I'm fully willing to admit that my knowledge of the pre-Alan Moore Swamp Thing is woefully inadequate. Thus it was that I was pleased to find this reprint of the first two issues at a local flea market this year. I got around to reading it today.
Sigh.
The good news is: I get it. I really do. Considering when this was originally written, it's light years ahead of its time. Wrightson is one of those artists that I'm aware of, but not really aware of. But, again, I get it now. His panel composition is really quite lovely, and so, so shadowy. The comic fairly drips the cloying, muggy atmosphere it portrays. Wein, similarly, is a name I'm aware of, but not etc. etc. It's interesting to see that Moore's tenure on the book is very much utilizing an aspect that was already prevalent on the book - the poetic captions, the halted thought/speech of the Swamp Thing. I always thought Alan Moore made this character, but the character was really already there. Moore just made him...cooler.
I'm glad to have read this issue. Every now and again I'll read a comic from the 1970s and I can really see where Vertigo comics grew from. There were definitely some storytellers pushing boundaries in the medium in that decade too. We often forget, I find, that innovation is not solely the province of the now.
Enough tired philosophizing. I'm going to bed, to dream my swampy dreams. More random stuff tomorrow!
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