In this dark re-imagining of the Oz mythos, readers will learn the surprisingly bleak consequences of Dorothy Gale killing the Wicked Witch of the West. The resulting power vacuum has led to years of civil war and magical bloodshed. Oz is now known as "The Occupied Zone," and it falls on Dorothy's granddaughter - an Iraq War veteran with a bad case of PTSD - to bring peace to this war-torn realm.
"You've seen me tackle crime and romance, but you aren't ready for our latest twist on epic fantasy with The O.Z.," Pepose told IGN. "Teaming up with rising star artist Ruben Rojas, we're re-imagining L. Frank Baum's iconic Wizard of Oz mythology to explore trauma, guilt and morality during wartime. We've been so excited to show the world what we've been working on that we weren't willing to wait another second — if you're a fan of Mad Max, The Old Guard, or the Sheriff of Babylon, you're going to want to join us in the trenches for The O.Z."
The O.Z. #1 is being offered exclusively through Kickstarter, and the campaign is live now. Pepose tells IGN there will be a total of four Kickstarter campaigns for THE O.Z., one for each of the three, 44-page issues and a fourth for the eventual collected edition.
In other creator-owned comics news, Batman icons Scott Snyder and Tony Daniel are joining forces for a horror comic called Nocternal, while current Batman writer James Tynion IV is teaming with Dying Is easy's Martin Simmonds for a conspiracy thriller called The Department of Truth. Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.