Click Your Heels – Review Of No Place Like Home #1

UK creator, Angelo Tirotto, says in the back material of his new book that this story was conceived in March 2009, after watching a television program and being angry “that they had squandered a brilliant idea”. Now, I don’t know about the state of British television in the Spring of 2009, but Stateside that season, for every good program that might have tried to eke out an existence in the choking, murky depths of network television’s prime time schedule (say, Reaper) we were hit with several other series that might have had a shot with better writers, but ended up dying on the sea floor because of poor execution (Crusoe, Harper’s Island, Howie Do It…nah, actually, nothing was saving that one. It just sucked.). But, kudos to Tirotto. Where most of us just take our flaming rants to the water cooler or Television Without Pity, he chose to use his anger for the power of good. He wrote a better story. No Place Like Home is the fruit of those labors.

Grab your ruby slippers. Spoilers and the inspiration for the cover after the jump.

No Place Like Home, as the title suggests, is loosely based around the idea of The Wizard Of Oz. Main character, Dee, comes home to Emeraldsville, Kansas in the summer of 2001 to bury her parents who have been killed because of a tornado, which has devastated the area. All is not entirely as it seems, however. The burial is closed casket and the local drunk is jabbering that Dee should leave because “the winds are coming, like before”. In my own life, Rob often warns me that “the winds are coming, like before” and I should get to safety, but there’s usually a beef and bean burrito involved. Safe to say that is not the case here. Townsfolk downplay the behavior of crazy drunk, Thomas, but also don’t want to talk about how his brother, William, died mysteriously years before. Is it related to a picture of which all the older folks seem to have a copy, showing Thomas, William and eight others all happily together in 1959?

This book was the surprise find from last week’s LCS take. As a long time fan of the original L. Frank Baum Oz books, from way back in my childhood, I’m intrigued as to where Tirotto will take the story. The plot is well paced and back story is uncovered with a deft hand, without the jarring exposition bombs that can plague a brand new book containing characters and story unfamiliar to readers. The Oz geek in me is excited by the previews of covers for some of the following issues, which hint that there will be a flying monkey in some capacity, and a bad ass one at that. I have to give credit to Rob for finding the book though. He was intrigued by Dee’s….assets on the cover. Tirotto reported on the Comic Book Resources Image Forum that the cover was intended as an homage:

Whether it is an homage to Lisbeth Salander or Rooney Mara’s pose as Lisbeth Salander on that cover, I’m not sure. But, hey, we bought the book, right?

 That cover was designed by comic art newcomer Richard Jordan, who handles the interior art as well. His style is straightforwardly realistic, reminiscent of Darrick Robertson in his use of line and shadowing. The story and the art pair well together. Tirotto’s story is dialogue forward; Jordan’s art conveys the needed action of each panel clearly, whether it is the aftermath of a tornado or a lazy evening shooting up beer bottles with old friends. One does not distract from the other.

Image books can be tricky things to track down and continued publication of a given title is contingent on sales numbers, even more so than with the Big Two. This is a book I’d like to continue to read. I’m going to let our local comic book shop owner, who knows us by name and only occasionally has to remind Rob that he is not a flying monkey and, even if he was, should not fling his feces in the store, know that I’d like to add this book to my pulls. I’d encourage you to do the same.