Saga of the Swamp Thing #33: "Abandoned Houses"

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The most successful animated compost heap in comics, Swamp Thing first emerged from the bog in the summer of 1972 to make his muddy debut in DC's Swamp Thing #1. Len Wein was the writer and Berni Wrightson, a disciple of both Frank Frazetta and Graham "Ghastly" Ingels, was the artist.

The folk belief in spontaneous generation, the notion that a living organism can form from nonliving matter, is many centuries old. It became a favorite of comic books from the 1940s onward, providing such Swamp Thing precursors as the Heap and Solomon Grundy and such contemporaries as Marvel's Man-Thing.

An earlier prototype had appeared in House of Secrets in the summer of 1971. Revamped, he became Swamp Thing and got his own book a year later. Never a major hit despite two movies and a television series, he has managed to hold on in comics. Wein and Wrightson concocted sentimental horror tales about a scientist who was transformed into a muck-encrusted horror after being doused by chemicals when his bayou lab was destroyed by criminals. Swamp Thing was a caring monster, and Wein's scripts worked at being touching, even philosophical, but the real attraction of the early issues was the spidery, vaguely disturbing Wrightson artwork.

Another series devoted to the forlorn bayou monster began in 1982 as Saga of the Swamp Thing and later became simply Swamp Thing. The team of Alan Moore and Steve Bissette, who worked on the newer version, earned the title considerable attention. That second series ended in 1996, and Swamp Thing returned under the Vertigo banner for twenty issues from 2000 to 2001. Mike Kaluta provided some of the drawing.

Script: Alan Moore/Len Wein
Pencils and inks: Ron Randall/Berni Wrightson

Reprinted:

• from House of Secrets (DC, 1969 series) #92 (Pictured inset).
  
• in Essential Vertigo: Swamp Thing (DC, 1996 series) #14.
• in Saga of the Swamp Thing (DC, 2009 series) #2.

Green Lantern #188: "Mogo Doesn't Socialize"

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Another British artist who made a name for himself in American comics, Dave Gibbons's first major attention-getting work was DC's twelve-part Watchmen series, which hit the stands in the summer of 1986. By then, Gibbons had been working, by mail for the most part, for DC for four years and drawing such dependable heroes as Batman, Superman, and the Green Lantern. It was Watchmen, however, with scripts by Alan Moore, that won him a much larger audience, considerable attention from his peers, glowing reviews in both fanzines and mainstream publications, and a variety of awards. For English comics Gibbons had done artwork for such titles as 2000 A.D. and Dr. Who.

Working in his assured illustrative style, Gibbons has continued contributing to American comics. One of his more ambitious projects in the early and middle 1990s was drawing the Give Me Liberty series of graphic novels published by Dark Horse and scripted by Frank Miller. Set in the near future, they deal with an American turned fascist and have an African-American woman named Martha Washington as the main focal character. Once again Gibbons did an impressive job in depicting an alternate world.

More recently he drew the Green Lantern issues in DC's Just Imagine series, bringing to life Stan Lee's take on the character. Working with such writers as Alan Moore and Frank Miller has apparently had an effect on Gibbons, and he has been doing some writing of late. He's scripted a World's Finest Batman and Superman team-up, drawn by Steve Rude, and worked with artist Andy Kubert on Batman Versus Predator.



Credits for Tales of the Green Lantern Corps back-up story:

Script: Alan Moore
Pencils and inks: Dave Gibbons
Colors: Tony Tollin
Letters: Dave Gibbons

Reprinted:

• in Best of DC, The (DC, 1979 series) #71 (April 1986)
• in Across the Universe: The DC Universe Stories of Alan Moore (DC, 2003 series) #nn
• in DC Universe: The Stories of Alan Moore (DC, 2006 series) #nn

Doc Stearn...Mr. Monster #3: "Case of the Recalcitrant Refuse"

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Mr. Monster chronicles the adventures of Doc Stearn, a man who tangles with any and every type of occult menace. Michael T. Gilbert is responsible for the art and usually the story, too, but Alan Moore guest writes this issue and a Steve Bissette cover rounds out the entire magazine.

"Now... let's get out there and blast those subhuman vermin to bloody gobbets!"

Case of the Recalcitrant Refuse
Script: Alan Moore
Pencils: Michael T Gilbert
Inks: Michael T Gilbert and William F Loebs



















Basil Wolverton is one of the few comic book artists whose work can legitimately be called unique. Although he created such serious adventure features as Spacehawk, he's best remembered for such non-serious and nonsensical inventions as Powerhouse Pepper, Mystic Moot and his Magic Snoot, and the grotesqueries he later drew for Mad and Plop!

One of the major appeals of Wolverton's space opera was the artwork. He was very good at gadgets, especially the kind that require lots of nuts and bolts. His spaceships had the bulk and feel of ocean liners, the control rooms were as cluttered with pipes and dials as an apartment-house basement.


Swamp Monster
Script: Basil Wolverton
Pencils and inks: Basil Wolverton

Reprinted:

• from Weird Mysteries (Key Publications, 1952 series) #5.

• in Doc Stearn...Mr. Monster (Eclipse, 1985 series) #3.
• in Tales Too Terrible to Tell (New England Comic Press Inc, 1989 series) #9.
• in Four Color Fear (Fantagraphics, 2010 series) #[nn].