Customer Rating: 
Summary: Splendid artwork Bissette & Totleben
Comment: So many people talk about the writing so I think is useless for me to do it (awesome). I have picked up a couple of books of the early 90's, none of them come as nearly as close as this one is well portrait, (I bought Knightfall, Zero Hour, and the return of Superman) one thing is to draw good in little panels, another is having a perspective to tell a story like Bissette and Totleben. Not many reviewers mention them. Just pick up the sandman and you can tell the difference after Sam Kieth left, the story is great but the artwork is mediocre for a book like that, that's why I'm still buying the next books of S.T. The work of this 2 great artists is beyond splendid, forget about technology, there a few pencillers like Bissette today and no Inker like Totleben. If you don't know what an inker does, take a look at Green Lantern, Van Sciver does his own inking (for the most part), Ivan Reis is one hell of a good penciller but he lack a hell of a good inker. Pick S.T. 1 &2, just the art work is a masterpiece well deserved to be taken a look at, now needless to say the depth of the stories.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Amazing Horror
Comment: With Swamp Thing, Alan Moore, one of the most talented authors in comic book history, rewrote the rules. I picked this up 20 years ago and am still amazed. Steve Bissette and John Totleben are probably my favorite art team in the history of comics. This is close to their start, so it's a little rough around the edges, but still way above and beyond the vast majority of most illustrators out there. Steve drew the amazing layouts, destroying storyboard conventions, and John tightened the loose sketches up into works of art. This was hugely influential when it came out, and still a highlight of work in graphic storytelling to this day. Many people copied, but few could rival, Alan Moore's dark and serious style.
This may not be well received by the standard comic book crowd, but Alan Moore never wrote for that market share. Unfortunately, except for the cover none of John Totleben's amazing painted covers are included. DC really should put out a book of those. Moore and Totleben cooperated once again on Miracleman, another book with a dark edge that deconstructs superhero myths and is worth checking out.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Graphic SF Reader
Comment: Alan Moore took this as an opportunity to try something completely different with the Swamp Thing character, and pretty much succeeded. While I am not as much a fan of this as some people, it is still pretty good.
The Swamp Thing series also introduces to someone perhaps a bit more interesting. John Constantine, Hellblazer.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Where the comics revolution REALLY began
Comment: Many would say that the comic industry was redefined by works such as Watchmen and The Dark Knight returns, but for me (and there are countless people who would agree with me on this one) it all started with the first issue of Swamp Thing included in this collection. "The Anatomy Lesson" heralded a new narrative structure and a literary voice that still rings in the ears of most comic book fantatics to this day: Alan Moore. After clearing up some unfinished storylines before starting his revamp of the character Moore started to cut loose, and Saga of the Swamp Thing moved from an obscure horror comic book into legend. Not only is "The Anatomy Lesson" brilliant, but there are other stories in here that would rank as some of my favorites of all time. Though some people might claim that Moore was still trying out panel transitions and experimental narrative structures that did not always work, I disagree. They worked perfectly, and make reading the comic so much more enjoyable. If the narrative seems long-winded to some, well then, they can just go ahead and feast their eyes on the gorgeous art (courtesy of John Totleben and Steve Bissette). I also have to mention the very last issue in this collection as a counterpoint to the first, entitled "By Demons Driven." This story gives us a taste of things to come in future collections, and just when events just can't seem to get any darker the last panel of this issue proves us wrong. Even if you're not a comic fan, you should get this. See where it all really began. Buy it. Read it. Let the words penetrate the root systems of your mind. Smell the moss. Taste the fear...hold it in your hands. Saga of the Swamp Thing.
Customer Rating:
Summary: the beginning of a horror masterwork
Comment: "No death, no doom, no anguish can arouse the surpassing dispair which flows from a loss of identity. Merging with nothingness is peaceful oblivion; but to be aware of existence and yet to know that one is no longer a definite being distinguished from other beings - that one no longer has a self - that is the nameless summit of agony and dread." - H.P. Lovecraft
The ability to communicate this concept, sudden and total loss of identity, is a high achivement. -That- is psychological horror, and Swamp Thing delivers with gusto. The elemental forces of horror, combined with the most efficent form of story-telling, all under the direction of masters of the craft. If you know how to read, read this.
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