Alan Moore, "Swamp Thing: Love and Death"
I saw an old classmate the other day. He asked me about the book I was reading (it was Kafka, whom he had never heard of � I weep for the future), and asked how it was. I said it was okay. He said I said that a lot about the books I was reading while I had class with him (I know I read Don DeLillo�s �Underworld� and Chuck Palahniuk�s �Choke,� both of which were, well, okay.)
I wondered if reading so many books in a short amount of time isn�t making me jaded. So after reading so many substandard book in the last week, I decided to go for this graphic novel for two reasons: I didn�t want anything heavy, and I knew I liked Alan Moore.
I�ve already stated my obsession with the comic "Daredevil." "Swamp Thing" is another near-obsession, but with a difference: the only ones I like are (were?) the ones that featured Alan Moore as the writer. Like "Daredevil," the first "Swamp Thing" comics I ever read happened to be by Moore, and they were fantastic.
When PTL, my first band, first started to play shows, I made fliers featuring "Swamp Thing" art from a splash page. I started to pick up other issues by other writers, but quickly gave up again, for two reasons: Some of the other writers were incredibly lame, and since the series kept getting cancelled and restarted, I could never tell which numbers coincided with what I already owned. Since the other stories weren�t that interesting, it wasn�t worth it to try and figure it out.
But man, I really liked what Alan Moore did with the character. He exudes a certain amount of creepiness, and this was my first foray into �adult� titles in the comic genre (not meaning it was filled with sex, but that the stories involved a certain level of sophistication). When this collection of older issues came into the store I picked it up, even though I was pretty sure I had the individual issues already.
Well, a pleasant surprise happened � I had never read any of what is contained here. And the stories were great. This set is from earlier in the series, when it concentrated more on supernatural macabre stories (it would later become a sort of epic road trip journeys, where it got even better).
There is a side story in this collection with a tribute to Walt Kelly�s �Pogo� that would seem to detract from the over-arching storyline, since it�s both cute and tragic, but it�s so skillfully done you don�t mind its inclusion. My only complaint comes from the reproduction. The art is so dark and there are several points where the lettering is white on a black background, which makes it hard to read at times.
