SpiderBaby Archive: BOG!!!!!

Ryan Brown’s Bog Gallery Begins

After my Swamp Thing days/daze, Ohio-born Mirage Studios compadre Ryan Brown (Rockola, Wild West C.O.W.-Boys of Moo Mesa, etc.) created his swamp creature Bog: Swamp Demon and asked me to contribute some artwork to the mix. I was happy to do so. I think Ryan really wanted me to draw the comic, but that was a commitment I couldn’t make, busy as I was on my own Tyrant.

Bog: Swamp Demon was created by Ryan Brown in 1993-94. Bog was the nickname for Bauggroth (no relation to the often-demonized Gary Groth), Demon of the Lower Pits, a dark-eyed eight-foot-plus swamp booger whose origin differed from that of all other comicbook swamp monsters. He was indeed a demon who’d escaped from the fiery depths via the Hell Well, a labyrinth accidentally opened by an old wizard who paid with his life for opening into our realm. Bauggroth in ethereal form emerged centuries later, and congealed his essence around the bones of the long-dead sorceror to weave a new body out of nearby swamp vegetation. Latent in said sorceror skeletal remains were the deceased wizard’s magical powers, so Bog’s ongoing adventures involved the gradual manifestation of those abilities, which he used and uses to keep his bayou home free of all manner of menaces.

So, there ya go.

In 1996, I happily worked up a quartet of Bog covers that I’m still very happy with, and I’ve recently come across most of the original art — meaning I can post ‘em here as a sort of Bog Gallery.

But first, a bit of introductory material: Ryan launched Bog: Swamp Demon in the second (Volume 2) Mirage Studios-published Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series (various issues between #4-12, 1994-95). Ryan’s Bog adventures were pretty lively and if memory serves Ryan collaborated with a number of folks on these (I can’t lay hands on the issues, so I’d welcome details from anyone who can or who knows). They put Bog through horrific paces, pitting his demon against other demons, a coven of sister swamp witches, and a monstrous hellspawn named Bathym who ended up skewered on a tombstone, kinda like Sir Christopher Lee’s Dracula in Freddie Francis‘ Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968).

Unfortunately, this serialized adventure was published badly out-of-sequence; I don’t recall how or why, though. I remember it was a bit of a mess, and was a major bummer.

Anyhoot, Ryan then joined forces with publisher Hall of Heroes (who lasted from 1993-99) to publish four issues of Bog: Swamp Demon as a self-standing title. Ryan had a number of creative collaborators in the run: artists included Bo Robertson, Ethan Van Sciver (who did an alternative cover for one issue) and Cory Hamscher. Bog tussled with a procession of demonic foes including the likes of Mogog, Baphomet, the angel Etherial, Helliphant (just what it sounds like) and my personal favorites, the Hell-billies. He also had one bayou buddy, a humanoid mudpuppy dubbed Hellbender.

Bog also appeared in Hall of Horrors (1997), and maybe the Hall of Heroes Halloween Special (also 1997) — I can’t be sure about the latter, as I haven’t ever seen a copy. I wish my memory were sharper on this history. I recall a crackerjack horror artist Ryan worked with early on who ultimately bagged Bog, refuting his horror comics work for moral reasons; that rattled Ryan a bit, being an Ohio lad after all, but he soldiered on.

After the Hall of Heroes run, Ryan placed Bog amid the Big Bang retro-comics properties. The Big Bang crew’s lovingly-crafted faux-1950s and ’60s comics predated Alan Moore, Rick Veitch’s and my own 1963 retro-comics series with Image, and arguably kicked off the whole retro-comics movement of the 1990s. Anyhoot, Bog battled Doctor Weird in Big Bang #15, was back in #16 and landed in the Big Bang Universe RPG book.

I think the last (to date) of Ryan’s Bog: Swamp Demon comics stories appeared in the pages of fellow Mirage Studios creator Dan Berger’s Gutwallow series (which Dan self-published under his Numbskull Press imprint). These were back-up stories scripted by Doug Brammer and delineated by David Vance and spiced with cameos of Dan’s loveable Gutwallow character and TMNT vet Brammer’s Golem character from Power of the Golem (a character introduced in Hall of Heroes Presents #3, October 1996).

I did the covers to Bog #1-4 for Ryan’s Hall of Heroes run. My final Bog cover work was for Big Bang #15 (Image Comics, December 1997), wherein I had the rare pleasure of delineating both Ryan’s Bog and the venerable fanzine comics creation Dr. Weird, who’d debuted in Star-Studded Comics #1 (September 1963), the legendary Texan zine from Larry Herndon, Buddy Saunders and Howard Keltner. That was a hoot!

That cover image was also turned (with my permission, natch) into a glorious Big Bang Bog T — as in t-shirt — which was mighty sweet.

More Bog: Swamp Demon art, including scans from the originals, this week!

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