swamp thing

There’s this one thing that frustrates me for, really, no good reason.

filed under Categories from the vast Mikester comic archives, sir-links-a-lot, swamp thing 1 Comment

So, many years ago, even before my entry into the high-finance world of comics retailing, I was trying to put together a run of the ’85 indie mini-series MacKenzie Queen by Bernie Mireault. I found the first four easily enough, but the fifth one took some searching. Like, a lot of searching. More searching than I should have expected, given that I began looking for these issues just a couple of years after they were originally released. But then again, this was in the midst of the black and white glut and bust, so it probably shouldn’t surprise me that an obscure b&w title from an even more obscure publisher would have slipped through the cracks.

But, eventually, after about five or six years of scouring quarter bins, and looking through collections (for by this time, I was in the funnybook-sellin’ business), I finally found a copy of MacKenzie Queen #5 in the quarter box at a (now defunct) store in Santa Barbara. And because I was a “fellow professional” (i.e. worked at another shop about 45 minutes south), the guy at the shop gave me a discount, so I got issue 5 for even less than twenty-five cents. Seems almost anticlimactic, now that I think about it. (And I should note, I was buying some other things at the same time, and I didn’t ask for the discount…he knew me from our intershop dealings, and just offered it to me. Honest. As cheap as I may be, even I wouldn’t ask for a break on a quarter comic! Really. Would I lie?)

Now here’s the thing that frustrates me.

I’m sure a lot of you comic buyers out there have had that one comic you’ve been seeking for ages, and once you find it, suddenly…you can’t stop finding more copies of it. It just seems like it’s everywhere. I mean, it’s not just me, is it?

There was an issue of Zot! that was like this for me…I couldn’t find #5 (again, a fifth issue…what’s up with that?), looked for a year or two, and finally found it. And then, of course, every time I turn around I find more copies of the damned thing. But for whatever reason, that wasn’t nearly as frustrating as the whole MacKenzie Queen thing. And yes…once I found MacKenzie Queen #5, I started seeing more of them. And every time I would see one, it would remind me about how long I’ve looked for that issue.

Even just this past Thursday afternoon, I was going through a long box of books we acquired from a closed comic shop a few months back…just one of those low priority jobs that I get around to whenever I’m tired of dealing with restocking or mail order or beating the employees. And, of course, here’s what I find in the box:


And here’s what I thought when I saw these books:

“Well, shit.”

And let me note that no other issues from this series were in the box. Just #5. The comic collecting gods are mocking me.

Told you this is a point of frustration that has no real good reason. Any reasonable human would have been over this by now.

By the way, I’ve been looking for an issue of Yummy Fur (#9) for, like, twenty years now. I know as soon as I find that, I’ll suddenly be hip-deep in issue #9s, because the universe is laughing at me.

On a related note, because this post isn’t long enough yet, I was double-checking some dates over on the essential Grand Comics Database, and noticed that the entry for MacKenzie Queen #1 has a note that reads “may be reprinted in trade paperback.”

Well, I can verify, for the one or two fellas from the GCD who are kind enough to read my site, that the MacKenzie Queen trade paperback does exist. I bought back when I expected I’d never find the #5…even though I did have the story already, I still bought that #5 when I found it, because, well, you know how comic fans are.

Here’s a scan of the cover, direct from my bookshelf and onto your computer screen:


Published by Caliber Press in 1990. Still in black and white. Paper smells kind of funny, like most Caliber Press books. If you GCD guys need a larger pic, just let me know where to send it.

In other news…well, it’s not a lot of news, but these items have been brought to my attention, and they must be revealed to the public!

From the comments, commentator Michael points out [EDIT: Haloscan comment link dead] this collection of graffiti photos that has an image of interest to Swamp Thing fans about nine pics down. Of all the things (har) I never expected to see spray-painted on a wall….

And Johnny Bacardi was kind enough to direct me to a Presidential/Vice Presidential pairing that I can get behind. I’d of course would want the VP candidate in the President slot, and vice versa, but I could live with the ticket as it stands.
 
