Oh, sure, I’ll talk more about Swamp Thing.
So in the comments section of yesterday’s post, both readers Matthew and academia’s foremost booty-ologist “Professor Booty” asked about the origins of my Swamp Thing fandom.
Not a whole lot to tell, really. I didn’t discover Swamp Thing until a few years after the original run of the series wrapped up in ’76, but a bit before the relaunch in ’82. And I didn’t encounter Swamp Thing through comic books, but rather by television! I’ve mentioned it before, but my initial encounter with my favorite swamp monster came via a television show called Video Comics, which aired on the Nickelodeon cable channel during the very early years of its existence (late 1970s/early 1980s).
The show would open with video of kids riding bicycles through the city streets, while Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries” played over the scenes, ending with…well, I don’t specifically remember exactly, but I’m pretty sure it’s something like the kids ending up at a store and excitedly pulling comics off a rack. And then the actual show would begin, presenting various comic book stories one static panel at a time onscreen, with the dialogue and narration being read by actors. Among the comics featured on the show were Green Lantern, the Flash, Adam Strange, and, yes, Swamp Thing. (Also featured were Sugar & Spike, another favorite series of mine introduced to me by this show.)
I couldn’t tell you for sure which issues of Swamp Thing I specifically saw on Video Comics, but I think it was issue #9 (the one with the alien), and almost certainly the first issue, with the origin.
As for the actual comic books themselves…at about the time I was discovering Swamp Thing on TV, my dad and I were in the habit of frequenting local used book stores, and one of these stores had boxes of old comics. It was there that I bought my first two issues of Swamp Thing: issue #16 (the zombie issue), and issue #23, the issue where they started to make Swampy into a superhero.
I’ve been asked before here on the site “why Swamp Thing?” and…I don’t know that I ever really articulated a reasonable answer. Part of it is the quality of the art and writing…especially the art, since Berni(e) Wrightson’s work really was something else. So detailed you could lose yourself in it. And I think part of it was the tragic tone to the Swamp Thing character, giving him a little more dramatic weight than his cape-clad associates in the superhero books. And part of it was that I’ve always enjoyed the horror and sci-fi genres, probably due to having a childhood that took place during the 1970s, where horror and sci-fi pretty much permeated the entertainment menu.
Hopefully that clarifies my Swamp Thing fandom a bit.
There’s another question in yesterday’s comments, from reader Alex, who is curious about my reference to two Swamp Thing statues. Yes, there is that full-sized 12-inch Swamp Thing statue based on the Michael Zulli painting, with flowers in his hands (or as his hands, rather)…which was also the basis for the first DC Direct Swamp Thing action figure. But there was indeed a second statue, a 6-inch version of the 12-inch statue, released when DC started doing “mini” versions of some of their out-of-print statues. Yes, I do have both statues, the big ol’ Swamp Thing and his pal Mini-Me.
I also have the DC Direct figure. And its glow-in-the-dark variant. And all the Swamp Thing figures from the 1990 cartoon line. Including the glow-in-the-dark figure from that series.
I have two different glow-in-the-dark Swamp Thing action figures. This is what happens when you live your life properly.
