June 2010

Die Zombies von Oz
(The Zombies of Oz)

This wrap-around book-cover was very special to work on. Not only because its subject is leant towards the well known and fantastic world of L. Frank Baums "The Wizard of Oz", but rather because my friend and german author Christian Endres involved me to his latest story collection, after I've already done an portrait for his published "Sherlock Holmes und das Uhrwerk des Todes" in 2009.

Christian also allowed me to read the more than twelve Oz-related storys and the longer title story while he was writing them. Moreover he asked for critics and took my opinion pretty seriously. He worked on chapters over and over and forwarded different versions to me, which made it possible to follow the development of the storys. He gave me a good chance to look behind the scenes and the work of an author.

"Oz is a very rich mythology", Christian said about the realms of Frank Baum and his project. "And as Greg [Ruth] says in his foreword to the book: Oz is a huge part of our pop culture. I love the marvelous land of Oz, too, and asked myself in which ways I could connect 12 very different storys, from classical sword and sorcery fantasy to modern horror, with the spirit of Oz. As in my Holmes-collection, I play again with lots of allusions and references, while the titel story is more obvious some kind of fantastic prequel to the very first Oz-book by Baum. As Dorothy comes back to Kansas, nearly all people are walking dead. So she returns to Oz - and there it's almost the same. Almost ..."