 
(post updated 8/2016)

"That thing is — ticking! Gotta try to defuse it before…"

filed under Categories swamp thing 1 Comment

from Swamp Thing #1 (Oct/Nov 1972) by Len Wein & Berni Wrightson

from Swamp Thing #23 (June/July 1976) by Gerry Conway & Nestor Redondo


from Saga of the Swamp Thing #1 (May 1982) by Marty Pasko & Tom Yeates

from Saga of the Swamp Thing #21 (Feb 1984) by Alan Moore, Steve Bissette & John Totleben

from Saga of the Swamp Thing #28 (Sept 1984) by Alan Moore & Shawn McManus


from Swamp Thing Annual #3 (1987) by Rick Veitch & Tom Yeates, et al.

from Swamp Thing #1 (May 2004) by Andy Diggle & Enrique Breccia

For contrast, here are the moments leading up to Alec Holland’s transformation into Swamp Thing from the 1991 cartoon:






What do French Swamp Thing, Ambush Bug, and Galactus have in common? *

filed under Categories galactus, swamp thing


So pal Tom (not this pal Tom, but another one) was thinning out his bookshelves and gifted me with this fine volume from his collection: La Creature des Marais, from 1977, reprinting the first five issues of the original Len Wein ‘n’ Bernie Wrightson Swamp Thing series in French. The art is in glorious, sharply-printed black and white, which really emphasizes Wrightson’s fine linework (even though there’s at least one instance that I’ve noticed where two or three panels appear to have been enlarged and redrawn to fill the page). The wraparound cover comes from the new image Wrightson drew for DC Special Series #2.

This book also includes the original Swamp Thing story from House of Secrets #92, which, for those of you keeping track, makes this copy #9 of this story in my possession.

And because it amused me, here’s the publisher’s logo from the back cover:


“Editions of Cheese?”

As long as I’m talkin’ about Swamp Thing, here it is, by request – Swamp Thing meets Ambush Bug:

from Ambush Bug Nothing Special #1 (1992) by Keith Giffen, Robert Loren Fleming & Al Gordon

Check this out, and tell me this isn’t a bucketful of cool:


It’s the new Marvel Legends Masterworks “Galactus Versus Everybody” plastic statue, generally available for under twenty bucks, and taken from this cover. (Some of the flying characters are attached to Galactus by clear plastic rods…which, alas, break easily, so check the item carefully prior to purchase.)

* This post, apparently.

House of Secrets #92.

filed under Categories swamp thing


House of Secrets #92 (June/July 1971) featured an eight-page story by Len Wein and Berni Wrightson titled “Swamp Thing,” about love, betrayal, revenge, and a swamp monster, taking place approximately in the early 1900s. Sales were brisk, and reader reaction was positive, so this one-shot Swamp Thing story was retooled into an ongoing adventure strip set in the present day (resulting in some highly regarded comics, some less-regarded feature films, a live action TV series and cartoon, an action figure line, and, yes, even chalk).

DC Special Blue Ribbon Digest #9 (May 1981) was the first time I was able to purchase the story from House of Secrets #92 for myself. This particular tale certainly stood out among the bright and cheery origin stories of the Atom and Krypto the Superdog. This is Copy #1 of this story in the Vast Mikester Archives.

Saga of the Swamp Thing #33 (February 1985) was a fill-in issue of sorts, which contained a reprint of the House of Secrets story, making this Copy #2 of this story in my collection. The new framing sequence for this story, which drew a connection between the original Swamp Thing and the newer Alec Holland version of the character, makes what could have been just a fill-in into one of the most important and influential comics of the series. Not only did it establish that the current Swamp Thing was the latest in a long chain of swamp creatures throughout Earth’s history (a plot thread that would play out through the rest of this series), but it also gave us the first “modern” usage of the old DC horror comic hosts Cain and Abel. Cain and Abel, formerly humorous wiseacres introducing short scary comic stories in their respective anthology titles, were now explicitly described as the Cain and Abel from Christian theology, Cain continuously murdering Abel in an eternal repeating cycle. This new (or old, I suppose) interpretation of these hosts was carried into Neil Gaiman’s Sandman and its spin-off, The Dreaming.

Roots of the Swamp Thing #5 (November 1986) was a deluxe format reprint series, representing the first ten issues of the original Swamp Thing series by Wein and Wrightson recolored and, for the first time, on nice, bright white paper. As a bonus feature, this last issue of this series included the original House of Secrets story, making this Copy #3 in my possession.

