Cheshire Crossing

Weir (Artemis for adults) and Andersen (the Sarah’s Scribbles series for adults) team up to bring Weir’s early webcomic to print in this fantasy mash-up that pitches together Wendy Darling, Dorothy Gale, and Alice Liddell as teenagers diagnosed with “dissociative psychosis.” In 1910, the trio arrives at Cheshire Crossing, an English boarding school/research facility where they are the only patients—the doctor believes that they really can travel to other worlds and is soon proven correct. Alice uses Dorothy’s slippers to travel to Oz, and Wendy is drawn along as she attempts to stop Alice. It’s not long before all three and their umbrella-wielding caretaker face off against the Wicked Witch of the West and Captain Hook in an adventure that spans Earth, Neverland, Wonderland, and Oz. Andersen’s large-eyed characters are reminiscent of manga and scenes convey the crux of each world, but Captain Hook is portrayed as the lone protagonist of color, and the story retains stereotypical images of Native Americans in Neverland. Other elements—Dorothy’s history undergoing “electric shocks” in sanitariums, a Peter Pan aged to his teenage years and feeling “physical needs”—seem aimed at an audience older than the stated age range. Ages 8–12. (July)