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It being close to Halloween, it seemed an appropriate time to share this pic, which is almost two years old at this point. I checked first to make sure it was okay to post it here. As you may or may not know, my artwork graces the cover of the 2014 edition of Oziana , an annual publication of short fiction and poetry put out by the International Wizard of Oz Club. I was also asked if I'd be willing to illustrate one of the short stories to be collected in that volume and was given two different ones to pick from. One of them, "The New Fellow" by J.L. Bell, focused on a character lifted from the Oz books written by Ruth Plumly Thompson, who took over the series after L. Frank Baum's untimely passing. To be honest, I've never had much interest in her work, which partially explains why I initially opted to illustrate the other story, Aaron Solomon Adelman's "Rob Zombie in Oz," which centered on General Jinjur, a character I am familiar with.

I completed one illustration and had barely begun to start on a second when I was contacted by the editor and asked if I'd mind illustrating the other story instead. It seems he'd originally asked a different artist, John Troutman, to illustrate the zombie story, but due to a communications failure, it had been erroneously assumed that John was not going to deliver the goods, until he unexpectedly came out of the woodwork with a bunch of completed illustrations.

So, I did a couple illustrations for "The New Fellow," but the question was, what to do with my suddenly superfluous zombie pic. It was quickly suggested to me that I color it and it could go onthe back cover, which worked out well for me; in a case of biting off more than I could chew, I had previously volunteered to supply a drawing for the back, but been experienced some difficulty finding the proper inspiration.

Not being as well versed in all things Oz as others, something I had failed to realize about the zombie story when I did this illustration for it was that it actually borrowed elements from a couple obscure sources. One of them is the silent film adaptation of The Patchwork Girl of Oz that Baum produced. The other is the Magic Land series by Alexander Volkov. Volkov had loosely translated The Wizard of Oz into Russian before writing his own sequels that go off in their own direction. The main villain of at least one of those books is a carpenter named Urfin Jus. It turns out that that's who the zombie in this story was meant to be (a zombie carpenter, get it? ).

I did a Google image search for Urfin Jus and was a little dismayed to find that my interpretation of the character bore pretty much no resemblance to the other illustrations I found. It seems he's mostly depicted as a big-nosed guy with an unkempt Prince Valiant haircut. I was told not to worry about it- the story takes place in its own continuity, after all. What I find funny about the whole thing is that, despite neither of us having seen each other's work, John Troutman's drawing of Urfin looks similar enough to mine that you'd think we were both referencing the same source. Meanwhile, our depictions of Jinjur, a pretty well known Oz character, look virtually nothing alike. I tried to be relatively faithful to the original illustrations by John R. Neill while John just did his own unique interpretation.

If you're so inclined, keep your eyes peeled for the next edition of Oziana, coming out sometime later this year. I think my art is going to be on the cover of that one as well, but I'm not sure if it'll be on the front or the back. I also did another handful of illustrations that I think mostly turned out pretty well- I wish I'd done more, but had trouble finding the time and motivation. In the meantime, you can still get a copy of last year's edition from Lulu

Description
It being close to Halloween, it seemed an appropriate time to share this pic, which is almost two years old at this point. I checked first to make sure it was okay to post it here. As you may or may not know, my artwork graces the cover of the 2014 edition of Oziana , an annual publication of short fiction and poetry put out by the International Wizard of Oz Club. I was also asked if I'd be willing to illustrate one of the short stories to be collected in that volume and was given two different ones to pick from. One of them, "The New Fellow" by J.L. Bell, focused on a character lifted from the Oz books written by Ruth Plumly Thompson, who took over the series after L. Frank Baum's untimely passing. To be honest, I've never had much interest in her work, which partially explains why I initially opted to illustrate the other story, Aaron Solomon Adelman's "Rob Zombie in Oz," which centered on General Jinjur, a character I am familiar with.

I completed one illustration and had barely begun to start on a second when I was contacted by the editor and asked if I'd mind illustrating the other story instead. It seems he'd originally asked a different artist, John Troutman, to illustrate the zombie story, but due to a communications failure, it had been erroneously assumed that John was not going to deliver the goods, until he unexpectedly came out of the woodwork with a bunch of completed illustrations.

So, I did a couple illustrations for "The New Fellow," but the question was, what to do with my suddenly superfluous zombie pic. It was quickly suggested to me that I color it and it could go onthe back cover, which worked out well for me; in a case of biting off more than I could chew, I had previously volunteered to supply a drawing for the back, but been experienced some difficulty finding the proper inspiration.

Not being as well versed in all things Oz as others, something I had failed to realize about the zombie story when I did this illustration for it was that it actually borrowed elements from a couple obscure sources. One of them is the silent film adaptation of The Patchwork Girl of Oz that Baum produced. The other is the Magic Land series by Alexander Volkov. Volkov had loosely translated The Wizard of Oz into Russian before writing his own sequels that go off in their own direction. The main villain of at least one of those books is a carpenter named Urfin Jus. It turns out that that's who the zombie in this story was meant to be (a zombie carpenter, get it? ).

I did a Google image search for Urfin Jus and was a little dismayed to find that my interpretation of the character bore pretty much no resemblance to the other illustrations I found. It seems he's mostly depicted as a big-nosed guy with an unkempt Prince Valiant haircut. I was told not to worry about it- the story takes place in its own continuity, after all. What I find funny about the whole thing is that, despite neither of us having seen each other's work, John Troutman's drawing of Urfin looks similar enough to mine that you'd think we were both referencing the same source. Meanwhile, our depictions of Jinjur, a pretty well known Oz character, look virtually nothing alike. I tried to be relatively faithful to the original illustrations by John R. Neill while John just did his own unique interpretation.

If you're so inclined, keep your eyes peeled for the next edition of Oziana, coming out sometime later this year. I think my art is going to be on the cover of that one as well, but I'm not sure if it'll be on the front or the back. I also did another handful of illustrations that I think mostly turned out pretty well- I wish I'd done more, but had trouble finding the time and motivation. In the meantime, you can still get a copy of last year's edition from Lulu