Moore/Bissette/Totleben At Their Best: "Another Green World," Two Sequences

[jlroberson.insanejournal.com]

Today is a little exhibit of how to draw mainstream horror comics.

So here's two of my very favorite sequences from probably one of the five or so most pivotally influential comics on me, even though my style bears no resemblance. SWAMP THING #23, by Alan Moore, Steve Bissette, and John Totleben.
A quick personal note: I first heard of what Moore was doing in a review by Don Thompson in the Comics Buyers Guide when I was 15, and soon went out and bought it. Not the one he promoted because my store didn't have it, but this one. (though the next one, with the JLA, was pretty heavy as well at the time)
From that moment Moore had me and that was that, forever. (Interestingly, it was discovering Moore that weaned me away from exactly the kind of comic CBG usually promoted, and it was soon after that I discovered the Comics Journal.)
So, here are two sequences I've always loved, with Woodrue doing his eco-terrorist thang.(mods: this is exactly 1/3 of the comic) It's not just the mood of the drawing, but the dynamic layouts that Bissette created and few have equaled in intensity. The first, here, is in fact Bissette's(so he once said) favorite sequence.



Next, a very sinister sequence with writing by Moore that, in a good way, reminded me, and still does, of King; I'm thinking 'Salem's Lot for some reason.

Finally, a sequence with probably one of the very best shots of Woodrue ever. And lovely color work within the limits of old printing by Tatjana Wood.

Comments

[filkertom.insanejournal.com]

I was working in a comic store in Cincinnati when Moore took over Swamp Thing, and we literally couldn't believe it. It was like nothing we'd ever seen in a mainstream comic, and we immediately pushed it on the reader fans, the ones already getting ElfQuest and Cerebus and stuff like that. The ones who would go for Mage and Journey and MythAdventures and Nexus.

Lovely, awful stuff.

[danielolsen.insanejournal.com]

I don't know about horror. These feel more like a psychopats notebook to me since its scary but everything is perfectly clear. It's well done and written but for me horror is more about atmosphere and saying just enough to get the uncomfortability across.

[jlroberson.insanejournal.com]

A "psychopath's notebook"?...

Well, these are just two highlights; you really have to read the whole thing. But I would suggest that what you're describing is only one kind of horror and, just as in the films of Cronenberg, the graphic moments are justified by the fact that there are some things that just can't be implied. And I'd also suggest that atmosphere is exactly what the first sequence is about.

[danielolsen.insanejournal.com]

True.
Maybe I just tend to like that kind of horror better since it has staying power. For me it really has nothing to do with grapic moments (especially if they are woven into the thing, like in these and not the average slasher). After the thing (that you are supposed to fear or what causes the discomfort) has been shown I start to analyze it instead of speculating about it.

I'm really not used to horror comics in color though.

[jlroberson.insanejournal.com]

Consider as well: this was still under the Code.

[halloweenjack.insanejournal.com]

When this came out, it reminded me a little of Wolfman and Colan's Tomb of Dracula, not because the writing and art were that similar but because both books were completely unlike anything else their companies were doing at the time.

[btravage.livejournal.com (from insanejournal.com)]

Wood-Rue is the best forgotten villian.

[werehawk.insanejournal.com]

I never forgot

[dorksidefiker.insanejournal.com]

Nothing like the sound of steak sobbing...

[nymphgalatea.insanejournal.com]

Moore's work on Swamp Thing always gave me the screaming meamies. In a good way, I suppose, because it is a fabulous comic. But still...oh so creepy.

[icon_uk.insanejournal.com]

Yes, I always got a Stephen King "kitchen sink" horror to it, the mundanity of event in amongst the horror. Like the kids coming back to find his friends not just dead, but overgrown, and yet the beer hasn't had time to finish pouring from the can.

Or the kid forced to film what turned out to be the deaths of his parents and sister.

"Ick!" (Beautiful "Ick!" granted, but "Ick" nevertheless)

[menagerie.insanejournal.com]

Plant based characters can truly be terrifying with the right writers.

[thanekos.insanejournal.com]

stupid batman and robin rifftrax.

it's making me imagine john glover voicing this bit.

[fredneil.livejournal.com]

I don't think fire works that way. If oxygen itself were flammable, then the first fire ever lit would still be burning. Probably, all that would have happened would be that the first cigarette would have burned down really quickly.

[koschei]

Actually, it does work that way. It's this precise reason why people aren't allowed to light up near the oxygen tents used for burns victims, for instance.

[fredneil.livejournal.com]

Oxygen is an accelerant. It isn't flammable itself, but it makes things more flamable. If the first person had dropped his cigarette, it might have started a fire in that one house, but there wouldn't have been explosions "like a string of firecrackers" and it wouldn't have necessarily spread through the entire town. THere's a picture of Richard Lloyd lighting a cigarette in an oxygen enriched hospital room, and he's still around.