House of Secrets #92 (June/July 1971) – At some point in the late 1980s, I was able to purchase for myself an actual copy of the original House of Secrets appearance. The comic looked like it had been hit by a truck, and I think someone had used it to clean a shellac brush, but it was only a couple bucks and, by God, I finally had an original copy of the story (making it Copy #4 in the collection).

Swamp Thing: Dark Genesis trade paperback (first printing, 1991) – This trade collected the classic ten-issue run by Wein and Wrightson, and also contained the House of Secrets story. This is Copy #5 of the story in my possession.

House of Secrets #92 (June/July 1971) – At some point in the early 1990s, I was able to upgrade my first copy of House of Secrets #92, which a generous man with poor vision would have graded as “Poor to Fair,” to a copy in Very Fine. Set me back a cool $60, but given what it would cost now to buy it, I ain’t complaining. Let’s call this Copy #4a, which is also the copy I scanned for the image at the top of this post.

DC Silver Age Classics House of Secrets #92 (1992) – To commemorate the end of their printing comics at the World Color Press plant in Sparta, IL, DC released a series of classic comic reprints that were the last books off of those presses. Among the “Silver Age Classics” was House of Secrets #92, which kinda stretched the definition of “Silver Age” a little, but, since I apparently needed Copy #6 of the original Swamp Thing story, I was willing to overlook that little fact.

Essential Vertigo: Swamp Thing #14 (December 1997) – DC Comics began reprinting the Alan Moore issues of Swamp Thing in black and white in this series, partially to show off the fine linework in the art, but mostly because it would have cost too much to recolor everything for the new offset printing process. Anyway, this issue reprints Swamp Thing #33, mentioned above, making this a reprint of a fill-in with a reprint inside. I think this is the only U.S. printing of the original HoS story in black and white, but I know this is Copy #7 of the story that I’ve purchased.

Millennium Edition: House of Secrets #92 (May 2000) – To celebrate the turn of the millennium, DC Comics released reprints of notable comics throughout the year (complete with a cool gold foil “Millennium Edition” stamp on the cover that was designed by one of my long-time customers). And, yes, House of Secrets #92 made an appearance, and, yes, I made it Copy #8 of the story in my collection.

And I know there are more reprints of the story out there. One of the Swamp Thing trades reprinting the Alan Moore run contains issue #33, and I believe there were a series of black and white reprints in the U.K. that also contained that same issue.

But, for now, I think eight copies of the same story is plenty. I don’t want people to think I’m obsessed or anything.

I did it…for science!

filed under Categories swamp thing 7 Comments

So when the original version of the Swamp Thing DVD was released, and then pulled off the market due to a parent’s complaint (look under May 7-8 for details EDIT: link no bueno, sorry), I thought it was primarily for the accidentally-included footage of some topless dancers that appear late in the film, in a scene that was trimmed from the PG-rated theatrical release and initial video release.

However, in online reviews of the DVD, listings on the eBay, and whatnot, people kept saying over and over again “THIS IS THE VERSION WITH THE ADRIENNE BARBEAU NUDE SCENE THAT GOT IT PULLED FROM THE SHELVES,” or words to that effect. And I kept thinking, “No, that’s not the reason…the original version of the film had that nude scene with Adrienne Barbeau. ‘Twas the topless dancers what did the deed.”

Finally, after seeing the nude Adrienne Barbeau claim over and over and over again, I dug deep into the Mikester Video Archives and found my copy of Swamp Thing on VHS, and, strictly for the purpose of setting the record straight on this important matter, sought out the infamous Barbeau swamp-bathing scene to compare it to the same scene on my copy of the DVD.

First, I should note that the actual quality of the transfer really suffers when compared to DVD. It’s hard to believe we put with with such crummy reproduction and “pan ‘n’ scan” for so long. Second, I’ve been spoiled by DVD chapter stops…actually having to (gasp) fast-forward a video cassette is so…primitive. This must be how our caveman ancestors watched television.

As it turns out, all those online reviewers and eBay sellers were correct…the nuditivity in question involving Adrienne Barbeau is far more, well, full-frontal, and much longer in duration, in the DVD version than the video version. For example, there are more shots of Barbeau posing like this:


Alas, if you want that scene in its full glory, along with the topless dancers, you are at the mercy of online auctions, since the first edition of the DVD has been replaced with a version featuring the original theatrical cut.

