Love of Change

I remember when Bissette and Tottleben started doing covers, and my initial discomfort with it.
My young self liked a "cleaner" art style, if you will, but as these covers started rolling out I knew they enticed in a different way - those Bissette lines... so organic, and sooo much emotion in the eyes.

So much of my love of Swamp Thing, looking back, is the love of change - and of change being betterment.

God, these were good days to be a kid - and this kid got smarter thanks to Swamp Thing - this messier "realer" art would grow up with me, and looking back I can still feel the energy coming off of it - beautiful stuff.

A.

Two Weirdos

Can't wait for this...
I'm obviously a Swamp Thing nut, but I grew up on Plastic Man - he's awesome, and an unchanged awesome - seriously, he's looked the same forever... and who doesn't love Brian Bolland's brilliant linework?

That cover design is nice too, with the portion of flat grey behind - very similar to the cover designs of Swamp Thing's original '70s run. It's an interesting thing and I notice it now and again - current comic book artists using styles and touches from comic books of wayyy back. Nice.


I'll have to do a post on the wide and wild variations of Swamp Things "Style and Appearance" by different artists over the years. He's been drawn by some amazing people who never drew the comic itself - Bolland, Gulacy, Adams, Cho, Hembeck...
I just love covers like this one - and it is always nice to see the lesser known DC characters hanging out together. My problem with the company is that they seem to have forgotten FUN, but this issue and a lot of what is being done in CONVERGENCE seems to be about something other than "grim n gritty" which I just can't stand.

Sadly, as I've talked about before, I think the New 52 is a total loss, but I am finally looking forward to some DC comics again...

Arthur

Another Swamp Thing Reunion(dammit)

If, by chance, you're hanging around San Jose in April, you might want to check out the BIG WOW COMIC FESTIVAL for a couple o' good reasons:
1) It's a comic book festival - that's already excellent.

2) SWAMP THING REUNION!!!
One featuring Steve Bissette, John Tottleben, Rick Vietch and the underappreciated Tom Yeates. To say I wish I could attend would be an understatement for sure, but you should go for me...
You can say "thanks" to Frank Cho for the groovy Swampmen cover, and get a whole bunch of Swamp Thing sketches by those amazing cats.
The guest list is wild, and having gone to NY comicon in '08 I can say honestly that if you haven't done one of these, YOU SHOULD. You can't imagine the energy of it, and there are surprises around every corner, and you'll find your face hurts from smiling.

The fest runs April 18/19 @ the San Jose Convention Center, and if you're a Swamp Thing devotee, this is one for you.

Cheers,
AC

The SWAMPMEN

Comic Book Creator is a magazine about the men and women who make comic books - specifically, really really good comic books.
And this is a really really good issue.

It's an absolute goldmine of info about ALL of the comic book and magazine published swamp monsters over the years, but yeah - Swamp Thing is clearly #1, having had more than one extremely

strong run as a series, and an undeniable impact on the industry itself.

Lively new interviews with Len Wein, Bernie Wrightson, Alan Moore, Stephen Bissette, John Tottleben make this an absolutely irresistible read, and a treat for those of us who devoured every issue as it rolled out to the stands.

The book is gorgeous, and a must for any fan of the era, the characters or just plain good old fashioned creepy storytelling. It's filled with trivia, and a lot of new artwork too - if you know any Swamp Thing fans, I'd buy them this one.

I finally get a shot of Man-Thing and Swamp Thing together by Stephen Bissette, who is one cool cat, and another goldmine of groovy comic book knowledge.
Beautiful cover by Frank Cho, who should be commissioned to do a Swamp graphic novel - just saying...

Thanks to Jon B. Cooke and George Khoury, who had planned on publishing the book a few years back but waited. It was worth it, and I for one am extremely happy with it.

Cheers,
Arthur

New TITLE of our Swamp Thing Blog

From here on in the blog formerly know as
Swamp Thing: Blog from the Bog
will be retitled and called
Swamp Thing 101. It's simpler and I've never actually been a big fan of the word "blog".

"argghh, this title is long and unwieldy..."

Swamp Thing 101 will be doing a lot more writing/publishing.

Yayyyy!! Swamp Thing 101

Simple is better.

cheers,
Arthur