This is Part Two in a loose series on Alan Moore’s “Saga of the Swamp Thing.” For Part One, watch “The Existential Horror of The Anatomy Lesson” th-cam.com/video/VfwP60UknKs/w-d-xo.html
Matt Draper Love your video essays, Matt. You must be a literary major or professor with the way you articulate your thoughts, and make them sound both insightful and inviting for us listeners. Keep up the great work. You should do a video on hellblazer after you finish discussing swamp thing.
@@MattDraper l gave the address of ghuin to cómic con and sent ghuin drawings to a spawn publisherin México in the year two thousand and fifteen Direction of cómic completely lower case ghuin.WordPress.com
Karen Berger was one of the best things ever to happen to the comics medium. Her directive choices reinvented DC into something much better, and her influence resonated throughout the industry.
As someone who’s only really heard of Alan Moore’s work on Swamp Thing being legendary, watching this video combined with the Anatomy Lesson video, have given me a whole new look on Moore’s writing
I love this story. Arcane was pure evil and what he did to his own niece is horrific. The highlight was the journey into hell and the meetings with Etrigan and the Spectre. I cannot wait until you get to the story where Swamp Thing helps saves the world from the forces of dark magic.
Moore's take on Etrigan holds a very special place in my heart. It gives him an excuse to be Shakespearean without interrupting the flow of his narrative and every line the Demon speaks is a gem. "Innocents? Why to hear the tales they tell, you'd think there was no guilty child in Hell."
Awesome showcase for an incredible run. "The Saga of the Swamp Thing" is such a special series, over thirty years later and it still reads and looks like nothing else. Great work as always!
the image of Swamp Thing sitting with Abby is honestly one of the sweetest in comics, just both smiling and happy. that's one that really stuck with me.
There's a bit in the story where Arcane in hell says "How long have I been here" and Swamp Thing replies "Since yesterday" and a shocked Arcane says "Yesterday" as a question when he realises that time passes quicker in hell than on earth.
Bisette and Totleben's art on this series still stuns me to this day. It's probably my favorite in the history of the medium. The first time i ever encountered Bisette's panel arrangement, i thought i was looking at a broken glass window.
Even though many of these issues did not bear the CCA stamp, they were written with it in mind, and it is perhaps the best example of how sometimes the CCA could force creators to be better by writing in a more metaphorical manner. The "sex/tuber" issue is a perfect example.
That's like saying drugs make people better creators. As with all inner and outer obstacles in the creative process, the talent happened despite such things, not because of them.
To this day, "Down Amongst The Dead Men" remains my favorite story in Moore's entire Swamp Thing run. I really wish you'd taken the time to mention its deep connections to Dante Alighieri's classic poem cycle The Divine Comedy. All the elements are there: a lost, questing soul navigating the afterlife after going astray, a pure innocent soul waiting at journey's end, people the questor knew in life making unexpected appearances and knowledgeable guides to help the questor find his way. Moore's depiction of Etrigan The Demon is also a special highlight, fiendishly playful, amoral but bound by his personal code to honor a previously acquired debt to Swamp Thing...for a small price. Reading his explanation of Hell still gets me after all these years.
Yeah, it’s a great story! I thought about expounding on it more, but didn’t want to make the video too long or have too many different focuses. Thank you for sharing your thoughts!
Ahhh, at last a sequel. Your content is so excellent I honestly haven't minded waiting for this, was it worth it. Keep doing these please, they're amazing! ❤
Thank you! I honestly have no idea what I would say about Watchmen that hasn’t already been said. But I do want to cover Hellblazer sometime this year.
@@MattDraper things i would love you to discuss would be Grant Morrison's Batman and the Invisibles as well as Neil Gaimans Sandman or another Hellboy video!
I really love this volume of the series. "Down among the Dead Men" is one of my favorite single issue stories ever. I actually just finished reading Batman White Knight and I'd love to see your take on it Matt.
Great to see you return to what maybe one of the best comic runs ever made. I’m on the final volume and I really enjoying. In the total run so far, my favorite issue is actually the one shot that follows this arc, “Pog” (issue 32). I don’t know why, but I just find cartoonish aliens in Moore’s dark athmosphere very intersting. Just that image of the cartoon crocodile being murdered by real crocodiles still gives me chills every time. What are your thoughts on Pog?
