In this fascinating reinterpretation of L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz, artist Graham Rawle has stripped the epic story about Dorothy’s journey to Oz of all remnants of Hollywood iconography. Gone are the Judy Garland braids, the Technicolor ruby slippers, the ethereal Glinda the Good Witch. In their place, Rawle has fashioned graphic characters and scenery that are at once relentlessly modern and devoutly loyal to Baum’s original text: the Wicked Witch of the West “has but one good eye†and it is “as powerful as a telescope,†while Emerald City only appears to be green because the inhabitants are made to wear tinted glasses. Infused with color, images, and montages that bring the classic story alive all over again, this is an Oz that is both surreal and surprising.