So there you go…I hope that was educational and enlightening.

In other news:

As I noted to a few online friends over the weekend regarding this story: “pop eats itself.” The CSI comics are going the route of Marvel’s Alf and Mighty Mouse comics, by explicitly gearing the comic to the people who are actually buying it, i.e. people who are already comic book fans, rather than futilely trying to tap the non-comic-reading audience that watches the TV shows.

I may be overstating it a bit…I’m sure the CSI comics must have grabbed a few fans of the show who don’t otherwise read funnybooks. I know I’ve sold a couple to such people. However, it must be frustrating to have a comic book license to a popular TV show, and to have the print runs of the comic hover around 1% of the TV show’s audience. You’d think it’d be like printing money, with a million CSI fans rushing to their local comic shops with cash in hand, eager to seek out new adventures of their favorite characters.

But it doesn’t happen, since most of those people don’t want comics. There are a number of CSI prose novels, too…I wonder if these are selling as well as their publisher hoped. In this age of immediate DVD releases of TV shows, and movies too, the fanbase’s need to seek out additional tie-in stories has greatly diminished, a point I’ve made before.

Okay, that was bit of a downer. Sorry about that. Here, have an out-of-work Hulk:

(EDIT: Sorry, the video is also out of work, and lost to memory.)


If you learn just one thing from this video, let that lesson be “don’t have Hulk as your golf caddy.”

Progressive Rampage #1!

filed under Categories here comes the april fool, swamp thing

The Swamp Thing weblog.

I swear to God it’s not me. And yes, it’s done entirely in character, from Swampy’s perspective. God bless this person:

“The Shadowpact and I fought an extremely violent battle with Dark Hellchid today. We were in Bucharest, Romania–and the conflict took place under the foreboding omen of a solar eclipse. [the sign of the Shadowpact’s nemesis, Eclipso] The menacing creature who was once my beloved young protoge’ Suzy, the Black Orchid was now the demon-possessed fiendish archvillain known to us as Dark Hellchid.”

“Abby and I confronted King Toad today. We regarded the low, pathetically vile creature together with our quiet hatred. He shouted at us and mocked us in his bitter contempt.”

My official Favorite Thing of The Week must be the two posts about Swamp Thing playing golf with the Shadowpact, complete with photos (maybe NSFW, since the Black Orchid’s photo is basically a naked lady colored purple):

Abby, Suzy and I were invited by Blue Devil and Detective Chimp to come play golf with them today. […] The Chimp played an impressive first round, and challenged Abby to surprass it.”

“But then it came Black Orchid’s turn. […] “‘You want to play golf, Chimp. This is how you play it. Not with words, but with actions.'”

Later, Abby gives Swamp Thing some golfing lessons:

“In my first swing, unfortunately, I underestimated my strength and broke the club in half. Undaunted, Abby rushed into the house and came back out with a spare club to play with. This time, she showed me how to handle the club properly.”

This is the greatest weblog I have ever seen. You can pretty much stop making new weblogs now.

And now…an important message.

filed under Categories swamp thing 1 Comment



DARRYL: “Hey Omar…look at how the plastic cup acts like a boat in water!”


DARRYL & OMAR: “SWAMP THING!“


SWAMP THING: “You kids know that plastic lasts hundreds of years when thrown into the environment?”


OMAR: “That stuff lasts that long?”


SWAMP THING: “Sure does, Omar. We all have to protect the Green, recycle our litter.”


DARRYL: “You need us to help protect the land and water?”


SWAMP THING: “Sure do!”


OMAR: “You really that busy?”*


SWAMP THING: “As a matter of fact, kids…I’m swamped!”


ALL: (laughter)

(As featured on the Return of Swamp Thing DVD…highly recommended!)

* Not 100% sure on this line.

Ten Favorite Scary Swamp Thing Moments.

filed under Categories halloween, swamp thing 2 Comments

Now this is hardly a definitive list…perhaps all of these aren’t the absolutely scariest moments from Swamp Thing, but these are the ones that have stuck in my head all these years. There are a lot more on top of these as well…I could easily have done 100 scary moments, most of which would have been with Arcane, but I think this is a pretty good variety of choice creepy scenes.

