Alan Moore Took Swamp Thing Where It Needed To Go

 

Swamp Thing: Issues #21-64 – Alan Moore, writer (1982-1987)

            In my youth, I was always on the hunt for new and interesting comic books.  I was very fortunate, as the 1980’s were a great time for innovative storytelling and many comic book creators took the art form to new heights of intensity, storytelling, and beauty.  One of the premier writers in comic books at the time was Alan Moore.  His epic story, The Watchmen, is one of my all-time favorites.  An early work that Alan Moore devoted years to in the 1980’s was the comic book Swamp Thing.  After decades, I was finally able to sit and absorb the full run of Alan Moore penned Swamp Thing stories.  They were even better than I expected.

            Swamp Thing has always been a “horror” comic book.  It sprung forth as a monster feature, and was not too popular with readers.  Headed for cancellation, Alan Moore was brought in to breathe new life into the book, and he did so full bore!  Alan Moore retconned the origin story of Swamp Thing.  Originally, Swamp Thing was a man who, after being doused with experimental fertilizer of some sort, found his way to a nearby swamp where he was turned into the Swamp Thing.  Alan Moore changed that up.  Instead of a man becoming Swamp Thing, an earth elemental spirit took on the human shape of the scientist.  Swamp Thing is tasked with protecting the Green, which is in fact, all plant life on the planet.  The horror comes in the many ways humans treat nature and the revenge that Swamp Thing enacts in the name of The Green.

            Alan Moore never shied away from showing the ugly, evil sides of human nature in his work.  With Swamp Thing he was able to explore ideas and topics that in other mainstream or superhero comics of the time would have been taboo.  Alan Moore shows us true evil, true monsters who look human and nice and normal, but who are ugly and sick inside, as opposed to the Swamp Thing, who is a monstrosity that has a hero’s soul inside.  Seeing as how good “spirits” like Swamp Thing exist in this comic book world, it is evident that a lot of evil would exist for Swamp Thing to fight.

            The horrors and monsters that Swamp Thing battles are just one aspect of the comic book.  Just as important is the internal life of Swamp Thing.  Alan Moore’s genius lies in exploring the true self of his characters.  Swamp Thing is conflicted.  He falls in love.  He feels deep sorrow and pain at the way humans treat Mother Nature.  He seeks to understand his place in the cosmos and why he’s tasked with protecting the Green.  The humans and monsters he fights are the opposite, seeking to either destroy nature or to corral it and wield it like a weapon.  I can see why many superhero comic fans did not appreciate this series.  It is too complex and disturbing for someone that just wishes to see didactic good and evil fighting.  What was more surprising to me was how sad, how deeply mournful Swamp Thing is as a book.  Alan Moore’s fears for what the modern world has done to our Mother Nature are evident.

            While much of the Swamp Thing saga is grim and monumental, Alan Moore also finds joy and humor in Swamp Thing and his life.  One of the most interesting issues is a one-off that explores what happens when a tiny ship filled with cute alien beings lands in the Swamp.  They have travelled for centuries seeking a new, lush, green home after their home was destroyed.  Told in a light-hearted and humorous manner, this story nevertheless becomes one of deep sadness and pathos as the small aliens discover the damage that humans have done to the Earth, and decide to leave in search of another home, one that will not soon be damaged irreparably by its inhabitants.  Heavy stuff for a “comic book.”

            I must mention the artwork of Stephen Bissette and John Totleben.  For a horror comic book, the artwork must not only be appropriately scary, but it should lend a specific visual language to the book.  The naturalistic drawing and minimal inking of the artwork used in these comics speak to the content within.  It is a perfect match.  The visuals of Swamp Thing are some of the best of the era, able to portray not only the physical battles that Swamp Thing engages in, but also the psychic and ethereal battles fought on the Astral Plane.  Comic Books are, when done right, a perfect combination of story, words, and images.  This is one of those successes.

