2023 has been a fairly quiet year for Swamp Thing. Swamp Thing: Green Hell was concluded but Swampy didn’t otherwise appear in any comics bearing his name. His biggest guest appearances were in a short story in the DC’s Legion of Bloom one-shot, and in the final issues of City Boy. Another version of Swamp Thing also made a couple of appearances in the Batman Beyond: Neo-Gothic series and on another stunning Christian Ward variant cover (below).  Earlier in the year, there was some buzz about a new Swamp Thing film directed by James Mangold (Logan) but there hasn’t been much news since June.

The biggest release was Rich Handley’s epic chronology of Swampy and John Constantine up to 2011, Born on the Bayou.  I found a lot of helpful information on Rich’s old website and am currently combing through the pages of this tome looking for further tidbits (I’m only up to the 1940s).  It’s difficult to know how to approach a work like this, as it’s (so far) not particularly interesting to read it cover-to-cover after having read most of the comics.  But it would be endlessly insightful to someone who has dipped in and out of Swamp Thing and Hellblazer and wants to understand how everything fits together, which is the position I was in a little over a decade ago, and is how I have used Ed Piskor’s X-Men: Grand Design.  Born on the Bayou stands alongside Swampmen: The Muck-Monsters and their Makers (2014) as essential secondary resources for Swamp Thing fans.

I’m quite excited about the new 8-issue series John Constantine, Hellblazer: Dead in America by Si Spurrier and Aaron Campbell, which follows on from their 12-issue run in 2020-21 that I am yet to read. The new series starts in January and will feature the Alec Holland version of Swamp Thing, plus Dream of the Sandman comics.

In non-Swampy related comic reading, this year I’ve enjoyed Daniel Clowes’ Monica; The Riddler: Year One (written by the character’s actor, Paul Dano); the continuation of Gaiman and Buckingham’s run on Miracleman (which began in 1990!); and a translation of the undercover investigation of Parisian police, Flic. I’ve also been trying to get through a bunch of Judge Dredd Complete Case Files books I’ve collected and hoping for some fancy Brian Bolland and Arthur Ranson reprint books from 2000AD next year.

Have a safe transition into 2024.

Zac.