Tell me about Swamp Thing

RELEASE THE HOUNDS.

(Haven't read any of the Losers, btw; have the trifecta trade on queue.)

http://www.horror-wood.com/plant.20.jpg

Yeah, i0dine, but Morrison's and Pollack's DPs were apples and oranges, really. GM's was about weirdness, RP's was about menstruation. Apples and oranges.

I really, really like the Marty Pasko issues, especially the ones on the cruise ship - with aliens that become a giant squid because of infection by herpes, how can it go wrong? Liz and Dennis are great in all their issues, and there are genuine WTF??!?!?!? moments like Casey becoming an adult before your eyes via her psychic powers, or Harry Kay and the whole concentration camp/Golem plot. Plus he came up with the insectoid Arcane.

They really deserve a trade.

not a whole lot of talk about millar's run here?

Andrew Farrell speaks highly of it.

What's not to like about G-Mo's MM's run? (actually not strictly true, the large-scale ELEMENTAL FITES were very dialogue heavy, perhaps too much so) The last bit, with a benevolent ruler over a transformed world, does feel a bit ripped off Miracleman though.

Am I the only one who feels nonplussed by Moore's Swamp Thing? I've read three or four different collections, and while all of them have had some nice moments, there's also way way too many captions, often filled with purple prose, and all in all there's lot of the worst type of Moore pretentiouness. Also, the love story between Abby and Swamp Thing is presented in a very clichéd and fairy-tale like manner, even though Moore generally tries to keep the characters down to earth. All this feels especially weird since Moore had already done most of V for Vendetta and Miracleman before, and was writing Watchmen at the same time, so it's not like he was an inexperienced writer or anything.

I think Swamp Thing maybe worked better in issues. That was the impression I formed when Vertigo reprinted it in black and white issues a while back.

way way too many captions, often filled with purple prose

sorta nails my issues w/ moore!

I'm not sure Tuomas is reading the same book that I did. Abby/Alec's love was presented as unearthly, but also grounded in the same sorts of experiences that are common to everyone, hence the "Rites of Spring" issue. As for it being a fairy-tale, well, it was presented in a book that was marginally, a superhero book, and superheroes (at the time) were pretty much just modern fairy tales. Though I don't see how you could reconcile that term with the horrors presented with The Monkey King, Arcane and Abby's trip to Hell.

And anyone who didn't start out on text-heavy comics (of which you had many examples in the 60s-80s in the US, actually it was the primary mode) would think that SWAMP THING is completely out of control when it came to text on the page. I actually like it. It feels like it was written as much as it was scripted. Haven't read it in several years, but I'm not sure I'd take the pruning shears to it. Different strokes, etc.

If you think there's a huge difference between SWAMP THING and his other contemporary work, I'd look to his editors and collaborators, since no writer is an island in comics, not even Alan Moore (who at the time was just another new writer and not the titan he is in the field now.)

Yeah, I love most everything Moore's done, but I've never been able to get into his Swamp Thing run. Too much caption-itis, etc.

It is too bad that Swamp Thing has not been put out in some Showcase editions, both the Bernie Wrightson and Totleben/Bissette artwork would look great in black and white.

I got into the Moore run on Swamp Thing pretty early on. It is a pretty crazy book when you think that the thing used to be sold in grocery stores, it wasn't even a direct title until way later on. I have not read any of those issues in twenty years, but they are on my list to go back and check out. I remember the issue where Abby eats the tubar was very trippy and the issues where Batman shows up with one of the Arcane arcs was really great.

I've read Moore's run more times than I can count - the first thing of his I ever saw (since it was the first American mass market thing of his available...? I remember seeing issues of Warrior around the same time). I musta been 12-13. The captions do get pretty purple and heavy-handed. Otoh it allows for him to do all kinds of great transitions - stuff he would later get a lot of mileage out of on Watchmen - it made the stories feel bound together by a creepy synchronicity.

Waiting for Heave Ho to start the Adrianne Barbeau thread on ILHTML.

I'm pretty sure there's some recent (last two or three years) pocket book format pre-Moore Swamp Thing repring.

yo: Secret of Swamp Thing

I guess the Moore run isn't that bad, it's just that too much text in captions is the one thing I hate most in comics, I've left quite a many comics in the shelf that might've been good otherwise (like Sacco's Palestine) because of that. It just totally undermines comics' own strength as a medium, since most of the stuff in the captions could be told with images. Also, it's often even so that the captions could be left off without changing anything else, because the images themselves already tell the story strongly enough, but it feels like the writer doesn't trust the images enough, so he has to include the extra text. This happens in Swamp Thing too, and the reason I find especially strange is that Moore is normally such a visual, anti-caption storyteller.

