swamp thing

I picture Baron Winters and Captain Carrot always bickering with each other, like Green Arrow and Hawkman used to do.

filed under Categories reader participation, swamp thing 21 Comments

Here’s a colorful cast of crazy characters from the May 1983 DC Comics retailer order form…click on the pic below for a larger image:


Now that’s a Justice League line-up I’d like to see.


I was trying to come up with some funny dialogue or a humorous caption for the above picture, but my fever-addled brain is having none of it, so you folks go ahead and give it a shot. My favorite gets…oh, I don’t know, a big fat plug for their webpage or whatever on my site, for all the good that’ll do you. Just keep it…somewhat clean, is all I ask. (Both the submission and the website you’d like me to plug.)

BONUS: house ad from Superboy #189 (August 1972):

It all eventually comes back to Swamp Thing.

filed under Categories retailing, swamp thing 4 Comments

So here’s a thing that slipped past me: I was looking at our invoice for this week’s comics shipment, and noticed that Spawn #202 was on the list. “That’s funny,” I thought. “Didn’t #201 just come out a week or so ago?” And to the cycle sheets I went, and, yes…in just over a month, #200, #201, and #202 have (or are just about to) come out.

That’s not the thing that slipped past me. This is the thing that slipped past me…seeing on the cycle sheets that during 2010, only four issues of the regular Spawn series were released. And the reason that slipped by me is that…nobody complained. Not a single “when’s Spawn coming out?” that I can recall. Now, I know we have people who buy it at our shop…we don’t sell a lot of copies, not like in its heyday when it seemed like everyone was walkin’ up to the register with a Spawn in one hand, a Wizard in the other, and a copy of any given Valiant Comics title in their third hand. But we pretty consistently sell low but steady numbers on the book (with the extree-sized #200 moving about another 40% more copies than normal).

But it seems strange to me that a title that was once so prominent could fall out of notice, that it could be running so late and not attract my attention, or any customer complaints, by doing so.

On the other hand, I’m also not getting any complaints about the lateness of Image United, the “jam” book featuring most of the original Image artists, only because if this had come out on time, I’m pretty sure most everybody would have died from shock.

In other recent funnybook news, people sure have been commenting on the cover to Legion of Super-Heroes Annual #1 at our shop:


You can see a larger pic if you go to DC’s page for this issue and click on the pic. But, yeah, that’s an eyegrabber (er, so to speak, given that’s the Emerald Empress and her Eye an’ all), with Keith Giffen and John Dell doing their Kirby-est on that image. No idea if that comic itself is any good, having unfortunately dropped Legion from the reading list after 25+ years of following the title, but, you know, it looks okay, just giving it the ol’ flip-through. It’s the old Legion creative team of Paul Levitz and Giffen together again, which I know might grab the interest of some of you folks.

Something I’ve been getting a lot of requests for in the last week or two is Weird Worlds #1, the premiere issue of DC’s new sci-fi/horror anthology. And I’m suspecting it has something to do with this: here is the cover to #1:


And here is the cover to #2:


Yeah, I know having Lobo on the cover should have been a clue, but sometimes when you’re scanning the rack, you need that logo to pop out at you, and, well, with DC’s white cover theme that month, the titles were all shoved into the corner and not exactly obvious. And so, there were quite a few people who didn’t even know #1 came out, and starting asking for copies when they spotted that logo on the rack on the cover of #2.

Of course, it’s not unusual for people to ask for copies of the first issue because they didn’t notice something was out ’til they saw the second issue. Happens all the time. But it seems to be happening a lot more with Weird Worlds.

And because folks have been asking: yes, I’ve read Aaron Lopestri’s “Garbageman” serial in these first two issues of Weird Worlds, which is very much in the vein of the “man becomes monster in accident, seeks to regain humanity” genre that Swamp Thing belongs to. And it’s fine…I liked Lopestri when he worked on that other title in this genre, Sludge, and while there’s not a whole lot new here, “Garbageman” is still entertaining.

However, it does have me wonder when DC will just put out a Swamp Thing comic, already. They keep trying to fill that niche with comics like “Garbageman” and that Solomon Grundy mini, but, man, I wish they’d quit dancing around Swampy and just throw him out there, already. Okay, I know word on the street is that he’s involved in this whole Brightest Day event hoohar, but we’ll see what happens.

…And that was my “I Demand That a Certain Comic Book Publisher Bend to My Will and Bring Back My Favorite Character” whiny complaint for the day. Hope you enjoyed it.