I think that issue is amazing. The image you mention stuck with me. It’s so tragic but the story has a sense of sweetness to it since it’s a tribute to Pogo. Totally one of a kind.
The more I hear about Moore's work the more I want to read his comics. But my budget is tight and he sheer volume of his output makes the endeavour daunting. But the things I've already read and what I've seen others show does paint the picture of a genius madman frequently paired with awesome illustrators. He has yet to dissapoint me, the simpleton in the field of comics. :D
He’s definitely written a lot. I’d recommend Vol 1 and 2 of League of Extraordinary Gentleman, V for Vendetta, Swamp Thing, For the Man Who Has Everything, and Top 10.
Stay away from Neonomicon. What he does to both H.P. Lovecraft and his characters in that misbegotten series doesn't deserve to be remembered as part of his legacy. That said, seek out his work on Miracleman, his first true deconstructionist take on superheroes.
Don't forget that Marvel has newly published the Miracleman series. I have a fairly large Moore collection, but i've been picking away at it for years and i'm pretty old🤣
You are seriously one of my favorite content creators on TH-cam your in depth breakdowns of literature and film provide me with a deeper understanding of some of my favorite stories and movies never stop making videos!!!
Great video man. No matter the video, you always make every video sound educational and intriguing. Seriously well done. You should do Animal Man by Grant Morrison since it deals with metatextual ideas and the idea that we aren't real but a story read by someone else. It would be a good transition as they're both vertigo comics from the 80's written but new British writers.
@@MattDraper You should definitely do vertigo books
5 ปีที่แล้ว
Morrison's re-imagining of Animal Man is a masterpiece of cleverly presented meta-fictional tropes, explained in simple terms of linear causality, face to face, to his fictional protagonist by writing himself (A factually supported real character) into the narrative. Cleverly disguised as himself, (only with a full head of hair) to reduce any fictional jet-lag, he tells Buddy Baker he's just a 2 dimensional characterisation of a long dropped "Golden Age" Comic book title, and his every action was written down and set out for him, that he was essentially an extension of his, the writer's will, and subject to the literal whims of this smart-arsed, whiny voiced Scottish 'l'enfant terrible' of the post modernist leftie twat-waffles that made up the mid eighties Briterati. Creatively null thirty somethings, who's collective expectations of what a comic could deliver by way of literature stopped for them at eight years old, when they grew out of "Whizzer and Chips". But they get a carefully orchestrated and perfectly timed series of crisis events, that makes the reader watch as Buddy finds himself buried under the allegorical rubble of yet another of Morrison's existentially fabricated theoretical boundaries, torn down as usual, with the empirically mapped precision of someone far too clever for his own good. And that bump on the head. . . . . Buddy's fragile sanity takes a kind of reset, the wall is rebuilt, he remembers nothing of his grief and madness at the arbitrary loss of his Wife and children, or of his meeting with his writer, all gone. But as a parting gift to Buddy Baker, (And because he can) Morrison then writes Ellen and the kids back into the narrative like they'd never been anywhere, and Buddy's post traumatic script disorder fades away, like the memory of a bad dream on a long, dark night. Aaaand CUT! Exit Morrison. But that's no reason to stop reading. There's a well handled transition that establishes a few ground rules for Buddy Baker, family man, card carrying, costume clad superhero / and movie stunt man for hire. And affirms some all too human personality traits that seem hell bent on destroying any heroic pretensions he might have. When the Morrison flavoured dust has settled, the title is given to some gritty young edgelord called . . . Jimmy someth . . .? Jaimie Delano, that's the fella, he welds all the clever-dicky threads of pre-matrix -metamystical literary deconstructionism into a character driven arc centering itself around a post-coma patient's trouble reintegrating himself into a functional and productive role. Which generally makes for a long, dull, plodding story. But Delano turns this into a perfectly twisted, fully cohesive plot that takes the subverted role of the superhero, and hammers it into a new pattern. A pattern of the normal, emotionally fragile immature male of the (>any
Dude, I love your videos. Especially the ones about Swamp Thing, All Star Superman, and Blade Runner. Can't wait to see what you got brewing for us. Keep up the excellent work!😁🤘🤘
After your phenomenal video on "The Anatomy Lesson", I couldn't wait to see another video about Swamp Thing. I don't remember if I read Scott Snyder's run or Alan Moore's first trade of Swamp Thing first, but Moore's ideas and stories made me a fan for life.
