Making a MONSTER! Swamp Thing 1 by Bernie WRIGHTSON and Len WEIN

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[@jabbajuju]

20:20 According to Grand Comics Database the original letterer of Swamp Thing #1 was Gaspar Saladino

[@evanlindsey1100]

Swamp Thing first appeared a year before this in House of Secrets #92. Apparently the story did so well that Wein and Wrightson were asked to do a series based on the story. Since the first story was set in the late 1800s, they updated the concept for the ongoing.

[@Gootie29]

I think a lot of the Baxter paper reprints that DC put out in the 80's is because of Jeanette Kahn. She made the deal with Kirby for the New Gods reprints, and I'm willing to bet she did the Neal Adams Deadman, Marshall Rogers Batman, this Bernie Wrighson Swamp Thing as well. I think she was trying to present DC books to an older audience in the way Vertigo would do just a few years later

[@Gerakoka]

Wrightson is such an amazing artist, simply amazing. It is so sad that he is not with us anymore(

[@demetriusdillard2863]

My sentiments exactly. It is indeed heartbreaking Bernie Wrightson is no longer alive, but at least he left all of us with an incredible legacy. May Wrightson continue to rest in peace...he is still sorely missed.

[@demetriusdillard2863]

You and me both,@@jamesross824!

[@stevena488]

Always shocked me how YOUNG Wrightson was when he started doing this stuff, I think he was like 22 when he FIRST did Swamp Thing. I genuinely thought he was one of the old guard of EC comics when I first saw his work who I equated to a penmanship that was equal to Jack Davis, but MAN, Wrightson was a power house. Always found it nuts that my favourite artists were always on Horror titles, like Nestor Rodondo, Wrightson and the like.

[@demetriusdillard2863]

Redondo replaced Wrightson in issue #11; though Redondo's artwork was grim and bleak, he simply couldn't hold a candle to Wrightson.

[@joemoore3930]

I definitely had the grapple arm Swamp Thing action figure.

[@guylawley7084]

Letterer on Swamp Thing 1: GCD says Gaspar Saladino (adding that he was credited on the letters page of issue 5)

[@russworks2882]

Lettering and the incredible logo both by Gaspar Saladino. DC really had quality production standards during this period; Infantino appointed quite a few editors who were artists. All of the visual components of this book were very craft-oriented. To my mind, Wein was just along for the ride. It was done Marvel method, and soon after Wrightson left, Wein bailed out. What you speculate about the decision to continue the series based on the first story is on the nose, but the story in question was the earlier one-shot in House of Secrets with the stunning Wrightson cover, using Louise Jones as a model (along with Kaluta and Wrightson posing for interior characters). In this case, you have to credit Wein for the original script. There was apparently a huge response to the story, which helped DC to make the bold decision to make a monster the hero of a comic book.

[@demetriusdillard2863]

I love Wrightson's ten-issue run on Swamp Thing (including his prototype debut in House Of Secrets #92)...seeing Wrightson's gothic and atmospheric EC-inspired artwork was truly a beautiful delight; along with Neal Adams, George Perez, and John Byrne, Wrightson was undoubtedly one of the greatest comic book artists of the Bronze Age, bar none. My all-time favorite issue of Swamp Thing is, without a shadow of a doubt, #7 (Swamp Thing crosses paths with the World's Greatest Detective in Gotham). I'm both honored and very damn proud to have Wrightson's ten-issue run, including the aforementioned House Of Secrets #92, downloaded on my Kindle.

[@billyhaney5117]

Gaspar Saladino is the letterer of Swamp Thing #1. He designed the cover logo, too.

[@JH-pe3ro]

That intro text makes me think Edward Bulwer-Lytton. "It was a dark and stormy night..."

[@DJJunkfoodJay]

I remember as a kid being fascinated by the note to Tatjana that got printed by accident in the margin of issue 25 of Swamp Thing. I love that Moore/Bissette/Totleben run so much, I just read it again last month.

