TALES FROM THE SWAMP

Hey Everyone. Another busy week on The Farm and I thought I would take some time to update you all on the recently announced Swamp Thing: Green Hell.

SWAMP THING: GREEN HELL

A few weeks ago DC Comics announced Swamp Thing: Green Hell which will be three oversized issues written by myself, drawn by Doug Mahnke and colored by Dave Baron, with amazing variant covers by Christina Ward, for DC’s adult Black Label imprint. I am often asked if there were any DC or Marvel characters I never had the chance to write and Swamp Thing was definitely the one that almost got away. I did get to play with Swampy a bit when I was writing Animal Man for DC back in the New 52 era, but that was always more as a “guest star” and I never really had a chance to dig into him.

One thing I don’t think anyone knows is that I was going to take over Swamp Thing after Scott Snyder left the book back in 2012 or 2013 (pardon as my memory of dates is a bit hazy). I wrote a pitch and was set to do it, but DC didn’t like my direction. In hindsight, I totally understand why. I tied my Swampy ideas too closely to what I was doing in Animal Man rather than think of a great Swamp Thing story that stood alone. Charles Soule ended up taking over the book and did more inventive and interesting things than I had planned, so it all worked out.

Another unknown detail is that I had also pitched my own Swamp Thing graphic novel to Vertigo back in 2010. It was called Swamp Thing: Endless Winter and I pitched it as a book I would both write and draw. I think that book got really close to getting greenlit, but the fantasy writer China Mieville already had a Swamp Thing pitch that had been approved. In the end, the New 52 happened and China’s Swamp Thing was killed too. I ended up repurposing my Swamp Thing: Endless Winter pitch into the Animal Man Annual #1 that Timothy Green II drew, which ended up being one of my favorite Animal Man issues. (Some of the other Endless Winter ideas have also resurfaced in FISHFLIES by the way. No idea is ever wasted!).

And then I pitched this current Swamp Thing: Green Hell story as something I would write and draw, yet again, in 2018, but I decided to do Sweet Tooth: The Return instead..

(Below is the never seen pitch teaser I drew, colored by Jose Vilarrubia).

So, obviously there is a long history of me trying to do a Swamp Thing book for DC. In addition to this, I have also always wanted to work with Doug Mahnke. I absolutely love Doug’s work. He is one of the artists that I follow as a fan. His was some of the first original artwork I ever bought (a page from his brilliant Frankenstein series with Grant Morrison).

I had mentioned in a previous post that, for a short time, I was going to do Green Lantern as a horror book for DC’s aborted “5G” initiative a year or two ago. Doug was going to be the artist in this book! But then it all fell apart and I had this Swamp Thing pitch in at Black Label so it seemed like a natural fit to do this new project with Doug.

I’m probably not supposed to share too much of Doug’s art yet, but here are a few teases for all of you to enjoy.

One final note to the fans of my Animal Man run…Swamp Thing: Green Hell will stand alone, but it will also tie into what I had done in Animal Man and act as a coda of sorts to that series! Hope you all enjoyed this preview and keep your eyes out for the first issue to release on December 28th, 2021! -Jeff

FOR PAID SUBSCRIBERS

This Thursday at 2pm I will drop in my Secret Store the signed and remarked Gideon Falls hardcovers I have been teasing you all about. A post with all the details for the drop will go live on 10/7/21 at 2PM ET.