I'm reading the Allan Moore run now. Yes, really great story telling but a few archs like the Louisiana ghosts of pasts murders possession which is a staple trope in horror movies kind of dragged. But, although I found it quirky at first, it's the unique and highly detailed, but also a little off art of Stephen Bisette and John Totleben as well as the various guest artists who came in but kept the thematic style that I really am finding interesting, especially the new takes on Phantom Stranger and even Firestorm (that sentence was way too long).
Great video as always Matt! I was hoping a new video on the more modern series like Tom King's Omega Men & Sheriff of Babylon or Jeff Lemire's Descender or Animal Man. But a part 2 on Alan Moore's Swamp Thing is amazing as well. keep it up!
Proven by a direct quotation from Moore himself during The Wake: "The night can make a man honest...but not more sober." After that prolonged coma, he died in that hospital room as he recounts in Season of Mists.
Okay... I'm not a big fan of Swamp Thing or horror in general but any comic a quality creator like you would make two videos about is worth my time and money.
I think generally Moore’s Swamp Thing is very easy to read. It slowly gets weirder, but it’s all pretty grounded from the start. You should check it out!
Chandasouk I feel like I've seen you on a comment before so I had to look at your profile. You watch By Any Means Basketball and read comics? Yeah you seem alright. (Shoutout Gary Payton)
Tell me... Why does God... Allow... Such a place...? ---- Think you God some Parent or Policeman grim/ giving out rewards and punishments for all? These Hells were carved by me while they lived... We suffer as we choose, and nothing's amiss- All punishments deserv'd, none more than this- ---- This was an awesome scene, though I was hooked before Love and Death by the underwater vampires thing.
If I may be forgiven for being pedantic, here is Etrigan's whole soliloquy: "Think you God built this place,/ Wishing men lusts uncontrolled and swords unsheathed?/ Not God, my friend./The truth is bleaker still./Men carved these halls while they breathed. "God is no parent or policeman grim,/ Dispensing rewards and punishments for all./Each soul rises and descends by its own whim./He mourns but cannot prevent their fall. "We suffer as we choose./Nothing's amiss./All punishments are deserved,/None more than this." Arguably, Alan Moore's finest Etrigan moment.
@@johnathonhaney8291 I didn't plan to quote it 100% but I don't remember it that way. Note I'm citing the original comic which would have been worth a mint in the 90s but I read it to tatters... Not going to dig through my boxes to find it either today. Comics companies change a lot when they slap together the Graphics Novel, save the time when to save a few $ they take scans others made and posted online and you can even see the same slight 1 degree tilt you did from a newsgroup download. Dark Horse took out a lot of nudity from Shirow's Ghost in the Shell for instance, not just the explicit stuff from V1 but some casual nudity in the colored pages from later episodes. For Moore's Swamp thing I'll prove it - during Arcane's expression of power where his evil wave is going around causing all sorts of mini horror stories - do they have a page "And up in the sky, a Watchman Watches..." and there's some spherical space sphere with a busty secretary type lady but superhero clothing and a shadow man she's reporting to? Blah Blah compares the anomaly power level to the Demon Trigon or the Spectre... "What do we do?" - "Do? We watch..." I've noted they cut that OUT of the graphic novel reprints. #2 reason why I won't buy a new copy of it. Coz that's a ref to Crisis 1.0 - but DC likes to slurp up, chew and regurgitate that "Crisis" thing just as Marvel does with Secret Wars...
@@benb3316 Geez and here I thought I was being pedantic. The soliloquy was all one page, three panels, very easy to check. I memorized it from the original print on the Love and Death graphic novel from the mid to late 1990s, long before, one presumes, any whitewashing you're talking about took place. Speaking of which, I could really care less about all that...much like how you couldn't be bothered to dig out Annual #2 to check the quote.
@@benb3316 What would it add to the story? The same point is made in the Arkham Asylum sequence which has more direct ties to the actual story in the form of Woodrue. Methinks you're confusing it with the actual all-Crisis issue of the run, which was in the middle of the American Gothic storyline, well after Love And Death and, let's remember, also had a supernatural menace breaking its metaphysical chains. FYI, I have the originals of everything after Love and Death, so don't even go there.
My local library had Moore’s entire SwampThing run much to my surprise. I still don’t think I’ve read a better series. The Constantine, Deadman stuff is my favourite although the cosmic existential psychedelia portion is pretty special n then of course there’s the Gotham bit which is just fuckin beautiful. The new SwampThing show looks like it’s gonna be a huge disappointment.