[@vanthdreadstar8039]

I had this in black and white in "pocket-book" style (size of a book novel) growing up. Great stuff, and the Un-men were awesome. Same with the Patchwork man.

[@reprintranch]

I had no idea the Wrightson ST material had been reprinted in that format. Thanks for the info, I'm a reprint nut. :)

[@michaelreed220]

Walt Kelly's Newspaper comic strip "Pogo" would have different fonts used for different characters. Wrightson and Wein would have been aware of Pogo at the time - also a swamp related comic.

[@reprintranch]

Yeah, I checked into this a bit, 'cause my lovely wife has a shelf full of Pogo paperbacks that reprint the newspaper strip. I zeroed in on the character Deacon Mushrat, a muskrat (duh) who was a hypocritical preacher and always had Old English or Gothic lettering in his word balloons. The Pogo strip actually debuted in comic books, in 1941, and the newspaper version followed in 1947, as I understand it. Not sure when exactly Kelly introduced Deacon Mushrat or his distinctive lettering, but that's definitely an early, well-known and prolonged example of the trope.

[@guylawley7084]

Excellent spot! How could I have forgotten ?

[@chriskaufman2262]

Great timing! I just got my Absolute Swamp Thing and was able to follow along! My first collection of stories was a 245 page collection called America at War which was a bunch of DC War comics grouped by decade. After that were the DC digest books, which I thought were a lot of fun. But yes, now I take for granted the ease of access to these old stories but in the 70’s and early 80’s, we just didn’t have these stories unless reprinted!

[@brianpetersen6128]

Would be cool if you would cover the difference in coloring. Roots of Swamp Thing are a recolor of the originals and the differences are pretty significant. You can actually pickup cheaper reprints of the original issues in “Original Swamp Thing Saga”. DC released these in their DC Special Series. #2, 14, 17, and 20 reprint the original run.

[@csako2668]

Len Wein, Co ST creator and Gerry Conway, M-T Co creator, were room mates at the time Man-Thing and Swamp Thing came to be. Draw your own "Separated at birth" conclusions

[@reprintranch]

I have no proof to back this up but it sure seems to me that Wein and Wrightson, on some level, were thinking "hey, what if the early '50s EC Comics bullpen had produced a super-hero comic?" Also, regarding the text on the first page, have a look at the introductory text to the EC story "Horror We? How's Bayou," which is set in a Looziana swamp.

[@reprintranch]

@@wtk6069 I'm sure that was part of it, too. Ideas free for the taking. But the opening description of the swamp environment and the text describing Swamp Thing's initial emergence from the muck, to me that screams "Horror We? How's Bayou." Also, it's worth mentioning that the huge hardcover EC reprint collection "Horror Comics of the 1950s" was published in 1971 and there was a big EC convention in NYC in late May 1972 (shortly before ST issue 1 appeared). So interest in EC Comics was on the rise in the early '70s. I remember some of that from my own collecting adventures circa 1974-76.

[@reprintranch]

After revisiting a reprint of the first Man-Thing story (which was initially published in the first issue of Savage Tales, from early 1971), I realize that Swamp Thing 1's origin story contains many of the same plot elements. (The Man-Thing story was written by Roy Thomas and Gerry Conway, illustrated very nicely in black-and-white by Gray Morrow.) The common plot elements include: * Protagonist who starts off as a scientist working at a lab in a swamp; * Government-funded project to develop a beneficial chemical at said lab; * Greedy bad guys appearing at the lab aiming to acquire the chemical; * A combination of chemical plus swamp water causing our hero's transformation from man to mucky monstrosity; * Mucky monstrosity is absurdly strong and unimpeded by bullets, because comics; * Bad guys in car try to run down mucky monstrosity, who slams his big ol' arms down on the hood and stops the car; * Mucky monstrosity out-and-out kills some bad guys.

