SAGA OF THE SWAMP THING #20 -- Alan Moore's Scene Transitions

Alan Moore is my favorite comic book writer. Depending on the day, he's my favorite writer, regardless of medium. Known for his formalism, Moore has crafted groundbreaking runs of comics that upended convention and made readers and creators alike look at the medium in a new way. One of the formalistic flourishes Moore is known for is his scene transitions, and when he got the chance to write American comics, Moore came out of the gate in issue #20 of Saga of the Swamp Thing with his thoughtful approach to this aspect of comics. An aspect often overlooked by many creators.  

Something that resonates with me about Moore's "Swamp Thing" run is the fact that my first few read-throughs I wasn't even aware of the connective tissue Moore was adhering to the scene transitions within a given issue. I was pulled along by the narrative, engaging with the story without seeing the work Moore and his collaborators were doing behind the scenes. Maybe it was just me (and maybe you spotted his scene transitions from the jump), but I feel like one of Moore's greatest strengths as a writer is his ability to include these formalistic attributes in his stories but make them, and the narrative as a whole, feel natural, for the reading experience to flow effortlessly without the parallelism or the symbolism or the connecting phrases and images between scenes to ever feel out of place or clunky (to use a technical term). It's this ability to craft an engaging tale while also layering it with added depth -- that isn't necessary for understanding the story but enriches the experience if you find it -- that sets Moore apart from almost anyone else who has worked in the comic medium. And that's why he's been my favorite writer for a while. 

So, one of my favorite podcasts, Comic Book Couples Counseling, is starting a new book club where they will be reading and discussing Moore's "Swamp Thing" run, one issue at a time. That spurred me to reacquaint myself with the keyboard, and I plan to follow along and share my insights into this landmark series here, while Brad & Lisa inhabit your ears with their own perspective. My plan is to focus on these scene transitions in one post and possibly include a more general analysis of the issue in a second one. We'll see how it goes. But, for now, here are a collection of the scene transitions found in Moore's first issue of Saga of the Swamp Thing, issue #20, titled "Loose Ends." 

Transition pp. 3-4: 
At the bottom of page 3, Swamp Thing thinks, "And what...am I going to do now?"
Page 4 opens with a shadowed figure asking, "Well, General? You know where they are. What are you going to do now?"
This showcases one of Moore's transitional techniques -- utilizing parallel dialogue.

                  

Transition pp. 5-6:

At the bottom of page 5, the General says their targets (including Swamp Thing) are "in for a rude awakening..." which continues in the caption at the top of page 6, "...a very rude awakening, indeed." This talk of 'awakening' leads into panel 1 on page 6 where Lizabeth Tremayne is yawning deeply as she wakes up from a night's sleep. 
Here we see another of Moore's transitional techniques -- dialogue from one scene being paralleled by an image in the next one.

   

 

Transition pp. 7-8:

This two-page spread across pages 6 & 7 opened with the caption about Lizabeth being, "used to taking her sunlight a little more diluted." When we shift from this daylight scene back to Swamp Thing on page 8, he is thinking, "I made my way back here...to the moon," which is in reference to The New Moon Motel where some of Swampy's companions were staying for the night.
Moore uses yet another transitional technique -- that of opposites: in this case, the sun and the moon.

Transition pp. 8-9:

At the bottom of page 8, Swamp Thing thinks, "Maybe the world has run out of room...for monsters..." which continues over to the first caption on page 9, "...or maybe...[the monsters]'re just getting harder to recognize." This leads into the first panel of page 9 where a local is speaking to a soldier, saying, "[Let me] get this straight. A monster, is that what y're saying?" This local is incredulous at what he is hearing, not able to recognize that there would be a monster in the area. But the transition is doubled, since this local is looking at one of the monsters in this story, the soldier, and he is unable to recognize him for the villain he is. 

Once again, Moore utilizes parallel dialogue to connect the two scenes in this transition. 

Transition p. 9, panels 3-4:

On this page, Moore does something that isn't common in western comics -- and is something he praised highly when writing an introduction for a Love & Rockets series by one of the Hernandez brothers -- the transition from one scene to the next on a single page. Typically, American comics will transition scenes from one page to the next, not on the same page. 
The same local mentioned in the previous transition has now accepted the soldier's explanation and is all too happy to help, asking, "Say, you need a hand with those searchlights, son?"
This transitions to Matt & Abby Cable. Abby asks, "How about a little light in here, huh?" 

Again, Moore uses parallel dialogue to connect the scenes. 

