Tuesday quickies.

§ February 27th, 2007 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on Tuesday quickies.

  • All hail the mighty Neilalien, who just celebrated seven years of comic book weblogging. We are all but humble followers in his giant footsteps.
  • Spencer at Of Course, Yeah has announced the winners of the Do-It-Yourself “Get Your Civil War On” contest. Very funny stuff…almost justifies the existence of the Civil War crossover in the first place. Almost. (Related: newspaper columnist mistakenly believes Civil War has something to say about real-world events.)
  • Pal Dorian let his kid brother Andy take over the site again in order to espouse his views on funnybooks. I can think of a few message boards where Andy would fit right in. (Special bonus, probably just for the day: the one animated GIF you’d least expect to see on Dor’s site. And no, I’m not talking about the eagle one.)
  • In response to my post yesterday, commenter Chad asked the following question: “How is it that the Swamp Thing mythos appeals to you so much?” And that is a good question, one that probably deserves more of an answer than just one entry in a list of bullet-pointed links. I’ve been thinking about how to answer that for most of the past day, and I don’t know that I’m any closer to a reasonable response now than I was before.

    The simple answer is that the Swamp Thing comics have had the good fortune to have a series of imaginative and talented creative teams over the years, starting with the character’s creators (Len Wein & Bernie Wrightson), and continuing with such talents as Nestor Redondo, Tom Yeates, Marty Pasko, Steve Bissette, John Totleben, Alan Moore, Rick Veitch, Nancy A. Collins, Mark Millar, and many, many more.

    As to what specifically about the character appeals to me…I think the complexity of the character’s situation struck more of a chord with me than the typical superhero books I was reading as a kid. Swamp Thing wasn’t a superhero who reveled in his powers and ran around fighting bad guys. He was a character who was inherently tragic; trapped in a monstrous body, seeking a cure for the condition which gave him his special abilities…and he ran around fighting bad guys, admittedly, but that level of tragedy gave the character a sympathetic, emotional hook that drew me in more than the comparatively simplistic “guys in tights punching each other” stories.

    On a related note, as I was thinking about this question I thought about the fact that the very first issue of Swamp Thing I ever read was the issue where they began to futz with the concept (under “May 12”). I wonder if that has something to do with my inability to get too worked up whenever Marvel or DC does something drastically different (or drastically stupid) to one of their properties. I mean, my introduction to my favorite comic book character was when they took what was special about him, and began the thankfully-aborted attempt to turn him into a full-on superhero. After that, killing off Sue Dibny or giving Spider-Man a new bad costume…eh, no big whoop.

  • I hadn’t noticed until the webmaster pointed it out in the comments…but the Roots of the Swamp Thing site has a nice banner pointing back to my weblog. Hey, thanks! (And I’ll get back to you on that Sunderland/Firestorm connection you’re asking about in your sidebar, there.) Go check it out, and dig the comprehensive timeline (which includes references to an unpublished story pitched by Bissette!).
  • “THE INCREDIBLE HULK 3-D PAINTED Bowling Pin MARVEL”

    “THIS IS A 3-D AIRBRUSHED PIN OF THE HULK,THE FIST IS HAND SCULPTURED AND CAREFULLY BONDED WITH PIN ,,,THIS IS A ONE OF A KIND ITEM!!!!!”

    Fantastic.

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