            I highly recommend finding and reading the run of Swamp Thing issues that Alan Moore wrote.  If you are already a fan of his, you will get to experience his early work.  If you are not yet a fan of Alan Moore then this is a good place to start as nearly all of the work he has produced since the 80’s contains many of the elements he first explored in Swamp Thing.  From explorations on the metaphysical and mythic nature of existence, to the re-introduction of nearly-forgotten characters from the history of comic books and much more, Swamp Thing is definitely an early Alan Moore triumph.

Alan Moore's novel Jerusalem contains the whole of existence within its pages

Jerusalem – Alan Moore (2016)

(1296 pages.  That is what arrived in my mailbox after sending a hand-written letter to Alan Moore’s publisher.  In the letter I explained that I love books and have written this here book review blog for over 2 years.  I proclaimed my love for Alan Moore’s previous work and my desire to read and review his upcoming opus, Jerusalem.  Receiving that galley copy in the mail a few weeks later was one of the coolest moments in my book-reading life!  My deepest thanks go to the good folks at Liveright Publishing Corporation for their support of my love of books.)

*****

Alan Moore has been one of the most inventive and complex authors of the last 30 years.  The fact that most of his work was done for the supposedly lowly medium of comic books changed nothing for me.  I love comics and Alan Moore’s have been some of the greatest I have ever had the pleasure to read.  V for Vendetta, From Hell, Promethea and especially Watchmen are to me some of the highlights of modern literature and I hope they will be seen that way in the future.  Moore’s work is always dense, instantly engrossing, and deeply thought-provoking.  When I read in the trades that he had been working on a full-on novel I was intrigued.  After receiving my review copy, I immersed myself in the world of Moore’s Jerusalem for these past two months. This is why I have not added any new reviews.  It was totally worth it!

How to describe the scope of Jerusalem?  First, let me explain the significance of the title.  Jerusalem is a holy city.  It is also a symbol for the “promised land” and for “heaven.”  William Blake, the mystic/poet/artist wrote of each one of us creating our own “Jerusalem” within us, allowing each human to experience the truly divine and to achieve peace for one’s soul.  Alan Moore, through his intensive esoteric studies, understands that the “lower classes” live lives so rife with brutality and despair that they are unable to share in the philosophies and world views held by those whose lives are softer, safer, and more stable.  Alan Moore’s aim with this book is to provide a mythology/philosophy for the world’s downtrodden, and all the while he tells an amazing story.

The skeleton that Moore’ hangs his story on is that of the Burroughs, a long-standing neighborhood of poor and working class Brits whose lives, like the lives of all those that live in historically impoverished and neglected areas, are extremely insular and desperate.  The novel jumps back and forth in time following the Vernall family, a family whose roots in the Burroughs go way back in history.  The Vernalls suffer a long history of mental illness in the family.  Many of their members, male and female, lose their marbles so to speak.  Because of this madness, they are also able to step out and above time and space, converse with angels and demons, see the future and the past, and otherwise experience things that those around them cannot.  I do not want to give anything away.  It is hard to discuss this book without doing so. 

At the same time as we hear the story of the Vernall family we are also introduced to dozens and dozens of peripheral characters, each a piece of the overall fabric that makes up the odd space-time continuum that the Burroughs exists in.  There are stories like that of a monk from the actual Jerusalem, who is sent to travel to the center of Britain over 400 years ago with a specific task to accomplish.   There is a tale of a son of slaves, who moved to the Burroughs in the late 1800’s to start a new life.  There is the story of a young boy, who dies and awakens to find himself in Mansoul, which is neither heaven nor hell, but instead is the dimension above our Earthly plane of existence where all of time exists simultaneously, and the friends he makes there.  There is the story of an eccentric artist, the sister of the young boy above, whose artworks describe the visions of Mansoul.  These are just the stories about the living people in the Burroughs.  Interspersed throughout are also stories of events that take place in Mansoul, of the angels who build existence and are in charge of the lives of every resident of the Burroughs, and who control their fate through what appears to be a giant game of billiards. 