Transition pp. 12:

I was unable to discern any connecting aspects for the scene transition in the middle of this page. But I include the page here, in the hopes that someone might see what I was unable to.

Transition pp. 12-13:

One of the soldiers comments that the General is "...really tying up some loose ends here today, ain't he?" A second soldier agrees, and his comment continues over to the first caption of page 13, "Every damned one." The caption is set over the first panel where Liz and Dennis have returned to the motel to pick up their belongings. This caption does double duty, because not only are Liz and Dennis two of the loose ends the General is tying up, but they are also damned because of the General's coming retribution. 

This is another example of dialogue from the first scene being paralleled with the imagery of the following scene. 

                       

Transition pp. 15-16:

Two saboteurs had set a bomb in Liz and Dennis's motel room, and the explosion left little remaining. But they need proof of their success, so one of them asks, "Couldn't we just count heads or something?" His companion says, "Great idea, Henry. You find 'em..." which ends page 15, while the dialogue continues over the page into the first caption of page 16, which reads, "...an' I'll count 'em." This caption is overlaid onto panel 1, where a soldier is counting down, "Zero minus fifteen. Zero minus ten. Minus five." 

More parallel dialogue, though not directly so. One bit discusses the act of counting, while the second has a character actually counting.  

Transition pp. 16-17:

At the bottom of page 16, the soldiers turn on a collection of flood lights, in order to find Swamp Thing, who comments, "Aren't they...going to leave any darkness..."  "Are they...going to...take away everything?" His internal monologue continues over to page 17, where the first three captions say, "Everything that's...dark...and private...and silent?" These final captions are set above the first panel where Matt Cable sits in darkness, his face half in shadows. 

Here Moore utilizes two techniques to connect the scenes. First, he has the dialogue lamenting the loss of the 'dark' that parallels Matt Cable sitting in darkened shadows. But Moore also has the visuals -- the forest awash in floodlights transitioning to its opposite of Matt in darkness. 

Transition pp. 17-18:

The main action of this page is a military helicopter that fires a missile at Abby & Matt's home, destroying it. At the bottom of the page, the pair stand at the edge of the tree line watching their home burn. The final caption on this page is from Swamp Thing (leading into his reappearance on the next page). It says, "Nowhere is...safe any more." Swampy's inner monologue continues across the first three panels of page 18: "Nowhere. Not for...anybody. Not in the...world of nature." In these three panels, Swamp Thing emerges from the shadows behind a soldier, wraps his muck-encrusted hand around the soldier's now terrified face, and tosses him away. 

Here, again, Moore connects the dialogue from Swamp Thing about nowhere being safe with the paralleled imagery in the scenes, as Matt & Abby's home was not safe from destruction while the soldier was not safe from Swamp Thing's attack. So the dialogue parallels the imagery, and just to double up, the images parallel each other without being similar. 

WATCHMEN (digital edition): What is Wrong With DC Comics?

 

 ...and why do they continue to show disdain for Alan Moore, who is responsible for a wealth of their evergreen sales since he landed at DC in the early 80s?

The above image is one of the most iconic cover images in western comic book history. So, why, on the DC Universe app, did DC choose to replace that image with the following one, for the first issue of Watchmen? 

Answer: I don't know.
Another Answer: They don't care about history.
Yet Another Answer: They don't have the first idea about the approach that Moore & Gibbons took, when working on Watchmen and somehow forgot(??) that the cover image of every single issue of Watchmen WAS ALSO THE FIRST PANEL OF THE CHAPTER AND LED DIRECTLY INTO PAGE ONE, PANEL ONE OF THE BOOK. 

What the hell, DC Comics?

World's Greatest Super Hero Cups - Mission Accomplished

In my last post, I mentioned how I'd searched for any information on these 1.5" plastic cups I would get from the vending machines at Ames, during my childhood in the late 70s/early 80s. But I always came up blank. And for a long time I figured that maybe they all had just been destroyed or lost. They were terribly fragile, and so many items of my youth went MIA with no discernible reason that it seemed plausible. Until early this year, when I finally unlocked the Google Search Code [TM]. 

Then I started scouring eBay and Etsy and Google, hunting down any of these cups I could find (knowing, as revealed in the previous post, that there were 12 total to acquire). I quickly managed to snag 10 of the 12. Unsurprisingly, the two that were proving elusive were the female characters -- Wonder Woman and Batgirl. Now, there was a Batgirl cup for sale on eBay, but it was priced at $99.99. I had been paying between $3-7 each for these cups; no way was I shelling out a hundred bucks for Batgirl. It was a quandary . . . 