You know, I do have a birthday coming up in just a few weeks.

filed under Categories swamp thing 5 Comments


Everyone thank Reader Jeff for sending me the links to this auction site featuring Alfredo Alcala’s style guide art for the Swamp Thing cartoon show and Nestor Redondo’s preliminary pencils for the cover to Swamp Thing (original series) #16. How awesome are these?

I wonder what Swamp Thing and his animal pals are talking about in the above drawing? “And…when…you die, I…shall absorb your corpse…into my body…and feed from…its nutrients.” “YAY SWAMPY! You’re the best!”

And then there was that time when Infinity Inc.’s Hourman totally insulted Swamp Thing.

filed under Categories swamp thing 9 Comments


“Dude, didn’t see you standing there. Oh, you did hear that. Wow, that’s some good hearing you got there. But, no, really, the swamp’s great. Looks really…nice. Like what you’ve done with the place. Honest. …So, um, how y’doin’? …C’mon, Jade, help me out here.”

“No way…you’re on your own.”

“Gee, thanks.”

from Infinity Inc. #46 (Jan 1988) by Roy Thomas, Vince Argondezzi & Tony DeZuniga

A swirling whirlpool of nerdiness, slowly dragging us in.

filed under Categories collecting, swamp thing 14 Comments

Here’s some follow-up to this entry about sorting my Superman comics, about which Tom Spurgeon said “isn’t for anyone,” and man, ain’t that the truth. That was a weird, obsessive thing for me to do, wasn’t it? Ah, well. ‘Course, that’s not going to stop me from doing it again, because some of you had questions:

  • Chris McAree asks

    “I was wondering what you, or any of the other readers of this blog do when a box early in the alphabet becomes overfull? When your Avengers box can finally hold no more do you start a brand new box after finally getting those ten missing issues from the Roger Stern run, or carefully and meticulously move the last ten issues from box ‘A’ into box ‘B’, box ‘B’ into box ‘B2,’ (cause god knows there are a lot of Batman issues out there!) and so on until you have wasted a couple of hours a finally reached box ‘Z is for Zatanna?’”

    Well, my collection is sorted out, more or less, like this: several long boxes divided up by company, so I have a bunch of DC long boxes, about half as many Marvel boxes, a Gladstone/Gemstone box for all those EC reprints, a bunch of Misc. Indie boxes with the books ordered by company and then by title within, and so on. And then I have a bunch of short boxes sorted out by individual titles and/or franchises, like a couple of boxes for Justice League stuff, a Groo box, Swamp Thing boxes, etc. If one of those boxes starts overflowing, like the Justice League box, I start filing them into an overflow box shared by two or three titles that are also overflowing, until I get around to making a new box for that title.

    This, I think, makes it a little easier to add boxes when you need to expand, since you’re not shifting comics through the entire collection, but just through the section of the collection you need to open up some space in. …I have no idea if any of that made sense.

  • Longtime site reader “O” the Humanatee! has a couple of questions:

    “…When sorting alphabetically, does one use the common-sense title (say, Spider-Man rather than Amazing Spider-Man), the full title as it reads on the cover, or the title shown in the indicia? Should you group all titles starring a character together? Surely, it is an abomination against God to put Detective before Defenders just so you can group it with other Batman titles! Are you going to put Action in among your Lex Luthor comics?

    And what should I do when the title changes mid-numbering? What do I do with ‘Tales of the Legion of Super-Heroes’ and ‘The New Teen Titans’? What, I beg of you? WHAT?”

    Usually I go by the title on the front cover, because I’m going to remember that more easily than the official title on the indicia. And, as I said in the response to the first question, I have some franchises lumped together in their own separate boxes…so all my Batman books are separated out, filed together alphabetically. (And before you ask, Superman/Batman is filed with my Superman comics.) (In the Superman “specials/annuals/minis” boxes, which come after the post-Crisis series boxes, because I don’t have enough Superman/Batman to justify a box just for it, oh God, I’m doing it again.)

    When a series undergoes a minor title change while keeping the numbering, I generally just keep filing later issues as if nothing happened, which is exactly what I did with your Tales of the New Teen Titans/Legion of Super-Heroes examples (and which also answers Thwacko’s later question about Peter Parker/The Spectacular Spider-Man). Plus, in both cases, I have Titans and Legion in their own boxes.

  • Anonymous took advantage of my triangle numbers category and commented

    “I looked at the Nov 2008 post about Superman triangle numbering, and the post included a comment about the Legion of Super-Heroes’ triangle numbering, saying something along the lines of ‘Remember when the Legion could support two monthly books?’ Without commenting on how successful the current Legion venture is, funny how the market actually IS currently supporting two Legion books.”

