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Comic Book Review – The Saga of the Swamp Thing Volume Five

The Saga of the Swamp Thing Volume Five (2011)
Reprints Swamp Thing #51-56
Written by Alan Moore
Art by Rick Veitch, John Totleben, and Alfredo Alcala

Coming off an incredible piece of horror writing, Moore keeps things chugging along at full steam in the pages of Swamp Thing. Our hero has faced the ultimate evil and has been the only one to stop it. However, there was lots of trouble bubbling over in the land of the living that directly affected the Swamp Thing. While the Crisis on Infinite Earths seems to have little consequence in these pages, we begin to see our main character connect with traditional superheroes outside of Houma, Louisiana, with this particular volume including a clash in Gotham City with Batman.

Comic Book Review – The Saga of The Swamp Thing Volume Four

The Saga of the Swamp Thing Volume Four (2010)
Reprints The Saga of the Swamp Thing #43-45, Swamp Thing #46-50
Written by Alan Moore
Art by Stephen Bissette, John Totleben, Stan Woch, Rick Veitch, Alfredo Alcala, Ron Randall, and Tom Mandrake

This collection from Moore’s Swamp Thing run sealed the deal for me. I haven’t ever read better moments of horror in a comic book than some of the sequences in these issues. Moore knows how to take surreal imagery and turn it into dread-inducing moments where reality bends & warps. In that distortion, we are treated to a story that blends horror with epic dark fantasy. It’s fascinating to see how Moore set a standard for the occult corner of the DC Universe that has held strong four decades later.

Solo Tabletop RPG Review & Actual Play – Public Access Part Two

Public Access (The Gauntlet)
Created by Jason Cordova
You can purchase this game here.

Read part one here.

After trying out Public Access as a solo game for a session, this was a lesson in seeing how some games need more work to be good solitary experiences. After this first session, I reasoned that I could keep going, but I wouldn’t really be playing a solo game, but playing the game in the same way you might play a board game against yourself by simulating other players and making their moves. I realized having other characters with different stats made a difference with Public Access, but I didn’t want to play them mechanically just to make the game work.

Comic Book Review – The Saga of the Swamp Thing Volume Three

The Saga of the Swamp Thing Volume 3 (2010)
Reprints The Saga of the Swamp Thing #35-38, Swamp Thing #39-42
Written by Alan Moore
Art by Stephen Bissette, John Totleben, Stan Woch, Rick Veitch, Alfredo Alcala, and Ron Randall

This third volume of Swamp Thing stories starts with an issue published the same month Crisis on Infinite Earths #1 hit the stands. Now, there isn’t a direct link between the two things right away, but Moore eventually shows he was well aware of the storyline and finds a clever way to fold it into this ongoing series. There are times when Swamp Thing feels wholly disconnected from the greater DC Universe; this would increase more when it became a Vertigo title in the 1990s and became utterly self-contained. Before we get to some of Moore’s big moves, the book begins with a chilling two-parter about how Americans have left their home a toxic nightmare.

Solo Tabletop RPG Review & Actual Play – Public Access Part One

Public Access (The Gauntlet)
Created by Jason Cordova
You can purchase this game here.

Read part two here.

This is not a solo game. However, I was very intrigued by this game because of its concept and tone so I decided to attempt to play it solo. In the great tabletop rpg family tree there is the branch of Powered by the Apocalypse originated by Vincent & Meguey Baker. The PBTA games are not meant to be universal systems, but curated genre-specific systems that encourage a specific type of play, mainly that the fiction comes above any sort of fiddling crunchy number bits. The PBTA games would eventually inspire a variation that would become its own subgenre, Blades in the Dark. Forged in the Dark games follow Blades play framework which is not a 1:1 copy of PBTA. Additionally, The Gauntlet created a couple PBTA variations, mainly Trophy and Brindlewood Bay. The latter has spawned its own Carved from Brindlewood which is where we get Public Access.

