Review: ‘The Patchwork Girl Of Oz’ #5 Is Uninteresting
by Benjamin Hall
Summary
A trio of would-be heroes go on a quest throughout the land of OZ. The trio consists of the boy Ojo, a living sculpture in the form of a cat that goes by Bungles, and Scraps who is the titular Patchwork girl. Yet, without any traveling experience can they succeed in their quest? For that matter can they even finish the beginning of it?
Overall
2/10This issue of The Patchwork Girl of OZ has a message from adaptor/illustrator/colorist/letterer Otis Frampton at the end thanking readers. It also tells them that the title is going to change to digital editions for future issues and then see print in collections. While it is good that the series is going to continue and have print collections it is not good that it is continuing as digital singles. This is because the target demographics seem to be younger readers and fans of the original Oz series of books by author Lyman Frank Baum (The Oz book series 1900-1920). Which means half the sales for this series may disappear since parents might not care or have trouble keeping up with the release schedule, and possible changes to it.
As far as this issue’s narrative goes there is not a lot to say besides that conversations occur along with some exposition. This also may cause more of a sales drop since nothing is really happening in any of the first five issues. Not to mention both the book banning that is occurring and the LGBTQ panics going on may impact this book because of the use of the word “Queer.”People in the past would use this term to mean something is strange, and that is how it is being used in this issue. Yet, because of word meanings sometimes changing with the times and the current state of media literacy in the world, various readers will fail to understand this. Thus, despite the art and colors being pretty, and the application of the lettering being fine on the cover and interior pages this issue has various troubles. Though the most prominent flaw is how the narrative element of decompression makes the telling boring.
The rest of the creative team includes colorist Tracy Bailey and color flattener Kate Frampton. Arguably, the latter of these two should also be getting credit on the cover since it is only these three creatives adapting the original novel (The Patchwork Girl Oz 1913).
The Patchwork Girl of Oz #5 comes out now from Image Comics.
