Of all the characters in The Wizard of Oz, the one Angelo Tirotto most identified with a few years ago was the tornado.

The British comic-book creator and writer was psyched about watching a TV show that took a well-known classic tale, set it in modern times and added a twist. But excitement soon turned to frustration on a natural-disaster level.

"By the end of the first episode, I felt deflated and a little angry because it had been executed so poorly," Tirotto says. "It was such a waste and I thought I could do better, so I put pen to paper and started writing notes."

From that came No Place Like Home, Tirotto's Image Comics series with artist Richard Jordan that takes a wildly different and horrific trip down the Yellow Brick Road. And the more Tirotto read about L. Frank Baum's wonderful world of Oz, the more alive his two female protagonists, Dee and Lizzie, became.