Swamp Thing #60 p. 12 Original Art - "Loving the Alien" Watchface and Zipper Splash by Alan Moore and John Totleben

In the midst of writing Watchmen, Alan Moore paired with the long-time illustrator/inker of his Swamp Thing run, John Totleben, for a one-off issue just months before Moore left the book. What was created is the issue entitled "Loving the Alien," with the name stemming from the David Bowie release of a year and a half before. In my mind, this issue stands out as the most adventurous and bizarre offering of the mainstream modern comics era. It features a mix of pen and ink, spray paint, found art including zippers and watchfaces, and other sundry materials to create the individual pages of the issue, in what one could consider a harbinger of the forthcoming work of Dave McKean. The process by which it was scripted is unique as well. To begin, Totleben created 11 pages and labeled them as A through K. He then sent them off to Alan Moore so that he could craft a story around them. Moore then wrote 11 additional pages to finish the story, with Totleben then providing the art for them.

An image of this piece of original art was included in the extra materials for Absolute Swamp Thing Vol. 3, along with the script for this issue and an essay from Totleben describing how it came into being. The letter designation for the page is unknown, but from the script devised by Alan Moore for this issue, it is noted to be of the initial batch of 11 sent by Totleben.

I feel this is easily one of Totleben's best pages from his tenure on Swamp Thing (and maybe the most adventurous of his career) - it is a standout page from a run that Totleben calls, "one of the greatest mainstream horror comics of all time." This page itself has a certain heft to it, with a plethora of watchfaces and even a zipper sturdily attached to a piece of roughly 11x17 illustration board. Glad to have this one, it has been one of my favorites on CAF for quite some time.