I think the whole 'Alan Moore is a genius' thing is overblown after reading his swamp thing run last month

Okay I get it, he wrote some iconic stuff. But I finally got around to reading his Swamp Thing run from the 80s last month and honestly? I found half of it confusing and the other half just weird for weird's sake. Like issue #32 where he goes into space and meets that abstract god thing - I had to read that 3 times and still don't get what the point was lol. A buddy at my local shop in Denver swears it's the best comic run ever but I think people just say that because they're afraid to admit they don't get it either. Anyone else feel like the hype is way too much for some of these old runs?

2 comments

2 Comments

emeryn8315d ago

Admit it took me three tries to finish that issue too, and I still scratched my head wondering if I missed something important. That space god thing felt like Moore just wanted to see how weird he could get and still have people call it genius. My own reading tastes run more toward straight forward superhero stuff, so maybe I just don't have the patience for all that abstract symbolism. But I will say this, his run on Swamp Thing does have some genuinely creepy moments that stuck with me, even if the high concept stuff flew right over my head. The real test is whether you can sit through the whole thing without skipping pages, and I admit I cheated a few times.

evanpalmer15d ago

Yeah, the "is it genius or just weird" line gets blurry with Moore sometimes. I get feeling like you cheated by skipping pages though, but honestly if a comic can't keep you turning every page maybe it's not as deep as people pretend.