Tag: steve bissette

The Saga of the Swamp Thing #21

The Anatomy Lesson
by Alan Moore, Steve Bissette, and John Totleben

This is the place. At night you can almost see it… At night, you can almost imagine… You shouldn’t have come here.

Welcome back. As explained recently, I’ve been on a short hiatus from my reading of the Marvel Universe. Still not quite ready to return to it.

However, I find myself with a bit of time thanks to having contracted a bug that’s going around, and thought I could return to my series on reading great comics. I call it a series, though this is only the third entry. But hopefully we’ll be getting more.

The format is similar to my posts about the Marvel Universe, where I pick up a single comic and read it and write down my thoughts as I do. Except where my Marvel reading is guided by the internal chronology of those stories, I will here be picking up my very favorite comics, specifically those not focused on the early Marvel Universe. We’ve talked about a favorite issue of Sandman and Astro City… it’s time for Swamp Thing.

Continue reading “The Saga of the Swamp Thing #21”

Sandman #19

A Midsummer Night’s Dream
by Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess

Things have changed and will change more; and Gaia no longer welcomes us as she once did.

But he did not understand the price. Mortals never do. They only see the prize, their heart’s desire, their dream… But the price of getting what you want is getting what once you wanted.

Things need not have happened to be true. Tales and dreams are the shadow-truths that will endure when mere facts are dust and ashes, and forgot.

Thirty years ago today, one of the finest comics I have ever read was published. I would like to take a moment to reflect on Sandman #19, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”; admittedly at some considerable length.

Due to its length, the post is broken into 3 pages. The first page gives an overview of the Sandman series, and some background. The second page discusses this issue in depth, as well as Sandman #13 and #75, which serve as prologue and epilogue respectively. The third page examines particular themes of this issue and how they resonate throughout the entire series.

Please find the buttons at the bottom of each page to navigate.

Continue reading “Sandman #19”
Pages: Page 1, Page 2, Page 3