 

The real main character of this novel is the Burroughs itself, a downtrodden neighborhood that Mr. Alan Moore himself grew up in, and which he describes in such intricate detail that it becomes a truly living thing.  Every single building, every tree, every paving stone has a million stories to tell, a million memories attached, from countless residents and their life experiences.  This is very much like any ghetto or slum or poor neighborhood.  There is no escape for the residents so they keep on building meaning and experience in the same places that their parents and their parents’ parents did.  Some places, like the Burroughs, have been involved in this process of isolationist stagnation for centuries, and it shows in the people that have to or choose to call these places home.

The only books I can compare to this one are the Illuminatus Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson, and James Joyce’s Ulysses. Jerusalem is like Illuminatus in that its purpose seems to be to rewire the thought patterns and reality tunnel of the reader, allowing the reader’s mind to expand and see the interconnectedness of all things as well as the absurdity of certainty of any kind.  Jerusalem is like Ulysses in that events of a single day are explored in near-infinite detail, letting the reader understand that at any given moment in time, there are an infinity of events occurring around them, an infinity of thoughts and feelings and decisions and crimes and good and evil.  Ulysses takes place in the city of Dublin.  Jerusalem takes place in the neighborhood of the Burroughs. Not only are different stories told but the method of delivering the stories changes too, never letting the reader become too comfortable.  Jerusalem switches point of view often, changes from prose to poetry, contains a chapter that is written out like a stage play, describes the internal mental state of an “insane” woman in a chapter that is near-Joycean in its phonetic creativity (It is best read aloud), and hops back and forth in time regularly.  Jerusalem is a complex masterwork, and I understand why Alan Moore took ten years to write it.

One of the greatest ideas in the book is that of the repeated nature of existence.  Some cultures believe in reincarnation, whereby one soul hops from organism to organism, on its way to the complete absolution of self which they call nirvana.  Jerusalem posits that we do reincarnate if we want to, but that each of us lives the same life over and over and over and over.  We make the same mistakes.  We experience the same joys.  We sometimes feel déjà vu because we get a feeling we have experienced this moment before.  While this idea seems to place a limit on free will, it is perfectly fitting to a world where the same problems, hardships, and fears plague generation after generation with no end in sight.  Upon death, our soul goes to the dimension above ours, Mansoul as it is called.  Some people are too attached to living and are unable to make it to Mansoul, instead spending eternity reliving their time on Earth as grey, lifeless shades, forever looping around, revisiting moments in their life, and being ignored by the living around them.  The way that Alan Moore describes all of this is so cool, and builds so carefully, that I do it a disservice with my description here.  It really needs to be read to be appreciated.

The hard part of reading this novel is that Alan Moore also describes the horrors and traumas experienced by the residents of the Burroughs.  They are the horrors of anyone living an impoverished and hopeless life.  Drug addiction, alcoholism, sexual abuse, violence, infidelity, joblessness, treachery, and plain old EVIL are constant residents of the Burroughs too, as they are in all poor areas.  The suffering of the disadvantaged human never changes.  It is the same pains that they have felt for generations.  It will be felt by those to come.  It is important to know this, to know that people are shaped by their circumstances far more than we wish to believe.  Modern humans have a delusion of free will, believing that anyone anywhere can improve their lot by proper decisions and hard work.  Only someone who grew up comfortable, able to indulge their individuality without fearing daily for their well-being, and able to take meals and education and opportunity for granted can be so carefree.  The poor of the world do not share this.  They suffer from birth to death, and even small victories such as graduating from High School, or getting a decent job become tragedies far more regularly than not.  Alan Moore understands this and is able to show the innate dignity of life in spite of the horrors that surround it.

