When one thinks about graphic novels, most would invariably think of Neil Gaiman, Frank Miller, and Alan Moore as numbering amongst the greats. Some will say Stan Lee too, and I will agree that he has created many incredible characters, but I find his stories very disappointing. And there's the legendary Jack Kirby, who had a hand in creating the bulk of Marvel-verse, but my palate is already accustomed to contemporary styles and I find myself unable to enjoy his work within the context of the era they were created.
I started into graphic novels with Neil Gaiman's The Sandman, which pretty much turned me into a Gaiman fan-boy for life. His works need no further introductions from me, although there's always the Wiki if you need it.
After lapping up Gaiman, I discovered Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns and Sin City novels.
And although I've heard of Alan Moore for a long time already, I was not as enthusiastic about him as I had with Neil or Frank. But I did read Watchmen, which is an incredible tale like no other. It is a superhero story that highlights a question that we have been begging to ask for decades, but everyone politely looks the other way: why DOES Batman and Superman wear their underwear on the outside ?
Many superheros have their origins shaped by severe psychological & emotional trauma, or tragic scientific accidents or mutations, they face solitude, ostracism, persecution, psychotic villains, irrational hatred, all the while juggling their multiple identities, their tenuous ties with humanity, challenging personal lives, conflicting moralities or egos, their greater responsibilities, inexplicable spandex/leather fetishes, exhibitionism & self-image disorders etc, it's a wonder that so few of them are barking mad.
Most of the Watchmen subtly parodies other more recognisable figures in superhero comics, but their neuroses are more apparent. It is a rather unique take on the genre.
I was reasonably impressed by Watchmen. But I didn't continue with Alan's other works cos the only other comic I was able to get hold of was his Swamp Thing series. And I'm not particularly fascinated by B-grade horror stories of a moss-covered bogey-man.
There was even a movie of the Swamp Thing in 1982, and even a TV series. They're like your typical science gone wrong, scientist murdered, turns into mass of avenging vegetation, kills murderers, rescues dames, and inserted gratuitious nudity to bolster an obviously flaccid movie.
Could I be more wrong...
Alan Moore took over Swamp Thing from issue #20 onwards, and took the comic in a grand new direction.
He rewrote the nature of the Swamp Thing, and built him into a greater story. In the course of which, Alan also created John Constantine, who has since made numerous other cross-comic appearances, have his own Hellblazer series, and even a Keanu movie.
Alan uses Swamp Thing, an unlikely 'superhero', to talk about diverse subjects and issues. Guns. Slavery. Nuclear dumping. Desecration of the environment. PMS.
Oh yeah! You heard right. PMS was addressed in a comic book. In a tale about lycantropy (that's werewolves for those of you with an, er..., innocent vocabulary), Alan expanded the theme to tell how even modern liberated women remain oppressed by society. That how little has changed since the days when native Americans confined their women to a stilted lodge during their periods so that they will not befoul the land . And lycantropy becomes a story of cursed, suppressed rage.
In the course of the series, Swamp Thing fell in love, lost his love, went to hell to bring her back, met his previous incarnation of earth elementals, went back to hell to fight Cthullu, found his love arrested in Gotham for 'Acts against nature', beat up Batman, was assassinated, travelled the cosmos, and in the last few books written by Alan, Swamp Thing returns to Earth.
It's simply amazing what Alan Moore did with a swamp monster.
Worth a read. If you can scare up all the old issues. Or if the powers that be publish a collection.
Following are some of my favourite quotes from the comic.
"Y'know what? You don't ask me to feed you, or tidy the swamp, or iron shirts, and I get fresh flowers all year round. You're just the sort of person I imagined marrying, when I was little... ...except, y'know, not green... and without all the patches of fungus."
"Evil exists only to be avenged, so that others may see what ruin comes of opposing that great voice, and cleave more wholly to its will, fearing its retribution!"
"The black soil is rich in foul decay, yet glorious life springs form it. But however dazzling, the flourishes of life in the end all decays to the same black humus. Perhaps evil is the humus formed by virtue's decay, and perhaps it is from that dark, sinister loam that virtue grows strongest."
"Me? I'm just an ordinary person with ordinary needs: food, shelter, sleep, sex, recreation, and a safe world to enjoy it all in. That's all most ordinary people want, all us poor, uncomplicated buggers. We're harmless. It's all the extraordinary people who are dangerous. The ones who wake up thinking 'Will I conquer Europe today?' instead of 'What's for breakfast?' That short needs watching."
"The suburbs, with their crew-cut lawns and nervous shrubbery."
---'Nervous shrubbery', heh....
"All existence is purely vibrational at the most basic level. And that to explore areas beyond our own, one needs to only oscillate at other frequencies."
---S.T. on Super String Theory?!
"And having loved, she sleeps. It is a human thing, to affirm life so fiercely and so physically, surrendering the body to some ancient and vestigial pelvic brain. And, having done this, to allow all such vitality to cease. To strike a contrast. Between those red, carnal moments. And the blue, enduring coma-hours. It is a human thing."
---S.T on love. 'Vestigial pelvic brain'. What a cool phrase.---
"Remember that I am thy creature; I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel who thou drivest from joy for no misdeed. Everywhere I see bliss, from which I alone am irrevocably excluded."
---Frankenstein, Mary Shelley---
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