Walking Corpses & Conscious Plants: Possibilist Ecologies in ...

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Bingham 132 consideration for Newton's third law of motion: when a force is exerted upon one body by another, the second body will simultaneously exert a force of equal magnitude in the opposite direction. A series of violent forces have been exerted upon the Swamp Thing and now it seems not only fitting but necessary that he counteract those forces with his own actions. Another significant aspect of the beginning of the conflict cataloged on this page is that information is dispersed by Woodrue's imaginative descriptions rather than by dialogue between the parties involved. In the gutter under panel two, “I am thinking about the old man,” below panel three, “I am thinking about the cracking of his joints as he runs,” and underneath the final panel, “I am thinking of the terror in his ancient, atrophied heart” (Saga 31). This maintains the integrity of intensity and chaos for the two directly involved in the moment while also highlighting the importance of reflection upon acts driven purely by emotion. Also, this approach seems reminiscent of Goya's work because it incorporates thoughts, monsters, rationality, and dreams (Figure 1). In an interview, Moore explained a motivation behind this method of conveying information: A lot of writers use the thought balloons to explain all their characters' pretty feeble motivations. In the middle of a fight, there's this big slab of metaphysics above their heads. You don't think when you're in a fight, apart from “AARGH! BURN! DESTROY!” You certainly don't start thinking deep and inner thoughts of Immanuel Kant or anything like that. You don't run through a sort of philosophical tract, especially when someone's trying hard to bend a steel girder 'round your head, believe me. (“Alan Moore & Gary Leach” 1983, p.12) By using Woodrue as the narrative voice in this situation, Moore is able to focus in upon particular details of a series of tumultuous actions. Though Woodrue's words are not objective in the least and are clearly fueled by his own desires, they provide a place from which readers can gauge how violence is perceived and even orchestrated by those not
Bingham 133 present to witness it transpire. Limiting the amount of text in this sequence enables readers to focus in upon the images and consider how quickly hostility can escalate. Also, by showing an individual physically outside of the immediate situation so deeply invested within it emotionally, the creators have posed questions about the basic nature of communal relations. Regardless of being physically affected by the outcome of a violent act, often times individuals will feel after effects based upon what changes that force exerts upon the surrounding environment. On the next page of the issue where Swamp Thing issues a guttural yell while in pursuit of Sunderland, the text isn't nearly as sparse. However, imagination is still a key component of the plot as well as an action demanded of the reader. McCloud states that this process is a crucial activity for existence which is capitalized upon by the comics medium; he calls it “closure” (Understanding 63). According to McCloud closure is the, “phenomenon of observing the parts but perceiving the whole” (ibid panel 1). Noting the limits of human sensory experience, McCloud notes this process must be performed repeatedly throughout all people's lives in order to make sense of their environment. People are constantly committing closure, “mentally completing that which is incomplete based on past experience” (ibid panel 2). When one uses the information garnered from the images and text contained within a comic's panel to fill the gap between it and the next which follows, he or she is committing closure. This process becomes foregrounded on page twenty-one of the issue's original publication (Saga 33) when the first four panels depict the Swamp Thing as he comes nearer to Sunderland; in the first he is shown as a tiny black figure and in each subsequent panel the background becomes more eclipsed by his body which is shown from progressively closer angles. As the focus upon
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Walking Corpses & Conscious Plants:
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Bingham 3 I owe an extreme debt of
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Bingham 5 Introduction My project e
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Bingham 7 personal growth through t
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Bingham 9 beliefs. Seeing a possibl
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Bingham 11 zombie exceeds death as
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Bingham 13 the validity of singular
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Bingham 15 Chapter I: The History o
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Bingham 17 Swamp Thing. According t
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Bingham 19 instructional profession
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Bingham 21 Another artist who worke
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Bingham 23 action into panels (Cohn
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Bingham 25 sponsorship. He designed
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Bingham 27 Charles Moulton. Marston
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Bingham 29 Frederick Wertham prompt
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Bingham 31 “graphic novel” was
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Bingham 33 what is or isn't a graph
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Bingham 35 Works Cited Benton, Mike
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Bingham 37 Chapter II: Transfusion
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Bingham 39 conflict or war. This ex
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Bingham 41 and dismember other bodi
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Bingham 43 bodies to pieces. (Cavar
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Bingham 45 thus creating an affecti
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Bingham 47 margins. Unlike the four
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Bingham 49 implicates the role of o
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Bingham 51 demonstrates that he is
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Bingham 53 Amy (Figure 10 & 11). Th
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Bingham 55 being who has done nothi
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Bingham 57 transgressions, this ima
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Bingham 59 Returning to the full pa
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Bingham 61 order” (200). The prem
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Bingham 63 possession, selling, ste
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Bingham 65 with yourself? Not me. I
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Bingham 67 immediate proximity of t
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Bingham 69 experience, or the human
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Bingham 71 sentences Thomas to hang
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Bingham 73
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Bingham 74 Works Cited Berger, Arth
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Bingham 76 APPENDIX A Fig. 1. Openi
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Bingham 78 Fig. 7. Fig. 8.
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