No, I didn’t enter.
I scanned this ad out of Superman #376, which had a cover date of October ’82, so it was actually on the stands around July or August. With a deadline of September 1st, that didn’t leave much time for dilly-dallying about, wondering if one should enter. Just to make sure, I checked through the early issues of Saga of the Swamp Thing, and, yes, the ad doesn’t pop up ’til the October issue.
Had I thought about it, I probably would have entered the contest at the time, though I’ve never been much of a contest-enterer. I mean, sure, there was little chance at getting the grand prize, but I had a shot at getting that free year’s subscription to Swamp Thing, and that $7.20 value is nothing to sneeze at, mister.
So, how short lived was that excitement? Yeah, I know the Swamp Thing film stands as bit of a camp classic now, but at the time…well, okay, Roger Ebert liked it, but as a follow-up to Superman: The Movie, DC’s film about a guy in an ill-fitting rubber suit may have been something of a comedown. Okay, it’s not an awful film, really. Costuming aside, it’s actually not bad…it’s a quirky, cheesy adventure with some knowing humor and occasional moments of genuine emotion. But it still had no chance of being a blockbuster like Superman (which was quirky and campy in its own way).
I don’t have anything to say about this next bit, really, aside from noting the contortions the writer had to go through to get Swampy’s old, now mostly forgotten tagline into the ad:
All joking aside, the grand prize sounds like a pretty sweet deal:
Okay, trip for two, hotel, etc. — that’s all well and good. And I wonder if, the ad blurb says, the contest winner actually met the literal creators of the character, Len Wein and Bernie Wrightson, or if they meant “creators” in the general, copyright-ownership sense of the term; i.e. it’s owned by DC Comics, legally DC Comics is the creator of the character…you know, like that. “Hi, we’re DC Comics, and we create all your favorite superhero adventures right here in these offices!” Or did they mean the then current creative team, Marty Pasko and Tom Yeates? (And Wein, too, since he was editing the series at the time.) I know Mr. Wein is just a click and a comment away from me asking him these questions, but I don’t want to pester the man.
But what I”m really curious about is what Broadway show they went to. It could have been Cats, which opened on Broadway about then. (And now for the smart-alecky crack that’s gonna show me where my readers stand….) If it was Cats, well, that’s more of a penalty than a prize, isn’t it?
I recall seeing no one held up as the winner of this contest. But I do wonder how many people actually entered…a long time ago, I read an interview (don’t remember where) with someone (don’t remember who…take it from me, kids — don’t get old!) regarding a full-page ad they’d run in some DC Comics, and that the number of responses they received was very low.
I imagine a contest certainly gathered more response than just a plain ol’ ad, but I wonder, not if they got enough entries to give away all 201 prizes, but if they received lots of entries well above and beyond the 201 limit, or if they just barely made it.
EDIT: That’s one! Only 200 more to go!
That’s probably the rarest Swamp Thing collectible of them all…if it turns out Rich has that list of winners, I’ll turn green with envy. Because, you know, it’d be funny, since Swamp Thing is green, and…oh, fergit it.