I continued to do my searches, though, and discovered an eBay listing for the full collection of only 12 stickers, plus 4 stickers from the Marvel cups offered in 1978. These were priced at $244.95. Ha! No way! But . . . that got me thinking I should search for the stickers, because it would be nice to have a full set of those, in addition to the cups. This turned up a listing at the Superman Store for the full set of stickers -- 10 bucks on sale; done! At this point, a plan started to form in my brain. 

I decided to order two sets of the stickers from the Superman Store, which was still less than 10% of the cost for the full set on eBay, and less than a dollar per sticker -- so, a good deal. I then put in an offer on a listing of a pair of these cups with characters I already had, and the seller accepted. Once those two cups arrived, as well as the sticker sets, I put my plan into action. Peeling the stickers from the duplicate cups, which was surprisingly easy, I then applied the Wonder Woman and Batgirl stickers to the now naked cups, and voila, a full set was born. 

I gotta say, putting together this small set of cups from when I was seven years old was incredibly satisfying. I'm so happy to have them as part of my "full-to-bursting" collection of comics, Star Wars toys, statues, posters, prints, original art, et al. 

Excelsior!

Frank Miller's DARK KNIGHT RETURNS: good or bad?

So, that's not a totally fair title, but I prefer it to my original click-bait idea: "Why do I accept Frank Millers' Fascistic Superman?" Anyway...

Batman: The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller, Klaus Janson, and Lynn Varley.
One of the best selling comics of all time.
One of the most influential comics of all time.
A classic from one of the all-time great creators in comics.
You may not read comics, but it's quite possible you have read Dark Knight. Along with Alan Moore's & Dave Gibbons's Watchmen, it ushered in a new era of superhero comics from which we have yet to disentangle ourselves, despite attempts to do just that by many creators, including Alan Moore himself. But! This is a post about Dark Knight, so let's get to it. 

Since the start of COVID, my buddies and I have been talking comics over Zoom, on a weekly basis. Our latest discussion was on Dark Knight, and it didn't go as I expected. Popular opinion would have you believe this work is unassailable, a pinnacle of comic book storytelling, the greatest Batman tale ever told, a superhero story for the ages. For the most part, you would get little argument from me ('greatest' might be a stretch, but it's in the discussion). So, when a couple of my friends revealed the clay feet upon which this classic piece of comic art stands, I was surprised. But they're smart dudes, so I was ready to hear them out . . . and then tell them why they were wrong! 

An aside: I feel like I should get my personal history with this book out there, because it is pertinent to the discussion as well as to my consideration of the book. I started collecting comics in 1984, when I was 12 years old. I grew up in a small town and did not discover comic book shops until 1988 or '89. In 1987, I found the Warner Books edition of Dark Knight Returns, in my local bookstore, Mr. Paperback's. I immediately bought it. Having read very few -- and possibly none at all -- Batman comics at that point, this was basically my introduction to the character. It made a lasting impression on me, and I have re-read it multiple times through the years. I know it well, and I thoroughly enjoy it. 

Aside #2: A brief summary of Dark Knight. Bruce Wayne is 55 years old. Batman has not been seen for a decade. Superheroes have been outlawed, and even saying their names on television is not allowed. The only one left is Superman, working covertly for the U.S. government. But, the animal inside cannot be contained, Batman returns to clean up Gotham, and Superman is sent in to stop him; it ends in a stalemate. Except . . . Bruce is good with chemicals, and he ingested a concoction that made him appear dead when he was merely in hibernation. Kal-El (Superman) attends the funeral, and his super-hearing picks up a heartbeat, just as he's about to leave. But he's willing to let Bruce wage his war, if he keeps it low-key. 

Two of my friends were critical of Dark Knight, one more than the other. Their main point of contention was the characterization of the two main heroes: Batman and Superman. Both of them felt that Miller wrote these characters completely wrong. Regarding Batman, they could never see him giving up on Gotham or going into retirement; it's not in Bruce Wayne's nature. He's obsessed about instilling fear into criminals in order to clean up his city and make sure nobody ever experiences the tragedy he did when his parents were shot dead in Crime Alley. Superman, to their minds, is written as a bootlicker who follows orders from a fascist authoritarian, in the form of the broadly satirical Ronald Reagan. The prime example of this comes after the nuclear fallout of the missile Superman barely diverted. Even with crime rampant in cities across America, Gotham -- previously the most dangerous city in America -- is now experiencing a substantial decrease in crime due to the Batman's actions. Despite that, Superman is sent into Gotham to put a stop to Batman. Because, the law. 