For me personally, the true horror comes from the fact that, despite Abigail seeming like a genuinely good person who was undeserving of going to hell, arcane still warped the laws of both physical, and spiritual reality to send a good soul into a place of eternal damnation. It kind of feels like there’s no justice, and the fact that, that could happen at all make me feel hopeless for that universe.
I grew up with Deadman, The Phantom Stranger, The Spectre and Etrigan. It was awesome how those characters were used, and paid tribute to, in this storyline. There are so many great lines, but I think that "since yesterday !" is certainly one of the best. Great analysis of this amazing story.
For me, the highlight of that run was the single issue profile of Captain Cold, "Less Than Zero". "I vandalize. I assault. I steal. It's what I do...Today, I'm a murderer."
As I recall, Swamp Thing wasn't under DC proper at the time. It was under Vertigo, a DC subsidiary that was known to be far looser in it's grasp of "decency" as it was enforced by the Comics Code of the time. Vertigo was known for more scandalous and horrific content than the Code usually allowed, and thus Alan Moore was given far more freedoms than were generally allotted at the time. Hence to gripping horror and sexual themes throughout his run.
It was more the other way around, Alan Moore's run ended('87) years before Vertigo('93) even existed. Vertigo was created as a home for all these more mature comics.
This is Part Two in a loose series on Alan Moore’s “Saga of the Swamp Thing.”
For Part One, watch “The Existential Horror of The Anatomy Lesson” th-cam.com/video/VfwP60UknKs/w-d-xo.html
I'm writing my PhD on the American Gothic arc. If you want to talk about it, I'd love to. I too plan to make some videos on the series later on. Best.
That’s great! So many rich themes and different ideas to focus on within that arc. Really awesome that you’re doing that.
Matt Draper Love your video essays, Matt. You must be a literary major or professor with the way you articulate your thoughts, and make them sound both insightful and inviting for us listeners. Keep up the great work. You should do a video on hellblazer after you finish discussing swamp thing.
@@MattDraper l gave the address of ghuin to cómic con and sent ghuin drawings to a spawn publisherin México in the year two thousand and fifteen Direction of cómic completely lower case ghuin.WordPress.com
Karen Berger was one of the best things ever to happen to the comics medium. Her directive choices reinvented DC into something much better, and her influence resonated throughout the industry.
There´s always that one moment in a decade in comics. Berger in the 80s. Image in the 90s.
Anton Arcane a man so evil his presence silenced the Joker's laughter.
As someone who’s only really heard of Alan Moore’s work on Swamp Thing being legendary, watching this video combined with the Anatomy Lesson video, have given me a whole new look on Moore’s writing
I love this story. Arcane was pure evil and what he did to his own niece is horrific. The highlight was the journey into hell and the meetings with Etrigan and the Spectre. I cannot wait until you get to the story where Swamp Thing helps saves the world from the forces of dark magic.
At this point, I have no idea how long it will be until I get there haha So many interesting thing to cover in Moore’s run!
Moore's take on Etrigan holds a very special place in my heart. It gives him an excuse to be Shakespearean without interrupting the flow of his narrative and every line the Demon speaks is a gem. "Innocents? Why to hear the tales they tell, you'd think there was no guilty child in Hell."
@Tao Jones T.jones. Arcane makes The Joker look like a nice guy in comparison.
Awesome showcase for an incredible run. "The Saga of the Swamp Thing" is such a special series, over thirty years later and it still reads and looks like nothing else. Great work as always!
the image of Swamp Thing sitting with Abby is honestly one of the sweetest in comics, just both smiling and happy. that's one that really stuck with me.
There's a bit in the story where Arcane in hell says "How long have I been here" and Swamp Thing replies "Since yesterday" and a shocked Arcane says "Yesterday" as a question when he realises that time passes quicker in hell than on earth.
I adore Alan Moore's Swamp Thing. It made Swamp Thing my favourite DC Comics character.
Bisette and Totleben's art on this series still stuns me to this day. It's probably my favorite in the history of the medium. The first time i ever encountered Bisette's panel arrangement, i thought i was looking at a broken glass window.
