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A review by helpfulsnowman
Saga of the Swamp Thing: Book Two by Alan Moore
2.0
How it hurts my heart to say this.
Purple prose out the ass.
This book, like the first volume, has some great moments. Even incredible. But boy, parts of it feel like they were written because someone bought way too much ink and had to kill off a few vats.
I'm going to do some theorizing here. I think what we're seeing, looking back almost 30 years now, is the growing pains of comic books. The teenage years when feelings were FEELINGS and came at a cost. Not only that, but comics were working hard to prove that they weren't just nonsense, that you could go deep, use big words, and ask a little more of the reader. These were definitely books for adults. Not so much in that they had a ton of sex or violence, more in that I can't imagine enjoying this when I was 8.
It's a interesting phase as well because I don't think you could get away with this writing in pure prose. A book written like this, you'd go goddamn nuts trying to figure out what was going on. So in that way, the creators were learning to balance, to let the words do some of the work and the pictures do some as opposed to having them lift the same weight. At this particular point I think we're seeing the balance shift away from the pictures and overly towards the words, still seeking the equilibrium.
Also, this volume concludes with the issue that stopped me reading Swamp Thing the first time I tried a few years ago. Namely, the sex issue.
Swamp Thing can't really have sex with his human girlfriend. Or so he says. They kiss, and that actually goes really well. She says he tastes like a mild version of lime, which sounds a lot better than kissing SOME people (I'm not going to name names, but in my young days there was a woman who tasted like a bread factory, a flavor I'd prefer to forget. I'm not sure that I'd kiss her again over a swamp creature based on flavor alone).
So why wouldn't you go for the...you know, the whole shebang? Not to get overly graphic, but Swamp Thing can regrow arms and legs and even internal organs. How hard would it be to grow a dick? Or strategically place a cucumber? In fact, one could argue that he's got the upper hand here. Ability to grow a dick whatever size and shape he wanted and put it anywhere on his body? And include the nutritional content of any vegetable? THAT'S a super food, my friends.
Anyway, instead of growing a dick, he grows a tuber sort of thing. Which sounds like a slag term for dick, but I assure you it isn't. It's actually a sort of vegetable thing. Sort of looks like a sweet potato maybe...
I'm sorry, I just can't get off this track now. How much less attractive is a sweet potato than a dick? Is it even less attractive? I prefer seeing a pile of sweet potatoes to a pile of dicks at the store, mostly because it means I'm in a store of nightmares, but still. I just can't really understand why he couldn't grow a sweet potato dick, sprinkle on some brown sugar and get down to business.
Okay, on track.
He grows the tuber and his girlfriend eats it. And the experience is like some sort of acid trip sex thing.
Now after all that dick talk, I have to say, if I could chomp down on a piece of ginger root and cum in my pants, I don't know that I'd be opposed to that experience. Granted, I'd have to avoid Asian restaurants when out with the family, but all of a sudden my Fridays eating sushi by hand in the car become "date night".
The problem is this.
Imagine reading eight or so pages that describe the experience of cumming. None of the physical stuff, just the mind stuff. No description that goes on the body. Just, you know, the releasing of floodgates and the rainbows of the soul and the frumious bandersnatch and all that shit. It's cool. Definitely feel free to have whatever orgasm you choose. If it's life of the mind for you, go for it. But if I'm going to read about it, I need something either a little more or a little less expressive. Because ultimately, I feel like those pages would be better replaced with a simple text box that says
Go masturbate.
Pretty much that, but better.
Purple prose out the ass.
This book, like the first volume, has some great moments. Even incredible. But boy, parts of it feel like they were written because someone bought way too much ink and had to kill off a few vats.
I'm going to do some theorizing here. I think what we're seeing, looking back almost 30 years now, is the growing pains of comic books. The teenage years when feelings were FEELINGS and came at a cost. Not only that, but comics were working hard to prove that they weren't just nonsense, that you could go deep, use big words, and ask a little more of the reader. These were definitely books for adults. Not so much in that they had a ton of sex or violence, more in that I can't imagine enjoying this when I was 8.
It's a interesting phase as well because I don't think you could get away with this writing in pure prose. A book written like this, you'd go goddamn nuts trying to figure out what was going on. So in that way, the creators were learning to balance, to let the words do some of the work and the pictures do some as opposed to having them lift the same weight. At this particular point I think we're seeing the balance shift away from the pictures and overly towards the words, still seeking the equilibrium.
Also, this volume concludes with the issue that stopped me reading Swamp Thing the first time I tried a few years ago. Namely, the sex issue.
Swamp Thing can't really have sex with his human girlfriend. Or so he says. They kiss, and that actually goes really well. She says he tastes like a mild version of lime, which sounds a lot better than kissing SOME people (I'm not going to name names, but in my young days there was a woman who tasted like a bread factory, a flavor I'd prefer to forget. I'm not sure that I'd kiss her again over a swamp creature based on flavor alone).
So why wouldn't you go for the...you know, the whole shebang? Not to get overly graphic, but Swamp Thing can regrow arms and legs and even internal organs. How hard would it be to grow a dick? Or strategically place a cucumber? In fact, one could argue that he's got the upper hand here. Ability to grow a dick whatever size and shape he wanted and put it anywhere on his body? And include the nutritional content of any vegetable? THAT'S a super food, my friends.
Anyway, instead of growing a dick, he grows a tuber sort of thing. Which sounds like a slag term for dick, but I assure you it isn't. It's actually a sort of vegetable thing. Sort of looks like a sweet potato maybe...
I'm sorry, I just can't get off this track now. How much less attractive is a sweet potato than a dick? Is it even less attractive? I prefer seeing a pile of sweet potatoes to a pile of dicks at the store, mostly because it means I'm in a store of nightmares, but still. I just can't really understand why he couldn't grow a sweet potato dick, sprinkle on some brown sugar and get down to business.
Okay, on track.
He grows the tuber and his girlfriend eats it. And the experience is like some sort of acid trip sex thing.
Now after all that dick talk, I have to say, if I could chomp down on a piece of ginger root and cum in my pants, I don't know that I'd be opposed to that experience. Granted, I'd have to avoid Asian restaurants when out with the family, but all of a sudden my Fridays eating sushi by hand in the car become "date night".
The problem is this.
Imagine reading eight or so pages that describe the experience of cumming. None of the physical stuff, just the mind stuff. No description that goes on the body. Just, you know, the releasing of floodgates and the rainbows of the soul and the frumious bandersnatch and all that shit. It's cool. Definitely feel free to have whatever orgasm you choose. If it's life of the mind for you, go for it. But if I'm going to read about it, I need something either a little more or a little less expressive. Because ultimately, I feel like those pages would be better replaced with a simple text box that says
Go masturbate.
Pretty much that, but better.