The journey begins...
The Black Brick Road of OZ was a Web Comic by Xamag, based on L. Frank Baum's books about Oz.
It follows the adventures of a girl named Dorothy Gale and some other guys in the bizarre world of O.Z.
While early pages were posted in the author's gallery on DeviantArt
, the comic in its (current) entirety can be read on its own site now.
As of May 3, 2016, the comic will no longer be updated.
The Black Brick Road of OZ provides examples of:
- Anthropomorphic Food: Pepper's castle is populated by puppets made of food (mostly sweets), as well as such creatures as a waffle crab and hot dog (literally a dog).
- Ax-Crazy: Pepper.
- Break the Cutie: What happened to Leslie after she was sliced apart then put back together, losing her original limbs and her courage in the process.
- Cat Girl: Leslie Hoyden
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: The witches all have a corresponding color which they seem to share with the Country they rule (for example Pepper's color is yellow and Bastille's is violet).
- Each character also has a corresponding colour for their speech boxes (Dorothy's text is blue, Straw Shawn's orange, Munchkin's a neon green, etc.)
- Dark and Troubled Past: Nick seems to have a serious case of this.
- Dumb Is Good: Munchkin comments on how Straw Shawn (and probably all the other scarecrows Ferret revamped) is a fool compared to the rotten scarecrows, who are really good at their job. Justified in that all the nice (and fashionable) scarecrows had their brains taken by Ferret.
- Easy Amnesia: Dorothy claims her head is "sort of hazy" after her house crash landed, but she'll be fine soon. She doesn't remember much of her past (she can't even remember her name until she sees it on her drawing book) at this point, and it remains to be seen when and how her memory returns.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Bastille seems to be genuinely saddened by Pepper's death.
- Expressive Mask: Justified with Ferret, who states she was born with screens instead of eyes and wears one to make her look more normal.
- Faceless Eye/Oculothorax: Winkies are flying alarm clocks with single differently colored eyes in place of dial, some pincers and insectoid legs.
- Family-Unfriendly Death: Pepper, the Wicked Witch of the East, dies being splattered by a house. It happens before the comic starts, but you get to see the gory aftermath.
- Funetik Aksent: Bastille has this, replacing "w" with "v" and "th-" with "d".
- God Save Us from the Queen!: Apparently Pepper was a rather harsh ruler for the Yellow Land. If other witches are any better remains to be seen.
- Hot Witch: While none of the witches can be described as bad-looking and all of them dress rather elegantly, Ferret is the most obvious example of this trope.
- I'm a Humanitarian: Pepper is implied to have a taste for human flesh in her interview at the end of first chapter.
- Kill It with Fire: Straw Shawn's way of dealing with foes.
- Level Ate: Judging by the names of some of its location (as seen on a map provided by Quadling) and what we've seen of Pepper's castle and its surrounding area, Yellow Country has a lot of places that fall into this trope.
- Living Toys: According to Quadling, both he and Pepper's castle's sweet-made population are dolls. They're very much living.
- Non-Human Sidekick: Straw Shawn is a living scarecrow, and he's the first person to join Dorothy's party.
- Off to See the Wizard: Well, more like Off to See the Witch. The story is based on The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and other books about Oz, with Dorothy arriving in her house being carried by a hurricane and going to the Good Witch of the West to return home.
- Planimal: Leslie's "wooden zoo" consists of animate plants having the form of various animals.
- Posthumous Character: The first time we see Pepper she's already crushed by Dolly's house.
- Pyromaniac: Rotten scarecrows (and apparently Straw Shawn too, if to a lesser extent) enjoy settings things like people's houses on fire. And, being scarecrows, they themselves are made of highly flammable materials!
- Scary Scarecrows: Rotten scarecrows behave like zombies and set things on fire. They're as effective at scaring crows as they are at scaring people.
- Scenery Porn: Backgrounds are often quite rich in detail and a pleasure to look at. There's even a couple of pages of nothing but scenery.
- Smoking Is Glamorous: Ferret, so very much.
- Sweet Tooth: Pepper loves sweets to the point she chose Yellow Country to rule just because it manufactures sweets.
- Tsundere: It's not like Nick worries about little girls and straw puppets or anything! Baka!
- Two-Faced: Quadling has a second face on the back of his head. And the rest of his body just kinda grows from the mouth of that face.
- The Unintelligible: Sharky speaks in a weird language that no one can understand apparently. His speech is actually written in a special font that you can decypher if you try hard enough.
- Wicked Witch: Averted. While Bastille and Pepper are outright called Wicked Witches, they don't fall under most of stereotypes associated with the title.
- The Wonderland: With locations made of food, patchwork and other things, snail phones and barking crows, O.Z. sure is weird, but it's not chaotic.
- Would Hurt a Child: Whoever or whatever "Bastille's people" were, they apparently didn't have any qualms about cutting 7 year old Leslie to pieces for trespassing.
