A book took me 20 years to finish, and now I’m able to officially announce its imminent publication. During a brief period of unemployment two decades ago, I put together a website about DC Comics’ Swamp Thing, titled Roots of the Swamp Thing, just to keep myself sane while I searched for a new job. That website has been long defunct, as I took it down to turn the contents into a book. My friend John E Boylan now has the domain name and a same-named site, which is highly recommended.
The title? Born on the Bayou: A Pre-Flashpoint Chronology of Swamp Thing and Hellblazer. Clunky, I know, but if you’re aware of the character and his history, you’ll know why it makes sense. 🙂 In a nutshell, the book is an enormous exploration of every event in the pages of Swamp Thing from the character’s first appearance in 1971’s The House of Secrets #92 up to 2011’s Flashpoint, when DC rebooted its entire continuity.
The book covers not only Swamp Thing tales, but also the comic’s three spinoffs (John Constantine: Hellblazer, American Freak, and The Un-Men), as well as all appearances by either Swamp Thing, Constantine, or any other characters from their sagas in other titles, such as The Sandman, Shade the Changing Man, Batman, Challengers of the Unknown, The Books of Magic, and so forth.
The reason I took so long to finish it is that the book encompasses approximately a thousand comics, and I kept finding more to discuss. Also, I was busy with a lot of other projects, and so this one sat on the “Someday I’ll finish it” pile. Well, it’s now done, it’s being published by BearManor Media Books, and it’s coming in September. The best part? it will feature a foreword and original cover art by fan-favorite Swamp Thing creator Stephen Bissette, as well as an afterword by John Boylan.
When my friend Paul Giachetti passed away, this was going to be Hasslein Books’ next title, the latest in a series of timeline books we’d created. Paul kept encouraging me to finally finish it because he was looking forward to designing the book. His passing made me put the project on hold for another five years, but I dusted it off during the pandemic and, after giving it a major re-edit, began seeking a publisher. Thanks to my pal Ed Gross, I connected with BearManor, and they accepted it immediately.
This is a book that is close to the heart, so I’m excited and gratified to finally see it published. Thanks to everyone mentioned above, as well as to Joe Bongiorno, who dragged me kicking and screaming into the world of Swamp Thing back in the late 1990s, and to Alex Galer, who pushed me to find a publisher and see it through to the end. I’ve updated the Publications page on this website to include the book (cover to be added once it’s available). By my estimates, this will the 154th book since 2009 to feature my writing, including the 100 volumes of Eaglemoss’s Star Trek Graphic Novel Collection that I edited, for which I wrote essays. (Not a bad track record, if I do say so myself!) Stay tuned for more information about this muck-encrusted mockery of a manifesto.
4 thoughts on “New Swamp Thing Book: Born on the Bayou”