          I read mostly non-fiction books.  If you see the list of reviews you will notice this.  There are a few novels and other such works of fiction included but the majority is not fiction.  Fiction takes longer for me to read by its very nature.  Non-fiction works have to be written in as clear a language as possible, because their aim is to pass on information.  It does not do to obscure the information by the use of literary language.  Fiction is the opposite.  It truly wants to transport the reader to a fully imagined world, and the actual syntax and writing style can change to suit the author’s desires and goals.  Alan Moore has achieved this.  I really hope more people take the time to read this book.  Even if it takes a year, it is worth it.  I know I will be thinking about the people and ideas found within Jerusalem for the rest of my life. 

(This book can be purchased here:  AMAZON  )

Alan Moore is as British as British gets!

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Vols. 1 + 2 – Alan Moore, Kevin O’Neil (2000)

            Writer Alan Moore is responsible for several of the best comics of the past 2 decades.  His work is always highly researched and deeply engrossing.  For this comic series, he resurrected the old pulp heroes of his childhood, such as Allan Quatermain, Captain Nemo, Hawley Griffin (The Invisible Man), and Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde  among others, and gathered them as a kind of super-group, working in the shadows to aid Great Britain as only these heroes can.

            Being American, I had only passing knowledge of some of these pulpy characters, but having immersed myself in American pulp heroes (The Shadow, The Black Cat, Flash Gordon, Conan the Barbarian, etc.) I was more than willing to be sucked into Mr. Moore’s dense stories.  One thing that is different between American pulp and British pulp is the focus on wordplay and erudition in the British heroes.  American pulp heroes are usually not talkers.  They are beings of pure action, whose words fail them and whose physical gifts and intelligence must save the day.  These British heroes are drawn from literature, and therefore these comics have a more literate quality than I expected.  Alan Moore is an intellectual person, and his characters’ dialogues are always more refined than his American contemporaries.

            The story within The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (even the name of the group is very British.  Nothing like the American hero-groups who are all called either Fantastic, Avengers, Uncanny, etc.) centers around threats to the British crown, and the machinations behind the scenes by a mysterious “Mr. M” who has gathered up the group and uses them to fight back against these threats.  The story is framed by prefaces that read like the old pulpy yarns these heroes originally appeared in.  The artwork is refined, yet chaotic and dense, very indicative of the crowded world of late 19^th and early 20^th century England.  I do not want to discuss the specific details of the plot as I do not wish to give anything away, but it draws in several other British literature characters.  One of the cool little bits is how Moore hints that heroes have been gathered before by the British crown under the “League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” moniker.  I love how he creates a backstory when he writes.

            While it is not my favorite of Mr. Moore’s works (Those would be The Watchmen and From Hell, about the Ripper murders), it is still a great read and even a cool introduction to characters which the mainstream has generally forgotten.  I am sure that if I was more familiar with the source material for these characters that I would have picked up on a lot more cool stuff.  It is not as cohesive a whole as I would have wished, but perfection is rarely achieved, if ever.  

(This book can be purchased here:  AMAZON  )

Artwork from my favorite comic book ever

Watching the Watchmen – Dave Gibbons, Chip Kidd, Mike Essl (2008)

            

           The Watchmen is a comic book written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Dave Gibbons.  It is maybe the single greatest work of superhero literature I have ever read, and I re-read it every few years, always finding new details and connections.

            Alan Moore is one of the best writers for comics around.  He treats his subjects with so much skill, does so much research, that it really takes an artist like Gibbons to bring the dense, inventive storylines to visual life.  This book is basically a collection of sketchbook work, preparatory drawings, and final artwork for the 12-issue series.  Everything from pen and ink sketches of main characters to the trial and error of preparing finished pages is included.

Here is how I would have drawn Dr. Manhattan

 

            For an art lover like me, it is invaluable!  To see into the mind of Mr. Gibbons is amazing.  While his finished artwork bristles with detail, resonance, and expertly framed images, the sketches expose the vitality of his art.  For anyone who has read Watchmen, (and if you have only seen the film, please do yourself a favor and read the comic), this book is a fantastic supplement.

( For the Watchmen entry from the Critical Survey of Graphic Novels click here: http://salempress.com/store/pdfs/watchmen_ebook.pdf )