Viewing the Swamp for the first time
So... judging the book by its cover, would I have picked this up off the rack to read? Probably not. Too "monster cliché". No author's name. And yet... the monster's facial expression (rare for monster's to have faces or expressions) inspires sympathy.
- Artwork - The cover depicts a green humanoid with red eyes in a swamp being blasted in the back by flame throwers wielded by thirteen men in blue-black uniforms. Nine are Caucasian, other four are silhouettes only. Three helicopters with search lights hover overhead. A few straggly trees silhouetted in the background, one green vine on left side of page, tree roots in lower right corner, lily pads on the water's surface. The shape of the roots is similar to the "veins" on the skin of the humanoid (who shall henceforth be TST). Three yellow light beams (laser beams?) pass through TST's body and come out unchanged in color or dispersal.
- Business - Upper left corner is DC's logo (2 black letters in a white circle in a black circle that has four white stars equidistant (compass points?) with edges of the circle clipped for page edges. Upper-right Corner says 75 cents, Issue 20, Jan 1984, and then the "seal of approval" (Approved by the Comics Code Authority). Lower left corner is a white rectangle, set aside for mailing label or bar codes (did those exist in 1984? I don't remember when they started).
- Lettering - red and ragged, with black streaks (mud or muck?) at the bottom of each letter. The title is "the SAGA of the SWAMP THING". The illustrator's name is YEATES and it appears in the water, light blue against black. He's not one of the regular illustrators for this series.
I take a closer look at TST. It has five fingers, white teeth, pink tongue, so that's human, though the red eyes and the beak of a nose are more like a terrapin. TST shows no external genitalia in this drawing, yet there are lots of muscles and shoulders are broad so TST seems male.
The light/laser beams being fired from the helicopter go right through the body of TST. Translucent? The water doesn't spread in ripples from his legs; it's shown with black and blue parallel horizontal lines. (The sky is drawn in the same way. As above, so below.) Does TST get in-phase with energy and/or with water?
And why are soldiers trying to kill him? What is he?
I suppose I'll find out more eventually. But the cover is enough for today.
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