Its either very cool, or a little weird, or maybe both, that Mark Bode, Vaughn Bode's son, is able to so completely emulate (or copy) his father's style of art. I've never really decided how I feel about it. But then my father isn't a famous underground comic book artist who died too young, either.

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The Lizard of Oz

Mark Bode and Vaughn Bode

Fantagraphics, The Bode Library, 2004, 56 pages

Vaughn Bodé's son delivers his father's magnum opus.

Back in the 1960s and 1970s, underground comix superstar Vaughn Bode fathered an entire world of wonderful characters, including Cheech Wizard, the belligerent "cartoon gooroo"; his trademark naive lizards and buxom "Bodé babes"; eccentric robots; and much, much more. Tragically, Bodé's premature death in 1975 deprived his loyal readers of reading any further adventures of these marvelously unique creations...until now.

Working from ideas developed by Vaughn Bodé right before his death, his son Mark has re-enlisted his father's entire cast of characters for The Lizard of Oz, a full-color graphic novel that pays playful homage to and parodies the classic L. Frank Baum fairy tale (and its beloved film adaptation). Mark's graphic style perfectly duplicates and extends Bodé's unique, lush, brilliantly colorful, pillowy graphic approach that has made him, even a quarter century after his death, a profound inspiration on several generations of cartoonists and graffiti artists.

Blessed with an original full-color wraparound cover by Vaughn Bodé (one of his last completed works), augmented with a long introduction by Bodé expert and Paper magazine contributor Carlo McCormick that explores the legacies of both Bodé and Oz creator L. Frank Baum, as well as with a sketchbook of Mark's preparatory work for this ambitious book, The Lizard of Oz is one last book-length romp with a group of fictional old friends and a witty tip of the magician's hat to a classic of fantasy literature. Full-color comics throughout