"Normally" needs to be placed in context - the majority of his work between 1978 and 1983 is very word-heavy. It's far more the style of the text than the wordiness itself that changed on Swamp Thing.

I haven't read a lot of his early work, but he'd already started V for Vendetta before Swamp Thing and was writing Watchmen around the same time, right? So the wordiness seems more an aesthetic choice than something he hadn't grown out of yet.

If you have real problems with wordy Alan Moore, check out the final Miracleman book he did.

Watchmen is two-three years later.

Watchmen hit the shops in 1986, and Moore's last Swamp Thing issue was in 1987, so he was writing them at the same time. I've read some 1986 Swamp Thing issues, and they still have that caption thing, so I think it's safe to say Moore simply chose a different aesthetic than with Watchmen.

From Hell = wordiest thing he ever did

(altho not captions)

Watchmen hit the shops in 1986, and Moore's last Swamp Thing issue was in 1987, so he was writing them at the same time. I've read some 1986 Swamp Thing issues, and they still have that caption thing, so I think it's safe to say Moore simply chose a different aesthetic than with Watchmen.

But he STARTED one before the other, they weren't consistently concurrent. It's ludicrous to argue that he chose his style on Swamp Thing in opposition to his style on Watchmen when Watchmen started years later, and to refuse to acknowledge that Watchmen was part of him deliberately moving away from his early, wordy aesthetic when you HAVEN'T READ any of the early stuff!

Swamp Thing was Bernie Wrightson's breakout work. I have all those early issues, they're great. Very ECish.

When I was a kid I had random issues of Swamp Thing, mainly from Moore's run. In the past year I've started reading it from the very beginning (Bronze Age Omnibus) and I'm currently in the Wheeler years.

The old monster comics were fine and fun, if repetitive. Swamp Thing falls off another truck and stumbles into shenanigans! Alan Moore had some perfect issues, occasionally handicapped by bad art. Bissette + Totleben is consistenly good in a strange, appropriate way. Alfredo Alcala's inking kills anything that it touches. He inked some Bissette and it sucked. He's the inker for the end of Moore's run all the way through Wheeler. I assume he leaves when Nancy Collins starts?

Rick Veitch's run sucks with occasionally bits of goodness. In general I dislike the intrusion of super heroes and guests in Swamp Thing, but Moore managed to do it well for the most part. During Veitch's tenure it becomes ridiculous and the art is clunky and the stories go off the rails. Doug Wheeler's run is also shit, maybe because the art is so bad? His voice is better than Veitch, but there's not a lot to love.

I feel like I'm chasing the high of Moore's run with drastically diminishing returns. How much longer before it gets better? Does it get better? I've read mixed things about Nancy Collins and her omnibus is out of print, so maybe I should give up on this.

Rick Veitch's run sucks

Get out.

The intertwining Veitch ST & Delano Hellblazer runs are some of my all-time favorite comics (as I mentioned fifteen years ago upthread and also elsewhere).

Nancy Collins's run is mostly godawful. Avoid.

Do yrself a favor and jump ahead to Morrison & Millar. You won't have missed anything.

Hmmm. If the Veitch bit is your fave, then I may hold out for more opinions on Collins.

Seriously, get Sgt Rock and Tomahawk and all the rando DC stars of yore out of my swamp horror. Honestly, I would be happy with a soap opera all about Abby, Alec & Teffe.

Is Sandman the thing to turn to if Alan Moore Swamp Thing was my jam?

Another vote for Roaring Rick here so take it with a salt lick but I would recommend more Moore really; the ABC comics are often extremely Swampy, partic Promethea

I've read two of the Moore collections and am working through the current miniseries by Ram V. That New 52 Omnibus that just came out has been calling to me.

wasn't resurrection of old, forgotten characters Moore's thing though? floronic man, solomon grundy, etrigan... that's basically what Watchmen is too. and loeg.

i have big holes in my swamp thing collection after volume 2, i should try and pick up the pieces. there's a comixology gn sale every month but they aren't the bargains they were.

Agree that skipping to the Millar run is better than reading anything in between, or jumping to Sandman and Promethea would both be more fulfilling. Maybe try Brat Pack on the way, just to see if you like Rick's actual thoughts on superheroes, though.

Or Maximortal, which is one of my favorite Veitch joints (and one of my favorite comics period).

Although if you didn't like his ST run he might just not be for you, as his other work isn't that dissimilar.

Brat Pack has an ending and is far more scabrous.

Fuck it. Bought a huge chunk of the rest of ST vol 2 off of Ebay fro pretty cheap. Can Nancy Collins be as bad as Doug Wheeler? I'll find out!

What about vol 3 that focuses on Tefe? Any good?

are you asking for reverse psychology or