[@dwaynemuth8775]

Memory lane for me! I started reading the book with issue 6 and immediately went back and found a couple of issues without covers,3&4! I’m not 100% on this but the letter is Gaspar Salidino,underrated veteran letterer And the word balloons were definitely a new thing at least at this time? I could be wrong on that too? It was certainly new to me! I love this era of comics because it is the beginning of the possibilities and pushed comics into the much needed creative kick in the ass ! Keep reading and making comix!❤️😎🎯👍

[@benperkins6657]

Fun fact! Dick Durrock played Swamp Thing up until the latest live-action incarnation of the character. I always had a weird fascination with that TV show and the first Wes Craven movie. Crazy wild stuff. Wrightson drew my favorite version of the character.

[@Thierrothierro]

The letterer is uncredited even in the modern TPB reprints, but that's unmistakably Gaspar Saladino's style.

[@jabezcreed]

The book they were referring to is "Swampmen: Muck-Monsters and Their Makers" (Comic Book Creator #6) from TwoMorrows. Also check out "Swamp Monsters" from Yoe Books/IDW.

[@davecironelibrarykid]

Excellent breakdown!

[@guylawley7084]

First lettering done in different style for different characters: I don’t know if it was THE first but Todd Klein’s first was on Starstruck. From an interview: “Using different styles for different characters is something that should be done sparingly […] The first time I was asked to use a lot of styles was on Starstruck by Elaine Lee and Michael Wm. Kaluta, which I did for them directly. […] It was a good testing ground for my later work on Sandman.”

[@carlramos9445]

another banger

[@PERart6231]

Cartoonist Kayfabe read more Swamp Thing!

[@user-th8bn5mk4q]

cartoonist kayfabe you guys so rock

[@21Million]

Love Craft, Swamp Thing, and BRZRKR are all probably in the same universe.

[@justjamie3717]

Same actor in the movies and the show. The first movie holds up way better than I expected. The second movie disappointed me a lot even though the costume is superior.

[@evanlindsey1100]

From what I have read, There was a lot of intensive work for the Swamp Thing suit and makeup for the first movie. Dick Durock, the man in the suit was not completely comfortable with the process, so they cut back a little bit on the makeup for the sequel, and it was a little better, so when they brought him back for the tv series, the makeup was cut back again, and Durock was satisfied at that point. Some of the complaints had to do with mobility.

[@benjaminsmall8446]

Loving the channel guys and jim last night saw someone review your hulk grand design great job

[@drbqqq1433]

Small point. I doubt the dynamite discontinuity was an intentional choice since we only need to look back to the previous panel to clearly see that it's dynamite.🙂

[@erikwirfs-brock2432]

Len Wein wasn't very old himself when he wrote this comic, but I feel like getting your foot in the door to write comics was (is ?) a little less rigorous than for artists, editors were approving pitches of the fanboys walking through the door rather than seeking out established writers in other fields. Like, it always blew my mind that 19 year old Gerry Conway was the guy to follow Stan Lee in writing Spider-Man.

[@reprintranch]

Regarding the question that comes up about characters with their own distinctive thought bubbles and dialogue balloons, beginning at 20:30 -- I found an example for a one-shot monster character, that being the impressively hideous land squid/anemone thing in the light-hearted EC science fiction tale, "Don't Count Your Chickens," illustrated by Joe Orlando and published in the May-June 1952 issue of Weird Fantasy. Every time this critter reaches out telepathically to the human kid who's unwittingly helping it prepare to conquer Earth, a distinctive word balloon is used, which has suitably disgusting dribbly-looking drops around the border of the balloon. (Looks like something you'd be more likely to see in a 1972 San Francisco underground comic, if you get my drift.) I'm betting there are some other scattered examples over the years where various publishers had selected monsters, aliens, robots, disembodied entities, ghosts, etc. get a "personal" thought bubble and/or dialogue balloon style.