Walking Corpses & Conscious Plants: Possibilist Ecologies in ...

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Bingham 106 chapter, I argue that examining the first issue of Saga of the Swamp Thing constructed by the collaborative efforts of Alan Moore, Stephen Bissette, and John Totleben, solidifies the sociopolitical significance of using art as a method for communal analysis and critique. In order to effectively analyze the significance of this revival narrative and understand the history behind the issue, “The Anatomy Lesson,” it's necessary to first look at how the series began and developed. Originally envisioned by author Len Wein and artist Berni Wrightson, the character of Swamp Thing first appeared in the 92 nd issue of House of Secrets in a stand alone horror story with the cover-date July 1971 (Khoury and Moore 84). 1 Swamp Thing's existence is the tragic outcome of sinister envy and fantastic accident: Alex Olson's co-worker Damian Ridge covets his wife, Linda, so strongly that he attempts killing Olson in order to marry her. Causing Olson's lab to explode, Ridge's attempt is only partially successful. The force of the blast causes the chemicals Olson was working with and surrounding swamp combine in such a way that his body metamorphoses into a monstrous plant creature without killing him. Believing her husband perished, Linda starts to suspect Ridge and ultimately becomes threatened by Ridge's murderous tendencies as well. Though Alec is able to save her from Ridge, Linda does not recognize him. The narrative concludes with this tragic loss of human identity. After this initial debut, Swamp Thing became an independent feature in 1972 and was published by DC Comics until 1976. Though the protagonist's name was changed from Alex Olson to Alec Holland, the narrative exposition of his history remained essentially unchanged. The two responsible for creating this character only produced a portion of the material during these four years; Wein wrote the first thirteen issues while
Bingham 107 Wrightson only drew the first ten. Though their direct involvement with the project was limited in this respect, their vision was nonetheless influential in directing the path those who took over the project in the future would use to guide the narrative's outcome later on. Len Wein became the editor of the series when it was redesigned and released the following decade. Wein was even responsible for recruiting Alan Moore as a replacement for writer Martin Pasko (Khoury and Moore 84). He extended a personal offer to Moore during a phone call in November of 1983 which would become the catalyst for the series' monumental resurrection and a major break for Moore's career as well (Millidge Pg. 15, Panel 11). In a biographic called Alan Moore: Portrait of an Extraordinary Gentleman, British comics creator and historian Gary Spencer Millidge writes, “Moore used Swamp Thing to explore social issues from racism to environmental concerns with emotional depth, against a background of existential horror. Along with the art of Steve Bissette and John Totleben, Moore turned the ailing, mostly ignored title into one of the most talked about comics of its time” (Millidge Pg. 16, Panel 2 & 3). During an interview conducted by Eclectic Electric's Steve Hanson and Christian Martius, Moore gave a more detailed account of the series' success: I had a readership of about 25,000 people a month by the time of The Curse [Issue #40] and we got about 65,000 by the end of the series, at about a 1000 every issue. If even 1% of these people get something powerful from that comic, that’s an amazing amount of impact to have on the real world. This stuff that started out as shit in my head, now it’s having an effect in other people’s heads (Moore. Northampton, UK. 3/8/1996) The spike in Swamp Thing's popularity is a result of several factors; but, all of these seem dependent upon the project of artistic expression as accounting for the utterances of the past and attempting to resolve any problematic discrepancies with present perspectives.
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Bingham 3 I owe an extreme debt of
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Bingham 5 Introduction My project e
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Bingham 7 personal growth through t
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Bingham 15 Chapter I: The History o
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Bingham 35 Works Cited Benton, Mike
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Bingham 37 Chapter II: Transfusion
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