Who Pencilled the Swamp Thing Merchandizing Art?
By srbissette on September 9th, 2009Posted In: News
First, a little arcane (pun intended) Swamp Thing history…
Back in the late 1980s, a man named Bruce L. Stein became the president of the toy manufacturing corporation Kenner. Stein instituted a more aggressive licensing of media properties and the expansion of certain properties with replacement figures before waiting to see how Kenner’s current lines had performed in retail venues. This meant expanding lines that hadn’t proven themselves in the marketplace, a risky policy that scored some real hits (The Real Ghostbusters toy line prominent among those), some OK sellers (Beetlejuice, RoboCop) and a string of pricey losers (Police Academy in 1989, Rat Fink in 1990, etc.).
Going into 1991, Stein and Kenner’s self-dubbed ‘Starting Lineup‘ had The Batman Dark Knight Collection about to launch — which retailers were clamoring for — and three new lines about to debut: Robin Hood Prince of Thieves, Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, and Swamp Thing.
Kenner also had Princess Vanessa and Her Royal Family about to launch, but the less said about that clunker clan, the better.
So, Swamp Thing. Ya, uh, Swamp Thing.
Kenner’s Swamp Thing toyline was fabricated around the DIC animated series which had no real airplay — instead of emerging from a popular TV program, Kenner sold the animated Swamp Thing pilot episode “The Un-Men Unleashed” as a self-standing 23-minute videocassette sold in toystores, which retailers purchased in a 24-video counter dump (industry term for ‘display carton’).
The cartoon show was a disappointing mash of the live-action TV series, elements of the two movies, and what still appears to me to be a ploy to spin an action-figure line around pre-existing monster finger puppets, and pretty lame-ass monster finger-puppets at that.
There were ten figures in the Swamp Thing line, only two of which bore any relation to the DC Comics title — Swamp Thing himself and a monstrous Anton Arcane that in no way resembled any incarnation of Arcane in any Swamp Thing comicbook ever published.
Four of the ten figures were Swamp Thing variants: Bio-Glow Swamp Thing, Snap Up Swamp Thing, Snare Arm Swamp Thing and the never-did-it-really-work-as-intended Camouflage Swamp Thing, each with their own plastic prop to enhance play value (the log bazooka was the singular hoot). There were two more Swamp Things released in the ill-fated second series — Capture Swamp Thing (“With Organic Net and Cypress Club”) and Climbing Swamp Thing (“With Bayou Staff and Shield of Reeds”), which barely surfaced on the market given the dire fate of the first series.
The rest — well, like I said, there was a crappy Anton Arcane rendered more ‘monstrous’ when a ridiculous fanged spider-monster finger puppet (“Spidery BioMask”) was fixed onto his pointy purple head.
It looked and still looks to me like Kenner’s toy designers glommed on to grosses of existing cheapjack made-in-China fingerpuppets and concocted the villains of the series — Kenner’s version of the Un-Men — around those plastic embarrassments: Dr. Deemo came with a fanged-snake-spider fingerpuppet (“Serpent BioMask”), the zombie-like Skinman with a bat (“Fangbat BioMask”), and, uh, Weed Killer, a hazmat-wearing specialist in herbicides, Agent Orange and defoliants, I reckon. His finger puppet Un-Man head was an arachnid with two glowing eyes and a gaping red maw. Go figure.
There were also two human characters, Bayou Jack (“With Swamp Water Blaster”) and Tomahawk (“With Swift Shot Crossbow”), who arguably had certain affiliations with DC’s venerable Tomahawk comicbook, but not really.
There was also a small fleet of outsized vehicles and gadgets: the Bayou Blaster, Marsh Buggy, Bog Rover, Swamp Trap (“With Vine Snare and Giant Venus Fly Trap”) and my personal favorite, the Transducer, if only because it came with an Un-Man that actually was kind of cool. The “Mutated Insect Figure” was a neat little Mantis-Man; if only the entire Un-Men line had been similar!
Still, the line stiffed.
Big time.
There were also spin-off merchandizing — Swamp Thing puzzles, games, box-bop inflatable, fuzzy slippers (I kid you not!) and so on — much of which sported better packaging art than the entire Kenner line.
And I believe it’s that non-Kenner packaging art we’re looking at today. Since my Swamp Thing toy collection is now forever in the HUIE Library Special Collections at Henderson State University, I can’t confirm that for sure this morning, but if memory serves none of this art appeared on the Kenner packaging.
Courtesy of Italian fan and collector Salvo Bombara, we have here (posted with Salvo’s permission) scans of an original art collection Salvo just acquired — and the hope that someone out there can identify, for sure, who the pencil artist might have been.
The inks are most definitely Alfredo Alcala’s — Alfredo joined the Swamp Thing comicbook art team during my tenure, and was in fact John Totleben’s suggestion as an occasional fill-in inker (starting with Saga of the Swamp Thing #30, which I pencilled). Alfredo also inked the entire Rick Veitch run of the series, and his inking is unmistakable.
But who pencilled the merchandizing art?
As you can see yourself, all this art was generated by DC itself — note the DC paper — and I would guess from the exaggerated action poses and a couple of uninked pencil drawings (see below) that José Luis García-López might be our man, but — well, then again, maybe not. What do you think?