Even though many of these issues did not bear the CCA stamp, they were written with it in mind, and it is perhaps the best example of how sometimes the CCA could force creators to be better by writing in a more metaphorical manner. The "sex/tuber" issue is a perfect example.
That's like saying drugs make people better creators. As with all inner and outer obstacles in the creative process, the talent happened despite such things, not because of them.
To this day, "Down Amongst The Dead Men" remains my favorite story in Moore's entire Swamp Thing run. I really wish you'd taken the time to mention its deep connections to Dante Alighieri's classic poem cycle The Divine Comedy. All the elements are there: a lost, questing soul navigating the afterlife after going astray, a pure innocent soul waiting at journey's end, people the questor knew in life making unexpected appearances and knowledgeable guides to help the questor find his way.
Moore's depiction of Etrigan The Demon is also a special highlight, fiendishly playful, amoral but bound by his personal code to honor a previously acquired debt to Swamp Thing...for a small price. Reading his explanation of Hell still gets me after all these years.
Yeah, it’s a great story! I thought about expounding on it more, but didn’t want to make the video too long or have too many different focuses. Thank you for sharing your thoughts!
Ahhh, at last a sequel. Your content is so excellent I honestly haven't minded waiting for this, was it worth it. Keep doing these please, they're amazing! ❤
Thank you for all your continued support! I didn’t mean to wait so long between Swamp Thing videos. Looking to do another much sooner!
@@MattDraper you truly are one of the best video essay makers on TH-cam! Do you think we could ever have a Watchmen or Hellblazer video?
Thank you! I honestly have no idea what I would say about Watchmen that hasn’t already been said. But I do want to cover Hellblazer sometime this year.
@@MattDraper things i would love you to discuss would be Grant Morrison's Batman and the Invisibles as well as Neil Gaimans Sandman or another Hellboy video!
I really love this volume of the series. "Down among the Dead Men" is one of my favorite single issue stories ever. I actually just finished reading Batman White Knight and I'd love to see your take on it Matt.
I haven’t read White Knight yet, but I’ve heard a lot of interesting things. Hoping to finally read it soon and we’ll see what happens!
Great to see you return to what maybe one of the best comic runs ever made. I’m on the final volume and I really enjoying. In the total run so far, my favorite issue is actually the one shot that follows this arc, “Pog” (issue 32). I don’t know why, but I just find cartoonish aliens in Moore’s dark athmosphere very intersting. Just that image of the cartoon crocodile being murdered by real crocodiles still gives me chills every time. What are your thoughts on Pog?
I think that issue is amazing. The image you mention stuck with me. It’s so tragic but the story has a sense of sweetness to it since it’s a tribute to Pogo. Totally one of a kind.
The more I hear about Moore's work the more I want to read his comics. But my budget is tight and he sheer volume of his output makes the endeavour daunting. But the things I've already read and what I've seen others show does paint the picture of a genius madman frequently paired with awesome illustrators. He has yet to dissapoint me, the simpleton in the field of comics. :D
He’s definitely written a lot. I’d recommend Vol 1 and 2 of League of Extraordinary Gentleman, V for Vendetta, Swamp Thing, For the Man Who Has Everything, and Top 10.
Stay away from Neonomicon. What he does to both H.P. Lovecraft and his characters in that misbegotten series doesn't deserve to be remembered as part of his legacy.
That said, seek out his work on Miracleman, his first true deconstructionist take on superheroes.
I would recommend if you can to check out libraries as some actually carry comicbooks, more often than not author's like Moore, Morrison and Gaiman.
@@JTR_3
It's in libraries I've read Watchmen and V for Vendetta. But much more than that has been hard to find :)
Don't forget that Marvel has newly published the Miracleman series. I have a fairly large Moore collection, but i've been picking away at it for years and i'm pretty old🤣
You are seriously one of my favorite content creators on TH-cam your in depth breakdowns of literature and film provide me with a deeper understanding of some of my favorite stories and movies never stop making videos!!!
Thank you!
A disturbing, yet compelling read, indeed. Excellent job, Mr Draper!
Thank you!
somehow from what Moore said is why Black Mirror is so frightening..
Great video man. No matter the video, you always make every video sound educational and intriguing. Seriously well done.
You should do Animal Man by Grant Morrison since it deals with metatextual ideas and the idea that we aren't real but a story read by someone else. It would be a good transition as they're both vertigo comics from the 80's written but new British writers.
