Angelo Thomas finds blue skies on the other end of the rainbow in ‘Somewhere…’

One of Angelo Thomas’ earliest memories involves watching a VHS copy of “The Wizard of Oz” on the small television at his grandmother’s house, the filmmaker recalling how he would rewind certain scenes time and again in an effort to figure out precisely how director Victor Fleming achieved the special effects.

“Even as a toddler, I understood this was a movie that people made,” said Thomas, who was just 3- or 4-years-old at the time. “I have nephews who are around that age now, and I don’t know if they experience media in that same way. But for me, I understood it was something that was constructed, and I wanted to figure out how it was done.”

These early experiences informed both Thomas’ love for filmmaking – in recent years he has directed feature films (“The Incredible Jake Parker”), documentaries (“DeRosa: Life, Love & Art in Transition”), and shorts (“Three Quarters Dead”) – as well as all things Oz. In an early March interview, Thomas recounted how he had returned to the story repeatedly throughout his life, drawing new lessons and comforts from the tale as he aged into adulthood.

“I think I understand more now why I relate to Dorothy and her sense of not fitting in, and of wishing there were some other place where maybe she had more of a purpose,” Thomas said. “And there are also a lot of queer themes in ‘The Wizard of Oz’ that people have studied and written at great length about over the years, which is an aspect of it, too, with safe places and chosen family.”

Given these lifelong connections, which also included trick-or-treating as different characters from the film on Halloweens throughout childhood, it was almost inevitable that Thomas would at some point make his own contribution to the Oz canon. More surprising, however, is the form his work has taken, the filmmaker partnering with Dayton artist Rebecca Butterworth to create Somewhere…, his debut comic book, which releases on Wednesday, March 11.

Initially intended as a feature film, Thomas pivoted once he realized the cost to do the project big-screen justice exceeded the finances available to him at the time, leaning into the comic form because it allowed for a similarly visual style of storytelling. “At first I thought maybe it would be a book, but then I thought a comic could be … more useful in terms of making an eventual film, because you can actually see the story visualized in great detail,” said Thomas, who will join Butterworth in celebrating the release of Somewhere… at Laughing Ogre Comics from noon-2 p.m. on Saturday, March 14. “And after having it in my head for three years, it was nice to see how someone else envisioned certain scenes.”

While Thomas began writing the original screenplay for the project three years ago, the events that inspired it stretch back much further, with the filmmaker drawing upon his experiences having grown up with a father who spent time incarcerated. 

As a child, Thomas said he found comfort in films such as “Mrs. Doubtfire” and “The Parent Trap,” coming to realize later in life that much of this solace stemmed from how these movies depicted divorce, both showing relatively well-adjusted children still deeply loved by both parents in spite of the circumstances.

“And I started to think, what would it be like to have that kind of representation for children who have a parent incarcerated?” said Thomas, who is no stranger to allowing the most intimate details of his life bleed into and shape his creative output. “What would it have meant to me to have that kind of representation? And to know that things could turn out okay in the end, and that family can be complicated, and my parents still love me?”

Though informed by “The Wizard of Oz,” the comic isn’t a straight retelling, Thomas grounding its narrative in reality and littering the text with Easter eggs for those familiar with the original tale. So while there is no twister, Dorothy does at one point purchase a bag of Twisters candy from a gas station convenience store. And rather than a Tin Man, the teenager is helped along on her journey by a father with a metal prosthetic arm and his own tragic backstory. 

Thomas said he sees many aspects of his own childhood experience in Dorothy, whose mother guards her from the reality that her father is locked away in an Ohio prison. “And I was often kept in the dark by my family members about what was happening [with my father], which was extremely frustrating,” Thomas said. “As a child, I wanted to know everything. And I never understood why certain information was kept from me.”

There are also numerous differences between Thomas’ childhood and the events depicted within Somewhere…, which begins with Dorothy’s decision to run away from her home in search of answers about her father and closes with the two speaking by phone through prison glass. 

“I did have the opportunity to visit my dad at one point, but I wasn’t able to, because it was just too daunting and scary for me as a kid,” said Thomas, who added that his father is no longer incarcerated and the two have a great relationship. “But those experiences played a big part in my childhood. And I imagine there are a lot of other people who go through that, and I don’t think there’s a lot of conversation about the impact it has on the family, the impact it has on the child, the impact it has on the parent. And maybe this can help start that conversation or at least give some visibility or hope or comfort to anyone touched by that situation.”