"Here comes Swampmania."
Add this to your “will never show up on CD, ever” collection – the Swamp Thing movie soundtrack composed by Harry Manfredini. Track titles include “Ferret Meets The Swamp Thing,” “Swamp Thing to The Rescue,” and the heartbreaking “Swamp Thing’s Farewell.” The best song title is “Airboats, Guns, and Grenades,” which movies quite frankly don’t have enough of nowadays.
The front of the album cover features that great movie poster illustration by Richard Hescox, while half of the back cover is taken up by an extensive essay by the film’s co-producer Michael Uslan (who went on to work on another comic-based movie or two). He details the history of the Swamp Thing character, as well as the efforts made in translating the character to the big screen. Most tantalizing (for me, at least) is this paragraph near the end of the essay:
“Coinciding with the world premiere of Swamp Thing in Charleston, South Carolina, the location of the filming, related books and merchandise will be hitting stores all over the world. Tor Books is publishing the movie novelization by Len Wein and David Houston, as well as a paperback reprinting the first three original Wein & Wrightson comic books. From Eclipse Enterprises comes the official souvenir program book which sells in the theatres as well as in comic book specialty shops, the illustrated Wes Craven screenplay, and an art portfolio book of scenes from the film as rendered by fandom favorite Paul Gulacy. A children’s hardcover book detailing the movie make-up of Swamp Thing will be forthcoming from Crown. A poster fold-out magazine will be published in addition to the great new monthly Swamp Thing comic book series from DC Comics. DC also has the Swamp Thing Annual #1, which is a comic book adaptation of the film. Meanwhile, keep a look out for Swamp Thing bubble gum cards, sleepwear, Halloween costumes, toys, games, T-shirts and (believe it or not) underwear! All this and a Hanna-Barbera Saturday morning cartoon series too. Here comes Swampmania.”
Okay, some of those I have already, but I don’t believe I ever saw the trading cards, and I think I’m lucky the underwear never came out (I’d have a hard time explaining why I had those in the collection). I’m also fairly certain the Crown book on the make-up was never released…I wonder how much of the merchandise was held back or outright cancelled once the licensors saw the film.
Another vaguely Swamp Thing-related record release is this 1986 45 RPM single by the Chameleons (b/w with the David Bowie cover “John, I’m Only Dancing”). While the lyrics to the song might only be tangentially related to the comic character (if you kind of squint a bit), the song itself is quite moody and fitting to the tone of the comic. The song is available on the Strange Times CD (and you can hear a sample here)