Thank you! Yeah, I definitely want to cover Animal Man! In general, I’m hoping to cover lots of Vertigo after beginning to discuss it in this video.
Fuck you. Take my money!!!! Great idea
@@MattDraper You should definitely do vertigo books
Morrison's re-imagining of Animal Man is a masterpiece of cleverly presented meta-fictional tropes, explained in simple terms of linear causality, face to face, to his fictional protagonist by writing himself (A factually supported real character) into the narrative. Cleverly disguised as himself, (only with a full head of hair) to reduce any fictional jet-lag, he tells Buddy Baker he's just a 2 dimensional characterisation of a long dropped "Golden Age" Comic book title, and his every action was written down and set out for him, that he was essentially an extension of his, the writer's will, and subject to the literal whims of this smart-arsed, whiny voiced Scottish 'l'enfant terrible' of the post modernist leftie twat-waffles that made up the mid eighties Briterati. Creatively null thirty somethings, who's collective expectations of what a comic could deliver by way of literature stopped for them at eight years old, when they grew out of "Whizzer and Chips".
But they get a carefully orchestrated and perfectly timed series of crisis events, that makes the reader watch as Buddy finds himself buried under the allegorical rubble of yet another of Morrison's existentially fabricated theoretical boundaries, torn down as usual, with the empirically mapped precision of someone far too clever for his own good. And that bump on the head. . . . .
Buddy's fragile sanity takes a kind of reset, the wall is rebuilt, he remembers nothing of his grief and madness at the arbitrary loss of his Wife and children, or of his meeting with his writer, all gone. But as a parting gift to Buddy Baker, (And because he can) Morrison then writes Ellen and the kids back into the narrative like they'd never been anywhere, and Buddy's post traumatic script disorder fades away, like the memory of a bad dream on a long, dark night. Aaaand CUT!
Exit Morrison. But that's no reason to stop reading. There's a well handled transition that establishes a few ground rules for Buddy Baker, family man, card carrying, costume clad superhero / and movie stunt man for hire. And affirms some all too human personality traits that seem hell bent on destroying any heroic pretensions he might have. When the Morrison flavoured dust has settled, the title is given to some gritty young edgelord called . . . Jimmy someth . . .? Jaimie Delano, that's the fella, he welds all the clever-dicky threads of pre-matrix -metamystical literary deconstructionism into a character driven arc centering itself around a post-coma patient's trouble reintegrating himself into a functional and productive role. Which generally makes for a long, dull, plodding story. But Delano turns this into a perfectly twisted, fully cohesive plot that takes the subverted role of the superhero, and hammers it into a new pattern.
A pattern of the normal, emotionally fragile immature male of the (>any
Can’t wait for you to analyse Swamp Thing’s ‘American Gothic’ series.
omg, you're videos are beyond amazing, I can't believe your channel doesn't have millions of followers. You seriously rock😍🤩
I was so happy to find the complete collection in the library. I haven't touched them yet, but you always make me want to
Amazing stuff. Thanks for continuing to highlight my favorite series of all time !
(Pauly D Voice) AW YEAH SWAMP THING YEAH
Truly excellent work here! Thank you for such gripping, emotional essays on this important medium.
I have only recently found your channel, but the content is amazing. This has been one of the best yet
Thank you very much!
You are really great at telling compelling stories about comics. Thank you!
Thank you!
Dude, I love your videos. Especially the ones about Swamp Thing, All Star Superman, and Blade Runner. Can't wait to see what you got brewing for us. Keep up the excellent work!😁🤘🤘
After your phenomenal video on "The Anatomy Lesson", I couldn't wait to see another video about Swamp Thing. I don't remember if I read Scott Snyder's run or Alan Moore's first trade of Swamp Thing first, but Moore's ideas and stories made me a fan for life.
Saga of the Swamp Thing is the best thing in comics. I read it annually.
Good run down. Anyone who reads comics should read Moore’s Swamp Thing
Great job! It was well worth the wait, keep up the good work.
This was my favorite arc of Swamp Thing, thank you Matt!! Great video as always!
Thank you!
Awesome video as ever Matt 😁 this story is absolutely phenomenal.
Talk about an underrated influence on comics and pop culture at large. I can't believe I didn't even know who Karen Berger was before watching this.
I'm reading the Allan Moore run now. Yes, really great story telling but a few archs like the Louisiana ghosts of pasts murders possession which is a staple trope in horror movies kind of dragged.
