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From: moriarty@fluke.UUCP (The Napoleon of Crime)
Newsgroups: net.comics
Subject: Re: Saga of the Swamp Thing #40
Message-ID: <750@vax2.fluke.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 26-Jun-85 14:36:18 EDT
Article-I.D.: vax2.750
Posted: Wed Jun 26 14:36:18 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 27-Jun-85 07:54:58 EDT
References: <2771@decwrl.UUCP>
Organization: Somewhere In Soho
Lines: 39

In article <2771@decwrl.UUCP> kallis@pen.DEC writes:
>	But the most disappointing aspect of the story was that the Samp
>Thing was effectively extraneous.  In SOST#39, he played a central role
>in resolving a problem; in SOST#40, he was merely a spectator.  With a
>little more work, Swampy could be driven further into the background
>until he becomes little more than a master of ceremonies for a tale ...

I don't think you need worry about ST becoming a "Cain & Abel" type
character.  Moore was, I think, pointing out that there was little the Swamp
Thing *could* do to stop/help the woman (people bent on suicide are
incredibly difficult to protect).

>	This last thought is particularly unsettling because in the letter
>column of the issue, the editors characterize the magazine as "a horror
>comic"; funny, I've never thought of it that way, even though elements
>of the stories are indeed flavored that way (it's more background against
>which Swampy's growth and development are the foreground: would you call
>"Rites of Spring" a horror story?).  If the editors get the idea of "horror
>comic" fully into their minds, they could change the comic's flavor and
>direction -- and not for the better.

No, I think horror comic is deserved, because this comic works at generating
horror (you wouldn't call the previous vampire story a romance, would you?
:-) ).  On the other hand, it's not a traditional horror comic -- nothing
like the House of Mystery or EC books.  Though I don't think Moore imitates
anyone (he is, after all, the most phenomenal addition to comics scripting
in the last 10 years), his work on ST does sometimes resemble the way
Stephen King does horror, i.e. combining well-developed, non-stock
characters with a horror story.  But the horror is there...

				"If this is foreplay, I'm a dead man!"

					Moriarty, aka Jeff Meyer
					John Fluke Mfg. Co., Inc.
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