I've been dealing with crappy home problems and travel, so I'm taking a bit of comic time off this September on Crow Time and Namesake so I can survive juggling this many plates. The next two updates are these notebook sketches! Here is the second!

I usually do a bunch of notebook sketches of characters before they appear to nail down their appearance, but the shopkeeper and wizard came together really quickly, with one looking very sharp and the other very soft. I know a lot of modern Oz retellings go for a really sly fox look for the wizard, but I always like the soft grandpa aesthetic because it always seemed like an easier approach if the goal is to swindle people. In "Into the Woods" fashion : you're not good, you're just nice.

It's going to be quite a shock when the baby he tossed to Mombi returns to ask a bunch of existential questions that he is not really equipped for.