    That’s true, it is, but every time they relaunch the Legion franchise, it seems like there’s a brief surge of interest at first…and then it goes back down to what it was selling before, or a little less. The current titles are selling for us at what is about the lower edge of “mid-range” — not a best-seller, like Morrison’s Batman stuff, but not at the “why did they bother” range, like the dozen or so minis companies tying into forthcoming movies. Anyway, when I wrote that old post, that was more or less true, but the push given the Legion by the Final Crisis crossover, and the additional anticipated sales goose of the return of 1) the original continuity Legion, more or less, I think, and 2) old Legion scribe Paul Levitz returning as writer probably encouraged DC to take a chance with a second Legion book. But, given that one of the books is named Adventure, if the Legion thing there doesn’t work out, they can always replace it with a new lead without having to cancel it.

  • Michael G. notes

    “I empathize. Have you ever tried shelving Acme Novelty Library? The first 15 issues are all out of order and most of them won’t fit in the same box!”

    Ah, yes, those things. I have a pretty good-sized bookcase with a shelf large enough to hold even the tallest Acme volume, so I just have all of them together on that one shelf. It’ll do, it’ll do.

Woo boy. Here, after all that, let’s look, courtesy ProgRuin fan Todd, at some footage of the Sega Genesis Swamp Thing game prototype being demonstrated.

And, in other Swamp Thing news, Gail Simone describes her awesome, but ultimately not used, series pitch for the big green guy.

Not the first mention of Crying Superman on my website.

filed under Categories sir-links-a-lot, superman, swamp thing 12 Comments

So there was this question from a late ’70s installment of Bob Rozakis’ Answer Man column:


I was a bit amused by someone’s need to have this question answered. Then again, there was no easily-accessible public Internet at the time…how else were you gonna find out?

‘Course, we all know the answer now:


Why Superman even put up with Jimmy, I have no idea.

Oh, and don’t forget this:


Hey, hey…less crying, more flying, pal.

Anyway, the Answer Man column, for at least part of its run, was part of DC’s “Daily Planet” news/advertising page…this was the headline story of this particular installment:


Well, that’s nice. I’m sure those two crazy kids will make it work. See, Superman, there’s no reason to cry on this, the happiest of days!

• • •

In other news:

“Swamps are good for a laugh…”

filed under Categories swamp thing 6 Comments

Thanks to reader Justin for sending this my way…a picture of a display he took at Chicago’s Brookfield Zoo, explaining that swamps are good places, and not like what you see in, oh, issues #1 (Oct-Nov 1972) and #156 (July 1995) of Swamp Thing:


A closer look at the important part:


Like Justin says, “when these ‘scientists’ stumble onto a nest of Un-Men they’ll wish they’d learned” that “swamps are bad places!”

Kind of interesting that it appears they used an actual copy of #1 in the display. That’s a valuable funnybook classic, friends!

Anyway, special thanks to reader Justin for keeping this from being another sick day post. Oddball Swamp Thing pics are always welcome!

I did not expect this post to invoke the name of Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man.

filed under Categories peanuts, swamp thing 13 Comments
  • So the results of yesterday’s poll is decidedly in favor of Ultra the Multi-Alien! Hoorah! I have no idea what to do to commemorate this!

    If memory serves, my initial exposure to Ultra the Multi-Alien was on the very early Nickelodeon Channel show Video Comics, which displayed old DC Comics stories panel-by-panel with narration and sound effects. I recall some of the featured stories included Silver Age Flash and Green Lantern stories, some Shelly Mayer stuff (Three Mouseketeers, Sugar & Spike), Adam Strange…and I’m about 79% positive that Ultra was in there, too.

    But outside of that, and maybe reading a reprint of his origin in a DC digest, and any cameo appearances he’d made since (like in James Robinson’s Starman), I haven’t had a whole lot of exposure to Ultra. Maybe when that DC Archives: Ultra the Multi-Alien hardcover comes out, I can catch up. However, I am struck by how similar in appearance he is to Metamorpho (immortalized in that song I presented yesterday). Comics really had a thing for characters divided up in fourths like that, didn’t they? Like Super Skrull, or Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man.

    And you can’t help but wonder just what’s going on, you know, with their, um, naughty bits. Half and half? Maybe split four ways, like it’s the point where Arizona, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico meet? DON’T LOOK AT ME LIKE THAT, you know you wondered, too.

