“Wedding? I didn’t see no swamp priest there.”
So comics artist Ron Randall spoke a bit about working with Alan Moore on Saga of Swamp Thing #33 from the mid-1980s. So if you click on the pic above, or on this link right here, you’ll be whisked away to a thread of posts on Bluesky where Mr. Randall has nothing but good things to say about the experience.
Issue #33 is, of course, this one:
…in which they reprint the very first Swamp Thing story from House of Secrets #92, the cover for which inspired the Saga cover above. Said reprint was incorporated into that new story by Moore and Randall.
Now, as I recall, this was a bit of a last second fill-in, as the story originally intended for issue #33 was the so-called “wedding of Swamp Thing and Abby,” as seen in this coming comics listing from Amazing Heroes #58:
However, the story was pushed back to #34, and the new story for #33 was announced here in Amazing Heroes #59:
And just so it’s clear, the “wedding” story is the one that is probably better known as the “Swampy and Abby Have Sex” issue, the one with this cover:
But anyway, for being a “fill-in” story, what ended up being in #33 had a huge impact on the Swamp Thing milieu, as it introduced the idea that was an ongoing chain of Swamp Things through Earth’s history. The Alex Olsen Swamp Thing in the House of Secrets story was just one of the many that had preceded. This establishes the groundwork for Swamp Thing’s status as an Earth Elemental (though he was called an elemental in the earlier Swamp Thing Annual #2, hinting at what was to come) and the eventual creation of the Parliament of Trees.
So, for a reprint issue, quite a lot got accomplished. Was Moore heading in this direction anyway, or was having to churn out a fill-in story worked around the original introductory tale of the character the inspiration for this major addition to the mythos? Honestly, I don’t know…I bet he said in an interview somewhere. I’ll have to keep an eye out.
Was the artwork for 34 that got stolen back in the day ever recovered? I honestly can’t remember.
I believe so, though it took literally decades for at least some of it.
Alan talks about this in one of his 50th birthday tribute books:
“Karen phoned up and said Steve wasn’t going to be able to get it done in time, and we were going to have to go reprint. What I said was ‘What if I could think up something completely brilliant that would get us out of trouble? What about that House of Secrets story – has that ever been reprinted?’ And Karen said ‘No, because it’s out of continuity.’ So I said ‘Right, if I could do something really clever and bring that into continuity so we could reprint that story and make the whole of the issue a framing device around it. Is there an artist on hand who could do that in two weeks?’ She said ‘Yes, Ron Randall.’ I had no idea what I was going to do, but I think I got all 12 pages done in about 24 hours.’
‘I worked out how the original initial Swamp Thing could be included in that and made a part of this story and include the earlier 19th century Swamp Thing and bring it back into continuity, and it could open up possibilities for future Swamp Thing stories and get us out of this deadline hole. I was very proud of that one because that was the quickest of the entire run.’
It was inspiring to read Ron Randell’s memories of working on Saga of the Swamp Thing no. 33, and also heartening to know that Alan Moore was such a generous collaborator. I’ve always thought that Randall is a very talented, if underappreciated, artist. He did some fine work on Warlord and some other projects … wasn’t there one called “Dead Earth”…?
*”Barren Earth.”
I recall enjoying Randall’s “Trekker” as well.
Moore’s Swampy run had the best Dreaded Deadline Doom fill-in issues of any series one could read in the 70s-80s.
Fantastic post Mike. Thanks for sharing. It’s always a pleasure reading about positive creative collaborations in our small corner of the world. It was also great seeing Chris Sprouse echo Ron’s “Alan Moore experience” in the comments section!
Trekker is still going strong. Ron’s been regularly releasing new graphic novels via Kickstarter. His art looks as gorgeous as ever!
”Barren Earth.”
Conquerors of the Barren Earth, back up in Warlord, then a 4 issue mini series.
“Trekker is still going strong”
I had no idea!