These points are valid. In all honesty, I'd never thought too deeply about the characterizations of Batman and Superman, or the other supporting characters, in this book. I just went along for the ride. That said, I agree completely that Batman and Superman are totally out of character in Dark Knight. But, I don't think that's a problem. And here's why: because I love being right! 

Or maybe there are better reasons. 

The most important thing to remember -- despite DC's desire to shoehorn this book into Batman's main continuity -- is that Batman: the Dark Knight Returns is an Elseworlds story, a tale from a parallel universe, where all the heroes' names are the same, but they are, to various degrees, slightly different. This is essential, I feel, to accepting and fully understanding Dark Knight.
(Allowing that all art is subjective, so you may understand it differently, and that's cool too, but wishy-washy statements don't make for compelling arguments. But I digress. Let's get back to our regularly scheduled program.)

In this Dark Knight continuity, Batman and Superman (as well as all the other notable characters) have aged beyond the perpetual 28 years they inhabit in the main comic books. Bruce Wayne is roughly 55, as Miller wished to make the character as old as his legend. Superman would also be around 55, though his Kryptonian physiology seems not to have dampened his powers. Jumping off from there, Miller wanted to craft a narrative that examined what a Bruce Wayne/Batman of 55 might be like. He wanted to look at how that would have affected him not only physically, but also emotionally. Sure, Bruce Wayne is a superhero, but age has a way of slowing you down, making you second guess your abilities, infusing doubt where it might not have resided before. It's an intriguing premise, and one that I appreciate seeing played out in Dark Knight. 

These characters have also experienced very real change in their lives, and they live with that hanging over them. Again, this is unlike the main comics in that, though there is the illusion of change and the hyperbole of earth-shattering events in those books, for the most part these incidents have very little impact on the characters. DC, as a publishing entity, needs to keep the status very much in quo so people will continue to buy their comics. There can be no real changes in these characters' lives; it's too much of a risk. Therefore, Batman, Superman, et al. plod along, ageless icons, experiencing titanic events, but never seeming to feel their repercussions. 

Miller wasn't interested in working within the status quo. He wanted to put these heroes under a microscope and poke at them, see how they might react to having experienced real tragedy, real change, real evolution. Jason Todd died ten years prior, a cataclysmic event from which Bruce Wayne found it nearly impossible to come back. For a decade he allowed Batman to remain dormant, so that no such personal tragedy might happen again. It can be assumed that, even if he were not directly responsible (and maybe he was), Bruce feels wholly responsible for the death of Jason, who took the mantle of Robin after Dick Grayson grew out of the name. This has weighed heavily upon him. 

Also in that time, superheroes have been outlawed. It seems a safe assumption that the timeline for this legislation parallels that of Bruce's tragedy -- ten years. As a result, Hal Jordan (Green Lantern) left Earth for the stars, Diana Prince (Wonder Woman) went back to her people, and Superman became the not-so-secret secret weapon of the U.S. government. Similar to the disbanding of the Justice Society when they refused to divulge their identities in the HUAC hearings, it can be assumed that heroes became suspect by regular civilians, that they were no longer trusted, and, thus, outlawed. Most of them retired, but Superman could not. His powers, and the responsibility instilled in him by Ma & Pa Kent -- who also taught him to respect authority, an important point -- meant he needed to find a way to continue helping humanity. So, he took the only path that he felt had been afforded him. He worked under guidance from the U.S. government, keeping a low profile but still doing good. 

Both of these heroes have gone through personal upheaval and been changed by that. This is why, I think, I am able to accept their characterizations, even if they are "off" from how they are regularly written. Superman has always been the rule follower, while Batman the rule breaker, and the idea that Superman would go along with the government if it meant he could contribute to bettering the world, even in some small way, works for me. Batman was responsible -- at least indirectly -- for the death of a teenager, Jason Todd. This would have a profound effect on Bruce Wayne, could cause him to turn in on himself and reevaluate his actions. Extrapolating from that, he might retire, give up on Gotham, and try to just live out the rest of his life in a way that wouldn't put another child in danger. 

Of course, in the end, Bruce Wayne returns to Batman. And, in my reading of those final pages, Superman, with a knowing wink to Carrie Kelly, the new Robin, learns that there may be another way to help this adoptive world of his. 

Ultimately, these characterizations were due to Frank Miller wanting a battle between Batman and Superman at the end of Dark Knight. He needed them to be on opposite sides of the fence, so that he could bring them to Crime Alley, along with Oliver Queen, and show readers that given enough money, ingenuity, and obstinacy, a human can defeat a superhuman in battle, even if that victory is fleeting.