with Clay and Susan Griffith he created the character of “The Raven” for Vincent Price Presents, a classic horror comic book starring Hollywood screen legend Vincent Price, published by Bluewater.

Pat debuted as a writer in the following issue of Vincent Price Presents.

The next biographical comics were dedicated to legendary comedians, in the series created by Jaymes Reed, Comics.  The first issue was dedicated to Lucille Ball, followed by Saturday Night Live, Eddie Murphy and WKRP in Cincinnati.

Back at Hasslein Books, Pat illustrated the covers and interior art for Lexicon of the Planet of the Apes and the newly published Back in Time:  The Back to the Future Lexicon.  Forthcoming is The James Bond Lexicon.

The Illustrious Illustrators of Oz

What does Oz look like?

For most people it probably looks like the MGM movie, perhaps with a dash of Broadway’s Wicked thrown in.  And in a few short months, if Hollywood dreams come true, the upcoming Sam Raimi movie might just redefine Oz for a whole new generation.  But those of us who grew up with Baum’s books have a whole different perspective.

Even if you’ve never picked up an edition of The Wizard of Oz, you’ve probably seen some of the original illustrations by William Wallace Denslow.  They’ve appeared on greeting cards, calendars, and stamps; on mugs, keychains, and t-shirts; and they pop up whenever a magazine does an Oz retrospective or analysis (a surprisingly frequent event).  Even though Denslow’s  short, stolid Dorothy is not as ubiquitous as Judy Garland’s, she’s still carved out a niche for herself in popular iconography.  Here’s a random sampling:  http://theworldofoz.webs.com/apps/photos/album?albumid=10624283

In order to get the full Denslow experience, you really need a facsimile of the original edition.  Its highly wrought color scheme and beautiful color plates were something of a sensation in their time and are still impressive now.  Plain black and white editions don’t do them justice.  But even the most cursory Google search will turn up examples of Denslow’s template-setting Scarecrow, Tin Woodman and Cowardly Lion, as well as his bizarrely pigtailed Wicked Witch of the West.

The fact remains, however, that Denslow illustrated only one Oz book – albeit the most famous.  He and Baum fell out and went their separate ways before anyone realized that Wizard marked the beginning of something big.

Would Denslow have been so quick to go solo if he’d known?  We can’t say.  Go solo he did, though, with the fateful result that a young man called John R. Neill was hired to illustrate the next title, The Marvelous Land of Oz.  http://www.johnrneill.net/intro.html  Neill seems to have had a taste for regular paychecks, because he went on to illustrate twelve more Baum Oz titles (plus several non-Oz Baums), all nineteen of Ruth Plumley Thompson’s, and three more that he wrote himself.  It was and is a genre-defining achievement, by far the greatest and most comprehensive visual exploration of Oz ever, and one that gave us indelible images of such beloved post-Wizard characters as Ozma, the Patchwork Girl, Shaggy Man, Jack Pumpkinhead, the Wogglebug, the Sawhorse, Polychrome, and countless others.  Neill is a rock star.

His style couldn’t have been more different from Denslow’s.  Where Denslow tended toward the short and stubby, Neill tended toward the long and flowing, with strong echoes from the aesthetic movement.  He was more versatile, too.  His non-human characters are endlessly inventive and delightful, and his renderings of Oz architecture are spectacular.  For many Oz book fans, Neill’s Oz is the ultimate Oz, the true Oz – and yet, because he did not illustrate Wizard, he is little known outside the Oz fan world.  It’s a sad irony.

I love my Neill.  There are areas in which I take issue with him, though, not least of which is his tendency to make boys look like chorus girls in drag.  He didn’t start out this way.  Boys figure prominently in Land of Oz, Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz, and Sky Island, and they’re perfectly fine.  But starting with Patchwork Girl of Oz, we get a sudden infusion of pretty that’s above and beyond the call of aesthetics.  Scroll down this page http://vovatia.wordpress.com/2011/01/25/everythings-coming-up-ojo/ for a particularly awful color plate of Ojo the Lucky with his friend Button-Bright – who just happen to be the boy heroes of MY stories.  It rankles me!  Nevertheless, Neill is our man and we owe him a huge debt of gratitude.  Where would Oz be without him?  Thanks for everything, John R.!

The Shocking Secret of Oz

Since the days of Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, fantasy worlds have been designed with an eye toward continuity and consistency.  Each one operates according to its own internal logic and its own set of natural (or unnatural) laws, which, ideally, remain the same from the beginning of a series right through to the end.

Oz is not that kind of fantasy world.

