Cartoonist Heather Meade quickly captured my interest with a surreal and disturbing start, with half a dozen teenagers lying bloodied on the ground before a young green-eyed girl with blood splattered on her face. From there, things only become yet more surreal, with the girl’s reflection stepping out of the mirror to confront her, before finally Vix starts awake, the bloody scene revealed to be a dream. It was a most superb start to the comic and the comic shifts to a more mundane setting, with Vix starting a new year of school, and we’re treated to a brief moment of normalcy before her world starts collapsing around her.

Along the way, Meade does an excellent job of introducing background elements to her world without overwhelming readers with information dumps, outside of a three-page summary concerning “unhumans” and how they’re treated by humanity as a whole. (To sum up quickly? Segregated and discriminated against.) Most of the background elements are provided by Vix’s own internal monologues as she comes to cope with the revelations of her own heritage and trying to find out who and what she is after Vix learns that the life she knew had been a lie.

The artwork tends to be fairly clean, with a good grasp of effective shading of characters and backgrounds, though there is a definite manga influence to Meade’s artwork. This is especially true with the frequent chibi-style artistic elements which often are used to depict moments of frustration and intense emotion with Vix. To be honest, I’m not fond of these elements; Meade has shown considerable talent with her art, and doesn’t need to rely on such crutches as over-exaggerated art found in the chibi-style. Given that DS has had over 160 updates to date, this is unlikely to change, and I’m sure there are plenty of readers who have no problem with this artistic element.

Most importantly to me, the comic has a firm story and has maintained a good grasp on continuity. This is partly because Meade had initially written much of the story as a novel before she adapted it to a graphic novel format. The pacing is fairly slow in places, but it helps in building the atmosphere and mood. The cast of characters outside of Vix have proven… interesting, though I must admit I liked her human friends better than most of the unhumans; no doubt with further exposure I’ll warm up to them as well. On the whole, dream*scar is definitely worth reading, and a webcomic I highly recommend.

Our Not-Dorothy has been joined with a crew as eclectic as the original who sought to visit the Wizard in the Emerald City; while the Scarecrow has stepped back into his old role (if older and wiser than he was the first time), the Tin Woodsman’s grandson, Warrick, has taken up his axe as he seeks to restore Oz and rescue Ozma. Amusingly, the Cowardly Lion is being represented by a rather nervous Munchkin, Agha, who much like the Lion has shown far greater courage than she realized she possessed. There’s even room for a Toto of sorts in the story with Warrick’s father (a shape-changing wizard currently in the form of a winged gumdrop)

The page itself is both artistic and disturbing in its depiction. Given the state of Oz (with its inhabitants having started to age once more after Ozma went missing several years back), having the four heroes travel along a path the color of decay makes some sense. The background image of Ozma, facing away and with a gaping hole in her middle, is likewise reminiscent of the decay of Oz itself… with Ozma herself the missing heart of Oz. It’s an interesting touch, and helps tell a story in and of itself. Interestingly, Emma’s companions are looking to her, perhaps for guidance despite her being a stranger with no ties to Oz. Given that print comic covers often have little to do with the story within, it’ll be interesting to see if this page will have any bearing on the story as a whole.

Perhaps part of the reason lies with Dan himself. Here we have an adventurer who has on multiple occasions fought and killed the demon Dark Pegasus (who, like most effective villains, has family on the side who resurrects him each time some hero comes along and lethally thwarts his latest scheme) and who has faced some nasty critters in the past… who is afraid of clowns. Well, perhaps that’s too strong of wording. He’s crept out by clowns and honestly doesn’t want to sleep in a bed that is surrounded by clown dolls (including a headboard that is basically a huge clown reaching out at you – that alone would make me consider sleeping off the bed).

No. It’s the glow-in-the-dark paint that gets him. And this is where I have to applaud Williams for one of the most effective uses of copy-and-paste art I’ve seen. By darkening the room, with just bare glimpses of light on Dan’s arm and eyes (and the glow of over a half dozen clown-dolls providing just enough light to shift the dolls from harmless but slightly-creepy, to downright disturbing and ominous figures), she managed to disguise quite nicely the fact it’s virtually the same panel. (I also enjoyed the cartoonist avatar insert on top of the headboard. It was a cute touch.) My only question is… will Dark Pegasus learn of Dan’s newest fear… and does that mean he’ll be putting clown makeup on prior to his next confrontation with the young hero?