Needless to say, SPOILERS ahead:

Arcane opens his big mouth one too many times (Swamp Thing #10, May/June 1974, by Len Wein and Berni Wrightson):

After his apparent death in Swamp Thing #2, the mad scientist Arcane has returned in his misshapen, reconstructed body, intending to possess Swampy’s body and use its power to conquer the world! Fighting on a forgotten slave graveyard in the middle of Louisiana swampland, Arcane’s repeated claims that he’s going to “enslave” the world and be its “master” wakes the spirits of the departed slaves, who exact a terrible and deserved punishment on Swampy’s arch-nemesis.

Swamp Thing casts out a demon (Saga of the Swamp Thing #12, April 1983, by Marty Pasko and Tom Yeates):

Swamp Thing had been tricked: the young girl he’d been protecting was in fact harboring a powerful demonic force, which has since taken over Swampy’s body. However, as the captions tell us:

“Something struggles beneath the misshapen surface that is Alec Holland: a will to live. For what else could have kept him alive this long, against so many odds?”

And thus, through his own sheer force of will, Swamp Thing casts the demon out of his own body. Corny? Sure, but 22 years after its initial publication, that scene still sticks with me.

Swamp Thing turns into a big jerk (Swamp Thing #168, July 1996, by Mark Millar, Phillip Hester and Kim DeMulder):

Swamp Thing was already Earth’s plant elemental, a champion of the Green. However, at this point in his ongoing evolution, he had also gained mastery over the other elemental powers of the world: fire, water, air, stone…making him the most powerful and dangerous creature on the planet, his sympathy for humanity long gone. This becomes readily apparent when Arcane (yes, Arcane, seeking his own salvation) tries to appeal to Swamp Thing’s better nature by reminding him of his wife, Arcane’s own niece, Abby — Swamp Thing’s great love. Swampy’s response? “She was the one with the long white hair, right?”

Judith turns into a bird (Swamp Thing #48, May 1986, by Alan Moore and John Totleben):

Well, yeah, that’s pretty much what happens. Judith is one of John Constantine’s “army” of assistants, invading the caves of the Brujeria, who plan to wage war on Heaven. However, Judith betrays Constantine, promised wonders by the Brujeria is she just does their bidding. And as part of that bidding, the Brujeria…well, turn her into a bird, basically, in order to carry the message to begin the war. Part of the creepiness of this scene is that the transformation is mostly off-panel, with the occasional shot of intermediary steps of Judith’s changes, as the Brujeria provide narration:

“To commence, you must let the new legs grow down from the stump of the throat. They will scratch and hurt as they push through….”

Demons are just plain mean (Swamp Thing #144, July 1994, by Mark Millar, Phillip Hester and Kim DeMulder):

Swamp Thing is on the run, disguised as a human (his old, deceased, friend Matt Cable), and at the lowest point of his despair, Father Kelly arrives to lend him some support. Who is Father Kelly? A good and kind priest, dragged bodily into Hell to remove his positive influence on the community around him…thus tipping the world’s balance closer to evil. Father Kelly was let out of Hell for an hour, supposedly in answer to his prayers that he be allowed to help Swamp Thing…but after he’s sent back, the demon reveals to Swampy that he was only released to make Kelly’s suffering worse, by giving him a brief taste of freedom. It’s such a despairing view, that good people would be allowed to suffer in Hell, with no hope of reprieve, through no fault of their own. Upsetting stuff.

Swamp Thing gets all Lovecraftian on us (Swamp Thing #8, Jan/Feb 1974, by Len Wein and Berni Wrightson):

A secret horror lurks beneath the city of Perdition, a horrible, tentacled mass (called “M’nagalah”) that tells Swamp Thing that it created life on Earth, gave man the ability to do violence, and, having been brought to Earth against its will from the distance place in the stars where it lived, it seeks to build sufficient mass in order to rise to power when the cosmos is aligned to the perfect position. C’mon, this is Lovecraft all over…he’s even name-dropped in the story, for Pete’s sake.

Makes one wish Wrightson did more with the Cthulhu Mythos stuff. Oh, and M’nagalah returns during Swampy’s Challengers of the Unknown tenure in the late ’70s, as well as in the ’90s Trenchcoat Brigade mini-series.

