Collins shows off a lot this issue. She turns the comic into a domestic–it’s young parents Abby and Alec bantering about the baby. Unfortunately Collins dumbs down Abby–she’s just a mom now instead of a development of her previous self; still, Collins writes new Abby well.
But then the couple runs across a swamp ghost who tells them many scary, profound stories. Mandrake and DeMulder beautifully handle most of those stories. Shawn McManus does one of them, the big one. The McManus art isn’t his best and it lacks the activity of Mandrake and DeMulder.
Some of the page transitions are fantastic. An out of place panel showing a character having a realization about what someone else read in a previous panel. They’re intricate and seemingly natural to Collins’s pacing.
Swamp Thing has become exciting again. Collins, Mandrake and DeMulder have something going here. It’s quietly wonderful stuff.
CREDITS
Zydeco Ya-Ya; writer, Nancy A. Collins; pencillers, Tom Mandrake and Shawn McManus; inkers, Kim DeMulder and McManus; colorist, Tatjana Wood; letterer, John Costanza; editor, Stuart Moore; publisher, DC Comics.
Leave a Reply