Comic Book Review – The Saga of the Swamp Thing Volume Two

The Saga of the Swamp Thing Volume Two (2009)
Reprints The Saga of the Swamp Thing #28-34, Annual #2
Written by Alan Moore and Len Wein
Art by Stephen Bissette, John Totleben, Shawn McManus, Rick Veitch, Alfredo Alcala, Ron Randall, and Berni Wrightson

Now that Alan Moore has reset the table for Swamp Thing, he wanted to tell stories you weren’t finding in most of the books published by DC and Marvel. Having established that Swamp Thing was not a resurrected Alec Holland but a mass of plant matter imbued with life from the chemicals Holland was doused in allowed different narratives to be spun. To close out that chapter of Swamp Thing’s life, he gave us “The Burial,” the opening story of this collection. The creature is seemingly visited by the ghost of Alec Holland and relives the events that led up to the scientist’s murder. It concludes with Swamp Thing finding Holland’s remains at the bottom of the bog and giving them a proper burial. That part of his life is officially over; now it’s time for something new.

PopCult Podcast – TMNT: Mutant Mayhem/The Boogeyman

We indulge in some “popcorn” flicks this week. One is the return of an old favorite, heroes in a half-shell with a look inspired by more recent animated box office successes. Then, it is some Stephen King inspired horror as one of his short stories gets adapted into feature length.

Book Update – July/August 2023

The Inconsolables: Stories by Michael Wehunt

I was an instant fan of Michael Wehunt after reading his debut collection, Green Pastures, back in 2016. I’ve been waiting for more, and this year, we finally got his follow-up collection. What I found interesting is that he’s changed a lot since that first book. The two still have common threads, but these felt like a real development of those initial ideas. I would argue Wehunt is taking on a significant influence from Robert Aickman, creating supernatural scenarios where the exact nature of the dreadful presence is never detailed. It might be strange things happening in the window in the apartment across the way, as in “Holoow,” or haunting childhood memories resurfacing, as in “Vampire Fiction.” Wehunt returns to some slightly familiar territory with “The Pine Arch Collection,” which continues his fantastic work translating found footage into horror lit. Wehunt works better with words to evoke powerful images than most horror films. My absolute favorite in this collection was “The Teeth of America,” framed as various excerpts from books and news articles detailing a bizarre event in the Appalachians involving hundreds of white supremacists congregating for a ritual. Once again, Wehunt’s imagery is so strong I don’t want any of this ever adapted to a visual medium because, in my opinion, it would diminish the potent horror of the source material.

Movie Review – Eyes of Fire

Eyes of Fire (1983)
Written and directed by Avery Crounse

The American folk horror genre is surprisingly sparse compared to its British counterpart. Starting in the 1970s and continuing through today, British filmmakers continually find new angles to approach the horrors of rural life. With the States being such a vast landmass with plenty of myth & danger sprinkled through its most sparsely populated corners, you would expect more. Robert Eggers’ The Witch is the most prominent American folk horror film, and it becomes hard to name another. Avery Crounse wrote & directed his first feature film by focusing on the expansionist period of American history, following pioneers poorly prepared for what they would find and facing ancient evils tied to the land.

Solo Tabletop RPG Actual Play – Mork Borg: Solitary Confinement Part 4

Mork Borg: Solitary Defilement (10d+5)
Written & Designed by…? (no specific names on the document)

Read Part One, where I explain the rules/tone of Mork Borg and this solo supplement.

You can get this set of solo rules here.

This playthrough also uses the Mork Borg Core Rules as well as the Feretory supplement.

Instead of using the core book & its included classes, I used a third-party class I’d found on itch.io. Let me introduce you to the Murderous Marionette.

I rolled through some of the Mork Borg core book tables to flesh out my character and his adventure. His name is Träpojke, a puppet made by a disturbed hermit in the mountains of a distant land. The hermit had initially intended to use Träpojke to lure children into his lair, where he would feast on them. However, the spirits of the children who had already been killed by this monster prayed, and these prayers were heard by the Fae who lived in the misty mountains. They woke the wood sprite that slept within the wood Träpojke was made of, and he went on a murderous rampage, bludgeoning his creator to death with the very mallet used in his creation.