The Patchwork Girl of Oz #2 // Review
The crazy, old man is stirring a large cauldron. This is perfectly normal for the land of Oz, but there’s something kind of strange about it. Maybe it’s the fact that he’s stirring the cauldron with a spoon that he’s holding with his foot. Or maybe it’s what’s in the cauldron that might be a bit peculiar as will become apparent in The Patchwork Girl of Oz #2. Writer/artist Otis Frampton continues his adaptation of the novel by L. Frank Baum. A few details are revealed as a bit of history is explored before the introduction of the title character.
The old man is making the Powder of Life. He’s the only one in all of Oz who knows how to make it. It’s an exceedingly rare sort of thing that happens to have been able to create the beloved Jack Pumpkinhead from an assortment of inanimate things. He’s creating some more so as to bring life to a girl made from a patchwork quilt who had been sewn together by his wife. Ojo is particularly interested in seeing the girl. There’s also some great mystery to uncover about his nonverbal Uncle Nunkie as well. Ojo has much to learn.
Ojo has been outside of mainstream Oz culture his whole life. So he doesn’t really know that much about much of anything, which is fortunate for the roll and rhythm of the series. Frampton takes the opportunity to deliver a LOT of background on the world of Oz. Surprisingly, an issue that is almost completely dominated by back story and plot exposition ends up being a great deal of fun as Frampton clearly takes great pleasure in choosing the phrasing that cleverly renders the background of the whole story as Ojo gets acquainted with the larger world around him.
Some of what makes Frampton’s delivery of the backstory so engaging is the way he moves the work through the panels. Ojo has a very simple face without a whole lot of complex rendering, but Frampton’s design gives him an impressive range of emotion with a great deal of subtlety peering out around the edges of a really fascinating sort of visual world. So much can be read in the faces of the characters that adds to. the impact of the dialogue that’s being delivered. It’s impressive stuff on a whole bunch of different levels without actually being all that centered on much of any action in the foreground. Quite an accomplishment.
Frampton could have easily edited this whole portion of the story down into a much quicker overview that would allow the action to move much more quickly. Thankfully, he’s taking his time with it to ensure that the world he is delivering has a degree of depth to it. Most of the audience may only be familiar with Oz from one old movie and the Wicked musical. There’s a hell of a lot moving around beyond that in Baum’s world that Frampton seems eager to share with readers who might not otherwise be familiar with it.
