Thursday, June 25, 2009

Comics Review: Alan Moore, Rick Veitch, et al, Swamp Thing, Book 5: Earth to Earth & Book 6: Reunion

This review has been moved to the R. S. Martin website. Click here to read.
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7 comments:

Inkwell Bookstore said...

Your reviews have been wonderful. The tone you used, the observations you made, the insights you gave me...beautiful. Thank you.

June 26, 2009 at 9:39 AM
Gargantuan Media said...

I loved Swamp thing as a greasy teenager. I still do as a greasy adult.

Something about the addition of the Abby character felt right. Her strange individuality and sex appeal, like Jean Grey meets Nadine Cross from the Stand, was a great counter-point to the "inhuman" Swamp thing.

Also, your link to the horrible I Am Legend adaptation is borked (typo?).

August 17, 2009 at 9:27 AM
R. S. Martin said...

GM--

I'm not quite sure what was wrong with the link, but it seems to be working now.

August 17, 2009 at 5:03 PM
alex orzeck-byrnes said...

when i first read these comics , it was my first exposure to alfredo alcala and i was heartbroken over totleben's absence . since then i've seen lots more alcala ( particularly his inks over john buscema in the savage sword of conan ) and i can understand why he was chosen to take over . he seems like the perfect replacement ! but it didn't work out the way . he does a good job but ... how can we account for this ? i blame different original page dimensions ( conan was for a magazine and probably done 1.5 - 2 times up from that size ) . any thoughts ? in retrospect , who might have done better work ?

March 16, 2010 at 4:11 PM
R. S. Martin said...

alex--

No one working for Marvel or DC Comics on one of their properties has an entirely free hand with what they're doing. The rendering style to be used on a piece could very well have been dictated by the editor. (It probably was, just to maintain consistency. Alcala's work was often as elaborate as Totleben's.)

Deadlines can be a factor as well; Alcala could very well have felt more comfortable with the time he had to work on the Swamp Thing material.

You also can't discount questions of morale. By just about every account there is, DC has been a much better company to work for than Marvel for most of their histories. And who knows what was going on in Alcala's personal life? That can certainly affect the quality of work.

There are any number of reasons why someone may do better work at different times. All one can do is appreciate the difference.

March 16, 2010 at 5:56 PM
alex orzeck-byrnes said...

we see a similar thing with bernie wrightson who spend all of the seventies moving towards greater complexity in his line-work only to seemingly burn out on his magnificent frankenstein illustrations and return to a much simpler style . i experience similar things with my own drawing . sometimes you just don't want to put in all those tiny little lines !

March 16, 2010 at 7:10 PM
alex orzeck-byrnes said...

i should really check my sentences before i post them . i promise that i speak english as a first language .

March 16, 2010 at 7:31 PM

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