The Swamp Thing's the Thing.

A few months ago I finally finished reading Alan Moore’s run on Swamp Thing. At the time I was reading it the Darkest Night/Brightest Day event was taking place (or is it still going on?). Anyway, I found it slightly amusing that Alan Moore did a similar type of arc in Swamp Thing. Okay, not the emotional spectrum aspect, that’s a great idea, but having Swamp Thing travel through space an becoming different colours at each location seems fairly reminiscent. Related, probably, direct rip-off, not likely.

When I first started to read Swamp Thing I thought that the key metaphor was tree rings. That the series and stories were structured around a series of concentric rings that envelope one another. The series would hop from one layer to another and as the years passed a new layer would be added. As I finish up Alan Moore’s run on it, that metaphor feels more apt than ever.

These stories went from exploring the roots of the character to the depths of a recreated shared universe. They found Batman in Gotham and Adam Strange on Raan. They invented a mythos of their own while playing with the toys of a shared space. There were mysteries, horror comics, postmodern cut-ups, sci-fi stories, you name it – Swamp Thing managed to explore the aspects of creativity as much as the form of comic books.

I guess with the whole thing about Vertigo and DC getting the band back together, that’s what I’d hope for. I don’t really care if these characters interact or not so long as the stories being told are masterful. I’m a simple guy that way. Tell a good story and I’ll be happy.

Today I learned that Harvey Pekar died and I regret not ever reading any of his work. It’s been on my list of things to read for years now. I feel like I never found the time because I was too busy catching up on Alan Moore’s career. Now seems like the time to, at least, get something out of the library.

Swamp Thing: A Murder of Crows (or how I learned to stop worrying and start loving crossover events again).

Trying to come up with anything new to say about these Swamp Thing Collections is not the easiest task I’ve ever set for myself. What can I say that is possibly new after all these years of this series sitting on shelves being well known, well read and well respected?

I suppose I can recap how this is a book of two halves – the horror story tropes that make up the first few chapters (the serial killer episode is particularly well done, I’m a sucker for superhero fare where the hero is a background player) and the second half that is Alan Moore involving Swamp Thing into the Crisis of Infinite Earths. It’s kind of weird to be reading something involved in the first major publisher-wide cross-over event when it seems that each time the seasons change we’re given a new one. Each summer we have a corporate cross-over and each winter we’re given a title-wide crossover that might affect other titles if the thing does well or “gets legs.”

The more I read Swamp Thing, the more I kind of want this book to be a primer for anyone thinking of writing mature superheroics. It’s sort of the bible for mature superhero writing – it’s the template that everyone follows but there is a heck of a lot of misinterpretation. It’s not the mature themes that make this a mature book but the construction of the narratives. The crossover chapters don’t simply bring in forgotten characters willy-nilly they bring them in because the characters are relevant to the narrative. Heck, there are characters that are dramatically killed off, but in a manner that actually has relevance to the story other than being merely sensational or as a tableau for some gory artwork. Imagine having everything and everyone there to actually move forward the plot/narrative in your current summer crossover? It’s been done, I’ve read the proof.

I guess what I’m enjoying underneath all the other greatness of the series is that these are stories where the creative team was simply trusted to create good stories, even when they were dragged into larger events. I don’t think I get the feeling from today’s large events, although there are always a few exceptions (heck I have a few that I really liked). This doesn’t mean I dislike today’s event comics; I just like the type of thing on offer here a lot more. This is good writing and art done within the bounds of editorially mandated crossover.

There is a real innocence here as well. Sure, Swamp Thing as a series maintains a connection to the horror comic tropes it was founded upon but it is also thrust directly into the DCU proper. Yes, the wider DCU characters tend to be the ones inhabiting the fringes but it’s kind of fun to see how this is all happening in the same world where Batman can show up and scowl at John Constantine for a bit. I can understand why the Vertigo books are now in their own silo, but there’s just something inherently fun about having the DCU underwear perverts show up in all these early Vertigo books (heck Animal Man was basically mature DCU too). It’s nice to be reminded that even silly superheroes can be done well and with a bit of meaning.

On a completely different note, I’m always shocked at Alan Moore’s knowledge of obscure stuff. I think I’m just too easily amazed at how people knew stuff before Google. I just found out about the Winchester House through the Cracked website. One of the ghost stories in this collection is based on this place. I thought it was a brilliant idea and now I’m a bit more creeped out that it’s based on a real place.

MCMX - Back to the posting.

Wow, and out of the blue there was another post.

A couple of weeks ago I was waiting for my take-away Pad Thai so I went across the street to see what comics were available at the local library branch. I ended up picking up the latest League of Extraordinary Gentlemen trade Century 1910. It seems I can only really read comics by Alan Moore these days. I don’t know, I think it’s in my contract or something. Actually that’s not so true, I just read another Hellboy trade but how many times can I just write, “Hellboy trades are just so awesome!”?