It’s not the Winchester House, we swear (Swamp Thing #45, February 1986, by Alan Moore, Stan Woch and Alfredo Alcala):

This is a simpler scene, taking place in the Cambridge House, a house when the heir to the Cambridge Rifle fortune insisted that construction on the house never be stopped in order to keep the spirits of the weapon’s victims at bay. Of course, the project was long since abandoned, and, this being a Swamp Thing comic, there are ghosts all over the place…and in one room are two gunslingers having got into a shooting match over a game of cards. After a while, there’s not much left of the bodies….

Roy Raymond returns to comics (Swamp Thing #69-#74, Feb-July 1988, by Rick Veitch and Alfredo Alcala):

Television show host Roy Raymond is in his limo, complaining to his assistant Lipchitz that he needs something spectacular to get his show back on top on the heap again. At the same time, Swamp Thing, having abandoned his role as the Green’s protector, has wreaked havok on Earth, with new, flawed Swamp Things being generated as replacements. Raymond and Lipchitz encounter one such flawed creature, and Raymond becomes convinced that this is what he needs to make a splash.

Oh, splashes are made, but not what they were planning. The creature takes control of the limo, trapping Raymond and Lipchitz in the back, and over the next few issues we watch as the situation deteriorates…every last bit of food and drink is consumed, Raymond is delirious, cutting TV deals on a phone that doesn’t work, and the floor of the limo is flooded with human waste. Grotesque, horrible, sadistic, and just a tad bit dark-humored…Rick Veitch’s forte.

Arcane possesses Matt Cable (Saga of the Swamp Thing #27, August 1984, by Alan Moore, Steve Bissette, and John Totleben):

Matt Cable, who has a problem with the drink, finds himself almost certainly mortally injured in a car wreck. Upside down, bleeding to death, he finds himself face to face with…a giant yellow fly. At this point, we don’t know who the fly is or where it came from…but c’mon, we know it’s Arcane. He’s returned from Hell, and needs a human body to work his evil in the mortal world. Particularly Cable’s body, what with his strange powers given to him from secret scientific experiments…which will give you the powers, as you all know.

And there’s only one way for the fly to get into Cable’s body…now, perhaps you’ve accidentally swallowed a plain ol’ regular fly before, by accident. It’s really gross, you cough and you choke, and you’re just plain ol’ disgusted, since you know for a fact that fly was just on some dog poop mere minutes ago. And that’s just a tiny little thing. Now imagine swallowing a foot-long fly, especially one that’s talking to you the whole time. Ew, ick.

Swamp Thing encounters Arcane in Hell (Saga of the Swamp Thing Annual #2, 1985, by Alan Moore, Steve Bissette, and John Totleben):

Arcane has been defeated by Swamp Thing, his evil soul sent back to the hell from were it came. However, Arcane has had a measure of triumph, as he had cast his niece Abby’s soul down to hell previously, leaving Swamp Thing no choice but to go to hell himself to retrieve it. While there, he encounters his old enemy, his body massively swollen with hatching insect eggs. As Swamp Thing turns to continue his search for Abby’s soul, Arcane cries out “how many years have I been here?” Swampy’s reply, delivered, it seems, with no small measure of satisfaction:


The other entries in this list weren’t in any particular order, but this scene is the one that sticks with me the most, which is in my opinion the most scary and disturbing sequence in the whole of Swamp Thing‘s many issues.

Any favorite scary Swampy scenes of your own? Drop ’em in the comments section…I’d love to see them.

Happy Halloween!

Definitely not “-tone.”

filed under Categories swamp thing




from Swamp Thing #73 (June 1988) by Rick Veitch & Alfredo Alcala



I thought this was a little amusing…Chester apparently pronounces Constantine’s name incorrectly, with the last bit as “-teen,” causing John to correct him. However, it’s Chester’s pronunciation that’s being used in the film, according to the movie trailers.

I think this was the only time the pronunciation of Constantine’s name was addressed in the comics…pal Cully mentioned to me on Sunday that he thought he came across a similar scene in Hellblazer, but I haven’t yet tracked it down.

Don’t worry, I’m not going to turn into “that guy” (“They said his name wrong! This film is a debacle, a debacle!”), and for all I know Veitch was the one guy at DC who thought John’s name should be said this way, but I just thought I’d point it out. It amused me, anyway.