As I’ve said before, L. Frank Baum didn’t set out to create a series at all.  Rather than writing variations on the original Oz book, he preferred to add fresh new books featuring fresh new worlds, each one distinctly different from the last.  Why bother to remember what you did before when you can do something completely different?  Ix, Mo, and Noland are just three of the many worlds he created.  None of them caught on the way Oz did, however, and eventually Baum’s fandom made it clear that Oz was what they liked best.  Baum met their wishes – but he did not give up his ways altogether.  The result was that Oz became something of a continuous creation, its rules and details subtly (or not so subtly) improvised from book to book.  The Oz of Wizard is a very different place from the Oz of his own later books such as Glinda Of Oz.  Rules change.  Origin stories are adjusted or replaced – perhaps ignored, perhaps even forgotten.  If consistency is truly the hobgoblin of small minds, Baum’s mind must have been vast indeed.

The upshot of all this is a confusing legacy for later Oz writers.  Which rules do you obey?  Can you patch together a unified framework?  Is it even worth trying, when the author himself seems not to have bothered himself over it?

Each Oz author comes up with his or her own answers, and each answer inevitably complicates the situation for the next author to come along (which raises a whole new tangle of questions regarding canon, for goodness sake).  Some of us tie ourselves in knots trying to make it all fit, or we engage in endless, often heated, discussions in Internet chat rooms.  Me, I like to see the matter as a gift rather than a curse.  If Baum didn’t feel tied down, then neither do I.  Give me some wiggle room and I’m there!  In fact, it’s fair to say that my first two stories pop right out of interesting gaps that Baum left behind.  Got a mystery you can’t solve?  Pull out your laptops, folks, there’s a story in it!

On the other hand, I do try to stick to my Baum, for better or worse, and Thompson fans will not find any of her characters in my stories (though I have found it necessary to throw in a reference or two here and there).  I also prefer to elaborate on ideas he underused or gave up on, rather than inventing totally new worlds within his worlds.  And finally, I’m ridiculously proud to have a place in my friend Joe Bongiorno’s Royal Timeline of Oz http://www.timelineuniverse.net/Oz/Mainlinetimeline.htm  So perhaps I’m not quite as laissez-faire as I pretend.

Next time:  The Illustrious Illustrators of Oz, a brief introduction to Oz artists.

My first post on my first blog!  I never thought I'd see the day.

This blog is all about my upcoming Oz book, The Law Of Oz, and other stories, due to be published in time for the next convention of The International Wizard Of Oz Club.  In future posts I'll have a few things to say about how I came to write the thing, and I'll also introduce my wonderful illustrators.  But fasten your seatbelts, folks, because I'm going to start with a brief history of the Oz series for the uninitiated.

If you only know Oz from the MGM movie, as well as Wicked and The Wiz, you may be surprised to know that L. Frank Baum -- the author of The Wizard Of Oz -- wrote no less than thirteen sequels!  This was not something he planned.  Wizard was a great success when it was published in 1900, so much so that a Broadway musical version quickly ensued and made stars out of the actors who played the Scarecrow and Tin Woodman.  All this success led to a second Oz book, which led to a third Oz book, which finally led to an ongoing and lucrative series.  Oz acquired a new ruler, the lovely Princess Ozma, and both Dorothy and the Wizard ended up making their homes in the Emerald City.  A great many new characters were added as well.  By the time Baum died in 1919, the tradition of an annual Oz book under the Christmas tree was firmly established.

Not wishing to abandon the series, publisher Reilly and Lee quickly hired a new author -- Ruth Plumley Thompson -- to continue it.  Thompson ultimately contributed nineteen Oz books, a record for Oz authors, and the characters she invented are still loved by her fans.  She was busy writing Oz stories when the MGM movie came out in 1939.  And the story does not end with her.  The tradition of the yearly Oz book was allowed to slip, but sporadic titles by a number of different authors -- including Oz's primary illustrator, John R. Neill -- continued to emerge.  The last of the Reilly and Lee titles, a 1963 outing called Merry Go Round In Oz, rounded out what Oz fans call The Famous Forty.

Oz, however, had acquired a life of its own -- on film, onstage, and in print.  With or without Reilly and Lee, Oz writers went right on extending the series.  Some of their stories were never published, some were published privately, and a few were published by other houses.  There are Oz collections out there that would boggle your mind.  They certainly boggle mine.  Alternate Oz universes have also proliferated in books, in comics, and on screen.  Though Wicked is the greatest and most famous of these, it's hardly alone.

Many of us, however, remain solidly in the Baum (or Baum/Thompson) Oz-verse.  I'm a bit of a Baum purist myself (though Oz fans who read my stories may find occasional nods to his successors).  That's not to say that I keep things exactly as he left them -- far from it.  But all my ideas grow straight out of his books.  And I, too, am hardly alone.  We Oz authors are everywhere!

That's my thumbnail history.  More Oz later!