Broken Frontier

Illusive Arts Entertainment is pleased to announce the release of Dorothy Chapter V:  Echoes of a Road, the latest issue in this ongoing, innovative comic, which re-imagines L. Frank Baum's The Wizard of Oz in a genre-bending photo-comic manner.   This is the first new issue of the comic since the trade paperback collection.

"Dorothy #5 is an important issue for the reader," says series writer Mark Masterson. "We learn a lot about the background of this vision of Oz, and get a glimpse of where Dorothy's headed.”

“This is the issue that wouldn't die,” says Masterson. “It was tough from the very beginning, but then it was like a slasher movie.  We just couldn't put it down!  Every time you'd think some aspect was done, it would leap out of a closet and stab you in the brain.  Metaphorically speaking.”

Each issue of Dorothy is plotted by Greg Mannino and Mark Masterson. After completing storyboards, a team of up to five creative wizards uses digital photography, blue screens, models and actors to build the story.  These basic images are then re-colored on a computer and placed into the 2 and 3-D Oz environments.  The resulting art is laid out as comic book pages.  Dialogue and captions come last, tailored to fit the finished pages.  For this issue, 3-D effects artist Ray Boersig stepped into the director's chair for the first time.

Dorothy #5 challenged Ray and the team with new photographers and actors to work with, new software for post-production, crashed hard drives, missing costumes, story changes, and the ever-present goal of figuring out how to make this comic work when there are no others quite like it.  But the end result is more than worth it.

“Dorothy is one of the most unique reading experiences I have had in ages, and that is enough to keep me as a satisfied customer of the series,” says Colleen Mondor of Bookslut.com. “Dorothy is like nothing you have ever read, I promise. It will remind you of all the great and good things that used to happen everyday in the comic book industry; it will remind you just how great storytelling can be.”

Dorothy Chapter V arrives in stores March 2006 with a retail price of $5.00.  Art samples and further details can be found at www.dorothyofoz.com.