Anyway, I knew this wasn’t the whole Black Dossier, 3D glasses, confuse the bloody bejeesus out of everyone hybrid graphic novel so I gave it a whirl. I really liked the original story, but the second volume left me a bit cool. This one, left me a bit more disconnected from the material. I liked it well enough and thought the caper and characters were all quite well done and interesting. I just didn’t find them as engaging as the characters in the first volume.

There were some great ideas presented – the man trapped in London throughout history, bringing in Virginia Woolf’s Orlando (which really is a great book by the way - Woolf is one of the rare classic authors whose prose I find extremely readable), and well the general intrigue of the times engaged by the occult. But what happened more, for me, was that this was Alan Moore referring to a bunch of things I had no connection to or little understanding of. While it doesn’t completely detract from the enjoyment of the work, it does a bit more than in the original volume or even Watchmen. In those works the deeper understanding reveals hidden layers to the narrative whereas here understanding the narrative almost requires a passing knowledge (or more) of what is being referred to.

Thankfully there are Jess Nevins’ online annotations because it really helps me understand just what the heck is going on. I know nothing about the Threepenny Opera, or Jenny Diver (other than she’s referenced in the song Mac the Knife, which also plays a role here) and well, all the English pulp heroes. I realize that I’m complaining about being a lazy reader here, but honestly, I would rather enjoy the work for what it is rather than as a source for further reading in order to come back and understand it. Although that’s mostly what this work is about for me, and that’s not really a bad thing.

What I think this book is really about is rereading. Read through the text once and while you can get the surface plot elements and whatever references you’re familiar with, the rest of the meaning comes through by actively learning about the elements. Read Jess Nevins’ annotations, find out what the visual metaphors are, use them to read more and discover new works you didn’t know about (populate your own fiction collection the way Alan Moore combines them in his world where all of fiction exists together).

So yeah, it’s good, but at times it feels to be a meaningless read, particularly if you just want a quick yarn about some potential Armageddon starring some literary characters. You do get some of that, but with enough Greek Chorus and sung narration that you kind of realize that your nose is being rubbed into what you might not know or be familiar with.

Form and function

Okay, I'm pretty much your average blogger these days in that, I don't really blog at all. Sorry, not actually reading all that many comics because of other life things - I'm about 50% a home owner depending on how the inspection goes tomorrow (please no major foundation problems!). But I have been contemplating the Watchmen a heck of a lot and the more I look into the book the more I find I can't separate the form from the content.

I'm finding myself more and more in Moore's camp that this really works best as a comic since most of the meaning is derived in the same way that words and image create the comic book medium. Now, I actually liked the movie, but the more I look into the comic the more I'm finding it a bit staggering how it all ties together - then again, look too long at anything and you can see connections that don't exist.

Things I never really figured before:

1. For the most cited and offered graphic novel for new readers to use as a gateway, you kind of need to have a lot of preknowledge to make sense of the whole thing. Sure it's a solid Whodunit? but the book isn't really about who killed the Comedian.
2. It lays a lot of the groundwork for the symmetrical structure of Moore's later work Promethea.
3. You're forced to deal with linearity and chonology as separate aspects.

The other thing I noticed is that while the comic used a cinematic approach to a lot of its presentation, these were dropped for the actual cinematic release. I can't say if this is for the best or detriment of the work, but it's funny how we use this word to denote a certain approach but when it's most appropriate the actual approach doesn't work as well. I don't want to get too much into this since it'll be explored a bit more somewhere else.

Watchmen - again.

So I've been writing an essay about Watchmen these days and I'm wondering if exploring the idea of fearful symmetry is over done? Part of me feels too many people write about Rorschach and while I think I manage to use the idea of fearful symmetry to create something more than "Rorschach is teh awesome!" I am conscious of focussing on the obvious things in the comic.

What I'm basically trying to tease out of my brain is the idea that the front cover, the text pieces, and some of the main visual metaphors all work together to create a symmetrical form between the comic and the real world. Too much for a general audience?

I Viewed the Watchmen Movie

Yeah yeah, we're all tired of the "watching the watchmen" puns online, on tv and in newspapers. I went to see it on Friday and the quick review - I really liked what they did.

Things I think were actually better than the comic:

The world creation during the opening credits. Hot damn, that was probably one of the best opening credit sequences I've ever seen. From the song choice to the visuals working with the name credits (I admit, I didn't really pay attention to the actors' names, I was busy watching the scenes) the opening credits set up the world of The Watchmen in a matter of minutes. So anyone new to the movie knows what fans of the comic learned in the text pieces, the role playing game, obsessively looking up Watchmen articles online, etc. I think it really played to the strengths of the medium of film, and was so successful because it actually added to the core text in a positive way.

The repulsiveness of the violence. Okay, in a few years it may look hokey when this is being played on Spike TV, but in the theatre it was enough of a turn-off to get that point across what with the broken limbs and blood splatter.

Things I found slightly distracting:

They kept referring to themselves as The Watchmen. Yes, it's nit-picky, and I completely understand why it was done but I think I have more faith in the audience. It sounds like some exec was wondering why they kept talking about The Minutemen as a failed super-group, wasn't this movie called The Watchmen? They should call themselves The Watchmen.

