Category Archives: Cowardly Lion

The Gang, with Color

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I think I’ve mentioned once or twice that I don’t consider coloring to be one of my strong suits. I think I can do it well but it does require a lot of trial and error on my part for me to feel like I’ve done it well. I’m a noodler. I like gradients and detail. Just laying down flat colors and calling it good is hard for me.

Flat coloring is faster than gradient, layered color, however, and I’m trying to speed up my processes. For the current incarnation of Oz Squad I’m just doing flat colors. So, even though my fingers are itching to add shadows and highlights, I’m calling this done.

Urrrghh.

Some of the Gang

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I started this illustration a few years ago. With Oz-Squad.com getting put together I figured that now was a good time to finish it. I’d originally intended it as a promo illustration for the Oz Squad comic revival. Now I’ll be using it as the illustration on the intro page of the website. I did the last of the inking and scanned it in on Friday. If all goes well I’ll have it colored in time to post that version on Monday. If all goes really I’ll have the text of the introduction finished as well and they can both go up together.

The Black Lion

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The Lion in 1955. Or maybe it’s a Lion in 1955. Dorothy was replaced involuntarily. Perhaps the Lion had a substitute as well? I don’t know. The 1955 Lion appears twice in the flashback in issue 8 and neither version looks different than any of Terry Loh’s contemporary versions of the Lion. But, since everyone else on the Squad has gone through changes since Dorothy first came to Oz over a century ago, it seemed unfair to have the Lion stay the same in every incarnation.

A Lion Among Men

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When he goes to Earth, the Lion uses an enchantment that makes him appear to be a human being. I assume that the enchantment actually transforms him into a human but it’s possible that his human guise is merely an illusion. Given that a human and a giant lion will fill space differently, a  physical transformation seems more practical but I don’t know for certain which it is. I’ll have to ask Steve about it sometime.

The Lion, Before the Tornado

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Spot illustration #7 for the Oz-Squad.com and Skookworks.com header designs.

As a kid, of Dorothy’s first four Oz companions, I liked the Lion the best. I think that’s partly because he got the least story time in any of the Oz sequels. I couldn’t get tired of him. He doesn’t get a lot of respect. Not even from his creator. He didn’t even appear in the second book. He mostly just appears as flavor in later books. He didn’t get a book named after him until the 16th sequel (and Baum was dead). He’s depicted as a guy in lion suit in That Movie. And don’t get me started on A Lion Among Men.

Imagine my delight at the pagetime he gets in March of the Tin Soldiers. As well as decent explanation of why he isn’t along on all the adventures. Thank you Steve!

Coloring Oz – Lion 4

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And here is the final colored version of the Lion for the secret Oz Squad project. With the other character portraits I’ve done in this series I’ve put some scene in the background that refers to that character’s past. Except for a little bit of green, suggesting the forest, I didn’t do that for the Lion. Partly that’s because the Lion’s past isn’t described in any detail. (I could have draw him pouncing on Toto but I honestly didn’t think of that until just now.) Partly I wanted him to fill up the illustration space to demonstrate his size. The Lion isn’t some little Earth lion. He’s huge, the size of a horse. Not a creature you want to mess with.

Coloring Oz – Lion 3

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After the various past posts I’ve done on my Photoshop coloring process I’m not sure what I could say today that would be new. I’m continuing to post different stages in the process because I find it fun when other artists do the same thing with their work. If you happen to have any questions about my process feel free to ask.

Coloring Oz – Lion 2

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In a land of intelligent, talking animals what do the predators eat? In more than one of the Oz books, Baum, the author, suggests that they eat each other. But he only suggests, vaguely implies, it. None of the main character predators: the Hungry Tiger, the Cowardly Lion, Toto the dog or Eureka the pink kitten, are ever show actually eating. A few bad animals, dragons, Kalidahs, the Skoodlers and other BAD folks threaten to eat our heroes but they never succeed.

In Gregory Macguire’s Wicked Years series there are both animals (the dumb sorts we’re used to) and Animals (who can think and talk). Animals eat animals.

In Skipp and Levinthal’s The Emerald Burrito of Oz there’s a brainless animal called a goomer that serves as the food source for all Oz predators.

I’m not sure what the predators eat in Steve Ahlquist’s version of Oz.

Coloring Oz – Lion 1

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Of Dorothy’s three companions in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz the Cowardly Lion is my favorite. I suspect that this has more to do with my affinity for underdogs and neglected characters than because he’s necessarily more interesting than the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman. It seems like Baum, the author of the Oz books, didn’t know what to do with the Lion. After Wizard the Lion gets very little page time. I don’t think he’s even mentioned in Land of Oz, the first Oz sequel. He shows up again, along with the Hungry Tiger, in Ozma of Oz, the third Oz book, but mostly he’s around to pull Ozma’s chariot. In most of the subsequent novels that his primary function. The only Baum written book that I remember him having a significant part in, post-Wizard, is The Lost Princess of Oz. And in Princess he’s one of many characters searching for the kidnapped Ozma.

I have to admit that the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman are more unusual than the Lion. One is a living scarecrow. The other is a tin simulacrum of a man named Nick Chopper. The two are good friends and hang out together. Baum obviously enjoyed writing about them. Once they fulfilled their quests for brains and a heart they were still unique characters. Once the Lion got his courage? Then he was basically just a talking lion. You’d think that would make him interesting enough, wouldn’t you?