  • By the way, speaking of yesterday’s voting, the Ultra-Humanite would like to contest the results:

  • So reader Charles emailed to remind me that Netflix, the mail order DVD rental and online streaming service, has added America’s finest film Swamp Thing to its Watch Instantly streaming library. For those of you unfamiliar with Netflix’s rating function, you can rate movies you’ve seen with star ratings (1 to 5 scale), and based on your tastes, it will try to guess how much you would like other films you have yet to rate. In this case, I hadn’t got around to rating Swamp Thing, and Netflix’s suggestion-thingie said that I’d probably think it was a three-star film.

    AU CONTRAIRE, NETFLIX. I have corrected your incorrect assumption by giving the film FIVE stars, baby.

    However, I have not yet checked to see which version of the film it is…if it’s the one with an extra dollop of nuditivity, or the slightly less nekkid one (as discussed here). I’ll have to check and report back to you folks…as, you know, a public service.

    Oh, wait, just looked at the user reviews…someone claims that it’s the censored version, but, being of a skeptical bent, I still prefer to investigate this myself. INTO THE BREACH, MY FRIENDS.

  • Another follow-up to yesterday’s post…pal Nat, one of the world’s foremost Peanuts authorities (and, by the way, has provided the text for the forthcoming Peanuts Collection hardcover), popped into the comments to suggest that I’ve “subscribed to the myth of the timeless Peanuts,” which is fair enough. Like Nat says, the reprint books we grew up with tended to leave out the strips with celebrity references, which is probably why those references seem so out of place now. (The sports references, like to Billie Jean King, were usually left in, which is of course why they feel like they fit more naturally into the strip’s world.)

    By the way…there’s totally a Cheryl Tiegs reference near the end of that newest Complete Peanuts volume.

Also, Elton John is mentioned in the March 8th, 1978 strip.

filed under Categories peanuts, swamp thing 21 Comments

Lah dee dah, readin’ the Complete Peanuts 1977-1978 book, mmm hmm mmm…WHA–!?


(Here’s the full strip.)

I think I’ve mentioned before that seeing real celebrity names in Peanuts always catches me off-guard. I realize that it’s not like this is something Schulz never did, but it’s just that…well, I’m not sure how to put it, exactly. Maybe it’s that Peanuts was just so much of its own little world that the occasional intrusion from outside really stands out. Like the celebrity name-dropping, or the Vietnam reference in the strip I pointed out yesterday, or…okay, I was going to point out the Disco Beagle strips (scroll down on that page to see the rest) (EDIT 5-31-11): strips are non longer there, as the official Peanuts strip archive has been shut down) as another kind of oddball thing to find in the Peanuts milieu, but let’s face it, those strips are fantastic.

Anyway, Peanuts…I have, won’t you?

• • •

In other news:

  • I’d like to thank the folks who were nice enough to get me mentioned three times in Tom Spurgeon’s “Name Five Writers About Comics You Like” survey. That was a very welcome surprise, especially since I usually feel like I’m not so much writing about comics as flailing about wildly, slamming my forehead against the keyboard and hoping something halfway coherent results. Anyway, thanks to those good people, and to all of you, for continuing to come back and encourage this sort of behavior.

  • Now here’s someone who knows his stuff…and it’s a six year old little stuffed bull by the name of Bully, who’s taking you on a whirlwind tour of Marvel Comics’ many publishers. Pack a lunch, it’s a long trip!

  • Hey, you guys like awesome stuff that is free, right? And presumably you like reading about comic books, unless you’re coming here for my cooking tips and frank relationship advice, which, well, more pity you. Anyhoo, all four issues of the legendary comics ‘zine The Imp are available for download in PDF format at the publisher’s webpage, entirely gratis. Each issue devoted to a specific topic (Dan Clowes, Chris Ware, Jack Chick, and naughty Mexican comics), and each issue is great reading.

  • One of my readers, the presumably-pseudonymous Glitch Girl, sent me an email yesterday morning altering me to the Music of DC Comics: 75th Anniversary Edition CD, featuring DC-related theme songs and other music from the past few decades. Of particular note is the track Glitch Girl was emailing me about:

    “22. Swamp Thing – Christopher Stone (1991)
    – Previously unavailable. Digitally remastered. From the live-action TV show ‘Swamp Thing: The Series.'”

    Granted, it’s not this Swamp Thing theme song, but it’ll do, it’ll do.

    And as someone mentions in the comments at the DCU blog, it’s a damned shame this song isn’t on the disc:


    Well, there’s always Volume 2.

  • Because my Twitter pals demanded it:

    ULTRA THE VOTE:

    OR

    OR