Salvo and I are hoping to solve this mystery soon, and anyone with definitive info or access to records is encouraged to share what they know!
I’ve sent Kevin Nowlan, who consistently works with JLG-L, a message to take a look at your blog and see if he has any insight on the penciller.
Interesting stuff. I do recall from my collectible toy business days that there was a Swampy line, but I don’t ever remember anyone asking me to look out for anything from it. Is there much demand in the collectibles market for that stuff now? I do know that the stuff that tanked is what’s always attractive to the later collectors.
Yeah, Garcia Lopez would be my guess, too. Whoever it was did a pretty good job of the old “dynamic” poses that editors and packagers like to see.
The toys were pretty god-awful. I come across the vehicles and a few of the special-Swampy figures at flea markets all of the time.
Thank you so much,Steve!
And thanks to anyone could give me info on this art, I really appreciate your help.
Salvo
Mark beat me to suggesting Nowlan to weigh in on it being JLGL. If you go to Nowlan’s blog you can see a lot of examples of JLGL’s pencils. The look is very similar to the cover of DCCP #8 by JLGL.
Hi Steve,
I heard back from Kevin Nowlan:
Maybe this helps?
Cheers
Kevin Nowlan’s reply to Mark (Mark emailed it to me — for some reason, Mark’s own post deleted Kevin’s reply):
Hi, Mark,
Here’s José’s take on it:
“About Swamp Thing I’ve never did anything with the character and the drawings in Steve’s blog are new for me. A have a wild guess…Paris Cullins may be the penciler, the time period coincides and I remember inking some Supermans he did for the guides and he also did the pencils for a back up feature in Atari Force so I was in someway familiar with his style…but, who knows!”
Paris Cullins pencilled the excellent (sadly short-lived) Blue Devil for DC while I was still working on Saga of the Swamp Thing, and I always enjoyed Paris’s work.
So — for sure it’s not Jose on the Swamp Thing art pencils, and he suggests maybe Paris Cullins did ‘em.
Thanks, Mark — thanks, Kevin! — thanks, Jose!
Let’s see where this takes us now…
Following your precious infos, I did a small research on the web and I’ve found a pics of a ST merchandizing drawing done by Paris Cullins. It’s not for a game/toy but most probably for a campaign against enviromental pollution. Even if the art looks a little bit different from the drawings I own (maybe different inker), It gives more chance at the guess he is the penciller.
Could it be Bart Sears? Bart was working for DC about that time, and had done packaging artwork for Hasbro before that. There’s something about the pencils that look like his work.
Just dropped Paris a note on his Facebook page – let’s see if he offers any onsight.
Definitely Paris. Know his pencils anywhere and he was doing a lot of DC style guide work at the time.
On the Bleeding Cool site, Dave Elliot goes for Paris as well…
Thanks a lot Vinnie! This will be of huge help.
Actually I don’t have a facebook account (but there is someone else with my same name on it)
Thanks, Dave, Rich, Vinnie — this is terrific.
If you can stomach my politics, I’ve posted confirmation of Paris having pencilled at least some of the Swamp Thing art (though to my eye, it all looks like his work now) on today’s 9/11 post:
http://srbissette.com/?p=5881
It’s a piece of art Salvo found online from the collection of Tim Easterday, posted (I believe) at CAF. Breakthrough!
Vinnie, I would love to know if Paris replies — it would be great to confirm his place in the rogue’s gallery of ST artists.
Steve,
I actually have some of his pencils still and the comparison is deadon. I left a message for Paris, you can find him on FB now.
Hey, Steve
Paris just confirmed that it was indeed himself behind the pencils.
Best,
Dave
I worked on many toy style guides for lots of companies and enjoyed every moment of it
especially working with master inkers like Tony Dezungia, Frank Giacoia, Alfredo Alcala
Tom Sutton, garcia lopez, Bob layton ,bob smith,these are just a few but wow wha what a
rush.
Thank you Paris! Glad to hear from you.
And a HUGE thanks goes to Steve and all the kind people who took time to post their ideas or guess and made possible to solve this “mistery”!
Cheers from Sicily
Now wouldn’t it be cool to have DC do a book of its various style guides from the past or let Two Morrows do it?
I ran across the VHS of the first SWAMP THING cartoon as a rabid teenage SWAMP THING fan, excitedly plopping down my $5 for the tape, eager to see Swampy in all his animated glory.
Oy, was I let down…from the theme song, a re-written version of the Troggs “Wild Thing” (“Swamp Thing….you are a-ma-zing…”) to the silly story and obviously-designed-to-move-toys characters and use of vehicles, it was something I quickly and quietly rewound and passed off to a younger cousin, never to speak of it again.
Mark, you just spoke of it!
The cartoon — like all the various Swamp Thing media spinoffs — was indeed lame, at best. Still, it’s all in the HUIE Library Special Collections at Henderson State University; thanks to friends in DC, the collection at least includes the handsome ‘action figures’ sculpted from Michael Zulli’s painting/design, which remains my personal favorite of all the Swamp Thing merchandizing. Never saw the pricey sculpted figure from the same Zulli painting, though.