But, although I found it quirky at first, it's the unique and highly detailed, but also a little off art of Stephen Bisette and John Totleben as well as the various guest artists who came in but kept the thematic style that I really am finding interesting, especially the new takes on Phantom Stranger and even Firestorm (that sentence was way too long).
‘’It’s sadism and I’m getting paid for it.’’ What a chad.
HA!
Great video as always Matt! I was hoping a new video on the more modern series like Tom King's Omega Men & Sheriff of Babylon or Jeff Lemire's Descender or Animal Man. But a part 2 on Alan Moore's Swamp Thing is amazing as well. keep it up!
Thanks! I like to change up the focus and keep it fresh. Looking to cover Lemire sometime soon, maybe Sweet Tooth or Black Hammer.
Tom King's Omega Men is an excellent choice I second. It's a space opera done in the manner of the harrowing film The Battle of Algiers.
I freaking love Swamp Thing! I would love to see a Swamp Thing vs The Tick crossover.
Etrigan the Demon is one of my favorite Kirby characters Also his series in the 90s was hilarious! I would love to see a history video of The Demon!
Matthew becomes the Raven in Sandman doesn't he?
Yep, he does!
Proven by a direct quotation from Moore himself during The Wake: "The night can make a man honest...but not more sober." After that prolonged coma, he died in that hospital room as he recounts in Season of Mists.
Okay... I'm not a big fan of Swamp Thing or horror in general but any comic a quality creator like you would make two videos about is worth my time and money.
Thanks! More videos about Moore’s Swamp Thing to come. It really is an awesome series.
I been looking at swamp thing episodes from the 80s
Absolutely excellent video. Editing on this is fantastic.
This is the best time to have swamp thing into the DC world 🌎
Love your use of Hyper Light Drifter OST.
Thanks! Wanted to keep this feeling like the last Swamp Thing video and that OST is just perfect for the tone.
Much agreed Sean. Disasterpeace's music for HLD is one of my favourite musical pieces ever. Haunting and richly atmospheric.
Awesome video MORE SWAMP THING AND VERTIGO VIDS FOR 2022
DRAPER GAAANG!!!!
I really should read this series but Moore as well as Morrison make me scratch my head at times
I think generally Moore’s Swamp Thing is very easy to read. It slowly gets weirder, but it’s all pretty grounded from the start. You should check it out!
Chandasouk I feel like I've seen you on a comment before so I had to look at your profile. You watch By Any Means Basketball and read comics? Yeah you seem alright. (Shoutout Gary Payton)
@@k-dawgnasseri5458 Disparate topics but I'm glad there are others that overlap like me lol
Great episode, thanks! Need more swamp thing =)
We need swamp thing in the DC movies right now
Tell me... Why does God... Allow... Such a place...?
----
Think you God some Parent or Policeman grim/
giving out rewards and punishments for all?
These Hells were carved by me while they lived...
We suffer as we choose, and nothing's amiss-
All punishments deserv'd, none more than this-
----
This was an awesome scene, though I was hooked before Love and Death by the underwater vampires thing.
If I may be forgiven for being pedantic, here is Etrigan's whole soliloquy: "Think you God built this place,/ Wishing men lusts uncontrolled and swords unsheathed?/ Not God, my friend./The truth is bleaker still./Men carved these halls while they breathed.
"God is no parent or policeman grim,/ Dispensing rewards and punishments for all./Each soul rises and descends by its own whim./He mourns but cannot prevent their fall.
"We suffer as we choose./Nothing's amiss./All punishments are deserved,/None more than this."
Arguably, Alan Moore's finest Etrigan moment.
@@johnathonhaney8291 I didn't plan to quote it 100% but I don't remember it that way. Note I'm citing the original comic which would have been worth a mint in the 90s but I read it to tatters... Not going to dig through my boxes to find it either today.
Comics companies change a lot when they slap together the Graphics Novel, save the time when to save a few $ they take scans others made and posted online and you can even see the same slight 1 degree tilt you did from a newsgroup download. Dark Horse took out a lot of nudity from Shirow's Ghost in the Shell for instance, not just the explicit stuff from V1 but some casual nudity in the colored pages from later episodes.
