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

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Bingham 120 the visceral thrills of the material. We have the best of both worlds—a youthful sense of wonder and a mature reflection upon it” (ibid. 252). The intricacies of each image can also reveal complex layers of information. One way in which these levels of information manifest in this issue of Saga of the Swamp Thing is through the manipulation of color. The first page illustrates panels that blend separate physical spaces through a wash of dark blue and black lines which signify rain falling onto glass. Similar dark blues and greens are juxtaposed against vibrant oranges and reds throughout each of the pages within the publication. These devices highlight differences between characters through contrast. Alongside this gloomy imagery, a level of darkness is added by the symbolic significance of the bright reds which appear on the page. This color is used sparingly; it only appears in six of thirteen panels which make up the grid, and its placement seems deliberate. Twice red is used to fill the contents of Woodrue's glass; this move in any other circumstance could easily be seen as a harmless representation of wine. However, when this is read against the way the color is shown in the three right most panels a different sentiment is called to the reader's mind. Here red symbolizes blood—as is clearly expressed through the text; linguistically the word is recorded four times. The panel positioned at the grid's center illustrates the left half of the iris of Woodrue's right eye in vivid red. This takes on a meaning of maliciousness tying Woodrue to Sunderland, the old man we see eclipsed by the color in the following panels. Beginning with the rightmost panel in the second row, the amount of red in each of two the panels below it increases exponentially from one to the next, until the red finally takes up almost the entirety of the page's last panel. Power dynamics revealing positions of authority are expressed not only through the appearance of Woodrue's eye in
Bingham 121 the center of the page but also by the fact that multiple panels are used to construct a portrait of a portion of his face whereas the face belonging to the old man has been represented in full three times in individual panels. Moreover, the inclusion of the title upon a dismembered torso surrounded by separated appendages stresses that homicide is a crime which prompts a concern for identification. Victims must be identified and their causes of death must be determined as well. This entry point suggests that there is a macabre element of immorality which exists even in individuals who purport to be healers. According to Giuseppe Pili, “We might define Moore's stories as 'lucid interactions' Calling them 'games' would be reductive: they are complex and refined challenges, which gradually screen the players” (33). This statement indicates that there are multiple levels which structure the stories told by Moore and his collaborators. Furthermore, it implies that engaging these works is an experience atypical of other types of reading. Rather, Pili argues the material is experienced at the level of the subconscious; and working through it is a process which a reader is not entirely aware of until he or she has reached the narrative's conclusion. In ways, the activity seems to echo the trajectory of dreams; before we even become aware we are experiencing an altered state of consciousness, we are already completely immersed within it. For this reason, the subtlety of the work's larger universally applicable themes may be missed by those not open to or unwilling to seek out their existence and the evidence supporting it. Yet an intellectual unraveling of information is still prompted by the work's educational foundation. The second page furthers the unsettling of the illusions of power and safety by
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Walking Corpses & Conscious Plants:
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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 9 beliefs. Seeing a possibl
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Bingham 11 zombie exceeds death as
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Bingham 13 the validity of singular
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Bingham 15 Chapter I: The History o
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Bingham 17 Swamp Thing. According t
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Bingham 19 instructional profession
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Bingham 21 Another artist who worke
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Bingham 23 action into panels (Cohn
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Bingham 25 sponsorship. He designed
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Bingham 27 Charles Moulton. Marston
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Bingham 29 Frederick Wertham prompt
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Bingham 31 “graphic novel” was
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Bingham 33 what is or isn't a graph
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Bingham 35 Works Cited Benton, Mike
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Bingham 37 Chapter II: Transfusion
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Bingham 39 conflict or war. This ex
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Bingham 41 and dismember other bodi
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Bingham 43 bodies to pieces. (Cavar
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Bingham 45 thus creating an affecti
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Bingham 47 margins. Unlike the four
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Bingham 49 implicates the role of o
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Bingham 51 demonstrates that he is
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Bingham 53 Amy (Figure 10 & 11). Th
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Bingham 55 being who has done nothi
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Bingham 57 transgressions, this ima
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Bingham 59 Returning to the full pa
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Bingham 61 order” (200). The prem
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Bingham 63 possession, selling, ste
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Bingham 65 with yourself? Not me. I
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Bingham 67 immediate proximity of t
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Page 75 and 76: Bingham 74 Works Cited Berger, Arth
Page 77 and 78: Bingham 76 APPENDIX A Fig. 1. Openi
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Page 139 and 140: 1 According to comics historian Rob
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