Rorschach's narration at the very end. I liked the more ambiguous ending of the comic where his journal is left in a stack of other cranks. The ending narration implies it is read but it could have been added just to make sure the point is driven home that it's Rorschach's journal.

The narration in general except Dr. Manhattan's. This is the constant problem of adapting written fiction to film. The way the narration was handled in the comic is all on written materials (except Dr. Manhattan's) which simply can't be adapted onto film except as someone reading from the journal, etc. The narration in the comics works much better in regards to the narrative because these objects exist within the world of the Watchmen as actual objects, not dramatic readings. It helps sell the "realistic" nature of the Watchmen world because the audience is only allowed to see into the characters' minds via additional media except for Dr. Manhattan whose thoughts are in blue boxes (and thus the closest to the traditional thought balloon). This kind of reinforces his connection to classic superheroes as well as emphasising how far from humanity he has drifted. His relation to the world is different from the other characters because he doesn't need a separate medium to communicate directly to the audience. In the movie, all characters have that relationship to the audience because there is no way the director will show you page shots of Rorschach's journal to read while the action happens.

This I wished were included (please ingest your grain of salt from here on in):

Okay, this is just my fanboyishness here so you know, it's subjective. Where was the fate of Hollis Mason? No, I don't really want to see an old man lynched, but it would really have helped sell the idea of this being a time of crisis and heightened paranoia. It could have been included if they reduced the sex scene, no? I'm no prude, but I felt the owl-ship sex scene went on just long enough to be kind of embarassing - we get the point, make the visual joke, move on.

Captain Metropolis. The way the failed meeting was handled was fine, but I kind of miss the connection to history all the old heroes brought to the story. If the opening credits show how vital they were to the world, then having them removed from the plot kind of feels like a missed opportunity.

Final thoughts:

Anyway, I went to see the movie with both geeks and non-nerd-herd people. Everyone enjoyed it but the nerds complained about stuff more - no pirates, my thing about calling themselves The Watchmen, etc. The only slightly negative I heard from the non-nerds was that it seemed like a movie you should watch again to understand more of it. That's something I felt as well, which means it's pretty much how I felt after reading the comic for the first time. In that regard, it was great and all in all, I think the changes made were necessary for the film version and should have been made.

Growth Rings as the Core Metaphor in Swamp Thing

Since that last post I’ve read the next two volumes – Love and Death and The Curse. Again, I feel like I have a lot to say but don’t know where to begin with it all. I guess the big thing I finally noticed is how there is a great visual metaphor used that reflects the structure of the plot.

Growth Rings. Much like the way new growth on a tree expands from the centre (as well as up) the plot for the series begins to reflect itself and grow to reinforce itself. Depending on how you look at it, these levels appear different. If you cut it open and look down, you see the rings forming into themselves, but if you tap it from the side you only see lines in sequence.

Having these stories in collected form lets me as a first time reader see the cycles and reinforcements much easier. I’ve got the collected firewood, so to say. But, I can imagine getting Swamp Thing month after month you would only see the lines in sequence (at first). Once you see where they come from you can adapt your perception to the wider whole. The lines are part of a bisected circle.

Anyway, growth rings are a great metaphor here, not just for the organic and organized nature of the larger plot that begins to support itself, but hey, he’s a conscious plant. What I have also come to notice is that this cyclical metaphor (here growth rings in a tree) are also used in Moore’s other works, particularly Watchmen and to some extent in Promethea. A perfect circle is symmetrical, and well, just open the pages of Promethea to any random pages and you’ll see the symmetry of the layout fairly clearly. In Watchmen, there are the cogs of the watch that Jon Osterman was working on when his father chucks it out. Again, the cogs are important in reinforcing the cyclical nature of time – something I’ll be exploring elsewhere in a bit more detail (I hope).

So where in Watchmen the circular cogs have specific points of contact that as a whole can create some kind of meaning (making a watch move and tell time, or how the heroes lives create some terrible and fragile peace) the growth rings of Swamp Thing show the organic progression from monthly comic towards comprehensive graphic novel.

Make sense? Perhaps I’ll find the time to write more on it.

The Rebirth of Superman

Supreme – The Return

Having read and loved Alan Moore’s Supreme: The Story of the Year collection it was a No-Brainer Supreme for me to pick up this follow up collection. You know how I really like Grant Morrison’s All-Star Superman? Well, Alan Moore did something rather similar with Superman a few years ago, only he didn’t exactly have Superman so he called his character Supreme. Everything is the same but different in the mythos, but talk about your love of silver-age goofyness. It permeates these stories to the point where the goofy stories are actually the driving conflicts of the plots here.

Supreme and the supporting cast jump through time to old Supreme adventures that visually manifest themselves as if they were old comic books. Why try to erase the goofy past of comics rather than accept and celebrate them, seems to be the message here. Goofy stories do not preclude bad stories or take away from the kewlness of the nineties, or anything else for that matter. So rather than reinvent bits of Supreme from square one for a new generation of readers, Moore is basically showing how you can restart a character by accepting all iterations before the current one. These are comics, have fun with them for a change.