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

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Bingham 136 an individual person's death to the environment he or she had once inhabited, the two beings with genetic relation to the Earth's plant life survive and continue living into the future. This sequence of events implies there is an urgent necessity for one to think about life as existing beyond his or her finite, embodied existence. Moreover, the acceptance of this idea also doubles the notion of embrace as causing death; in this case egocentricity has been revealed as a viewpoint incapable of being sustained. Lastly, Woodrue appears in a partial portrait made up of ten panels from where he stares from his window out at the reader. This moment is reminiscent of Goya's “The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters,” as it also confronts the viewer with the image of suspicious, threatening creatures (Figure 1). As I read these pages, I found myself thinking that if Sunderland had showed respect for all beings regardless of whether they were human or belonged to another species would have produced an entirely different outcome in the story. There seems to be an urgent need for an identification of an ethic to ensure mutual survival. Ironically, though, the conclusion and its focus on Woodrue reveal that the pursuit of personal power through the exploitation of others leads to individual demise and replacement. This narrative asks readers to look beyond personal concerns and consider how individual prosperity is related to the level at which that condition exists for others. Readers are asked to contemplate the intersection of the scientific and the spiritual, indicating both as necessary avenues for pursing answers to unknown questions. More specifically, the blending of these two seemingly diametrically opposed viewpoints stresses that progress can be made through fusion and incorporation rather than exclusion. The latter is shown to actually limit or hinder understanding. Through this fictional context, the creators are
Bingham 137 able to issue an urgent call for the reform of lifestyles which have resulted from a flawed desire to found identity upon the exertion of dominance over others and thus encourage environmental exploitation. Link Yaco praises the value of this change of consciousness: “That is what Moore and his readers are doing—learning. Which is why his work is so much more rewarding than that of lesser lights. Moore succeeds in his aims more than many who have attempted it because he manages to make the experience enjoyable” (Yaco 252). Drawing attention to this power dynamic through conflict, Saga of the Swamp Thing offers readers a solution or counter by presenting the possibility of an alternate conception of identity as informed by commonality. This would mean favoring of harmony instead of individualism, or, more simply, an acknowledgment of the relation and symbiosis between all elements, whether living or not, which make up a universe. Moreover, this series gives voice to plant-life and contends that there is a will which exists and shapes the world independently of human desire or resistance.
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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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Bingham 69 experience, or the human
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Bingham 71 sentences Thomas to hang
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Bingham 73
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Bingham 74 Works Cited Berger, Arth
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Bingham 76 APPENDIX A Fig. 1. Openi
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Bingham 78 Fig. 7. Fig. 8.
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