“Featuring Swamp Thing!”
I posted a picture of this a while back, a blurry image from an auction I happened to spot on the eBay. However, with a whole lotta thanks to Reader Bob, who just happened to have a spare copy of this layin’ about, I now have my very own copy:
This is a magazine-sized 1980 Australian reprint of issues 15 through 18 of the original Swamp Thing series, written by David Michelinie and drawn by Nestor Redondo. The stories are in black and white, which makes for a nice showcase for Redondo’s beautiful linework:
Wrapping up the package is a Rip Hunter Time Master story and, inside the back cover, the poem “Slogging Through The Swamp on a Murky Evening” written by Swampy’s creator Len Wein.
Thanks for the neat item, Bob! And thank you, Murray!
Very cool, Mike! Although the Michelinie/Redondo run on the title is all but forgotten these days, I love those stories, which are very much in line with the Wein/Wrightson tales that preceded it. I don’t know why the second half of the first Swamp Thing series is so ignored. I can see why people disliked the last couple of issues, as that final story was just plain dumb (the one in which Edward Holland was introduced), but Michelinie’s work is great, and Redondo’s art, as seen above, is brilliant.
You have to wonder if this was legal or not. For some reason I think it would be even more fascinating if it was properly licensed.
If you put the name of the character on the cover, he’s not really a creature of the unknown, was he? More like a creatures of the already identified.
These would appear to be authorized (and really, it would’ve been hard for them to get the black plate image if not.) More on Murray Comics here.
Wein’s “Slogging…” poem is a parody of Frosts’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”. It was printed in House of Mystery #200 (1972) and reprinted in Showcase Presents: The House of Mystery #2(2006).
For a study of the Alan Moore and Rick Veitch issues of Swamp Thing visit http://tinyurl.com/2jc79
You can also check the collected edition from the National Library of Australia. http://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/4385049
What a country!
It’s almost a pity that information has already been provided about Murray comics, as there was all that opportunity for stuff about how apparently the Australian comics press was run by Kiwis and similar Conchords-based jokes.
“Murray: present!”
Glad it got to you okay, Mike. When you send comics halfway around the world, you half expect them to get lost somewhere on the way.
This comic was in a whole pile of old Murray comics I picked up from my parents’ place a few weeks back and there has been some good reading in there, even if they do smell a bit dodgy after a decade in storage. My favourites are still the Bumper Batcomics, which quite happily mixed up some Haney/Aparo Batman with some golden age stuff and then padded out the rest of the issue with Kobra or Man-Bat or some other Bat-family ephemera.
There is a really good website on the history of the Australian superhero reprints here: http://www.ausreprints.com/content/
Magnificent site. Lots of helpful information here. I am sending it to a few buddies ans additionally sharing in delicious. And of course, thanks to your effort!