Over on his personal website, classic comic book artist Stephen Bissette is displaying pages from Swamp Thing proposals that never saw print.
Back in 1999, the year I retired from the American comics industry for good, I did post a couple of the proposals on my original comicon.com website. They were at that point over a year old; simply put, once again, proposals sent to DC were met with indifference, and the post was my way of ensuring my ideas were at least ‘tagged’ as my concepts, should they ever surface in another guise (which is nothing I’ve experienced at DC, but did experience at Marvel first-hand, and saw close friends experience at Marvel).
It also put these out there; as I thought then and think now these concepts were as good as, and better than, much of what Vertigo/DC did publish (especially in the various incarnations of Swamp Thing since 1990), it seemed worth doing.
# Rich Handley found those 1999 posts, and incorporated their contents into his expansive, definitive Roots of the Swamp Thing website, which you should immediately check out and explore (here).
# Rich specifically worked my concepts for Swamp Thing Origins: Go With the Flow into the prehistory of the character, though I hasten to add this does not mean my concepts now belong to DC/Vertigo.
In any case, to provide here a context for my ongoing work this year on a project with the working title Swamp Angels (referencing the famous 19th Century bayou painting), I re-present that 1999 post here for your entertainment today.
An essential part of the horror genre, Swamp Thing was one of the first crossover concepts where a monster was also the hero. A giant in the world of sequential artists Bissette is also known for his formation of Taboo (publishers of both The Lost Girls and From Hell), and has also worked with filmmaker Lance Weiller on The Last Broadcast and Head Trauma (both of which I heartily recommend).
This presentation of material on Bissette’s website is a rare opportunity to see inside the process of a ‘lost’ classic. Take advantage!