For Moore's Swamp thing I'll prove it - during Arcane's expression of power where his evil wave is going around causing all sorts of mini horror stories - do they have a page "And up in the sky, a Watchman Watches..." and there's some spherical space sphere with a busty secretary type lady but superhero clothing and a shadow man she's reporting to? Blah Blah compares the anomaly power level to the Demon Trigon or the Spectre... "What do we do?" - "Do? We watch..."
I've noted they cut that OUT of the graphic novel reprints. #2 reason why I won't buy a new copy of it. Coz that's a ref to Crisis 1.0 - but DC likes to slurp up, chew and regurgitate that "Crisis" thing just as Marvel does with Secret Wars...
@@benb3316 Geez and here I thought I was being pedantic. The soliloquy was all one page, three panels, very easy to check. I memorized it from the original print on the Love and Death graphic novel from the mid to late 1990s, long before, one presumes, any whitewashing you're talking about took place. Speaking of which, I could really care less about all that...much like how you couldn't be bothered to dig out Annual #2 to check the quote.
@@johnathonhaney8291 Did this print have the "Crisis" ref I mentioned?
@@benb3316 What would it add to the story? The same point is made in the Arkham Asylum sequence which has more direct ties to the actual story in the form of Woodrue. Methinks you're confusing it with the actual all-Crisis issue of the run, which was in the middle of the American Gothic storyline, well after Love And Death and, let's remember, also had a supernatural menace breaking its metaphysical chains. FYI, I have the originals of everything after Love and Death, so don't even go there.
My local library had Moore’s entire SwampThing run much to my surprise. I still don’t think I’ve read a better series. The Constantine, Deadman stuff is my favourite although the cosmic existential psychedelia portion is pretty special n then of course there’s the Gotham bit which is just fuckin beautiful. The new SwampThing show looks like it’s gonna be a huge disappointment.
Keep these Moore swamp thing vids coming
DC need to make a move of swamp thing in 2021.
Would you think of doing the Ultimate Spider-Man comics?
Best comic book story ever
It’s hard to imagine that it took so long for the comic industry to ditch the comics code authority completely. Fuck censorship.
The sax music makes me feel a wierd nostalgia. Where did people used to listen to music like that? Did they dance to it?
YAY NEW VIDEO
For me personally, the true horror comes from the fact that, despite Abigail seeming like a genuinely good person who was undeserving of going to hell, arcane still warped the laws of both physical, and spiritual reality to send a good soul into a place of eternal damnation. It kind of feels like there’s no justice, and the fact that, that could happen at all make me feel hopeless for that universe.
Great video. Do "American Gothic" next please.
Why doesn't this video have more likes?
would love to see more swamp thing please.
Swamp Thing will return.
I grew up with Deadman, The Phantom Stranger, The Spectre and Etrigan. It was awesome how those characters were used, and paid tribute to, in this storyline. There are so many great lines, but I think that "since yesterday !" is certainly one of the best. Great analysis of this amazing story.
+Matt Draper hey have you ever read Geoff Johns' Flash run?
I have! I really like what he did with Wally’s close relationships and the buildup of the new wave of Flash Rogues.
@@MattDraper I think it would make for a great video.
For me, the highlight of that run was the single issue profile of Captain Cold, "Less Than Zero". "I vandalize. I assault. I steal. It's what I do...Today, I'm a murderer."
Where did you get image at 8;04 ???
Subbed
So any plans for universal monsters?
After last year’s Bride of Frankenstein video? I’d like to do another this year.
Matt Draper you just don't know when?
Yeah, at least not for a few months.
Matt Draper alright
Cool.
Can you do killing and dying
Love ST & Moore
Sir Drapper, always a pleasure.
Long time fan. Care for Deathstroke? Hed love a video
Thanks! Yeah, Deathstroke would make a great topic for sure!
So interesting & Preist has been doing him justice!
Oh/Ooh?
As I recall, Swamp Thing wasn't under DC proper at the time. It was under Vertigo, a DC subsidiary that was known to be far looser in it's grasp of "decency" as it was enforced by the Comics Code of the time. Vertigo was known for more scandalous and horrific content than the Code usually allowed, and thus Alan Moore was given far more freedoms than were generally allotted at the time. Hence to gripping horror and sexual themes throughout his run.
It was more the other way around, Alan Moore's run ended('87) years before Vertigo('93) even existed. Vertigo was created as a home for all these more mature comics.
J
I'm gonna let you finish, but Rick Veitch's last name is pronounced "veetch."
This was a pretty average story.