Swamp monster

Swamp monsters have been a staple of fantastic fiction for years.

Description

Swamp creatures are humanoid creatures similar to fish or resembling living piles of swamp mire. They live underwater and occasionally come to the surface, but only when provoked. Within modern American folk myth and legend a notable example is Louisiana's Honey Island Swamp monster.[1] Another notable example is the May River Swamp Creature that along with other rare and spectacular creatures occupies the marshes and supralittoral zones of the South Carolina lowcountry, near Bluffton, SC.[2]

They seem to be akin to Kelpies, Kappa, the Loch Ness Monster, and muck monsters. Being only part humanoid, it is not popular belief that they are capable of speech, but in some cases, they have been capable of speech.

Popular renditions of swamp creatures occur in popular media such as comic books (Marvel's Man-Thing and DC's Swamp Thing). They have also been featured on older films, most notably The Creature from the Black Lagoon. In all these cases, they displayed superstrength, extreme underwater adaptability, possible muck spitting and a frighteningly bad attitude.

Examples in comics

From the 1940s to the present many swamp monsters have been used in comics, an early example being Hillman Publications' The Heap.

Afterwards both DC Comics and Marvel created similar characters:

The debuts of the two characters were so close that it is impossible to say which came first.[3] Alan Moore, who worked on Swamp Thing for a period, later described the character's original incarnation as "a regurgitation of Hillman Comics' The Heap", adding that "When I took over that character at Len Wein's suggestion, I did my best to make it an original character that didn't owe a huge debt to previously existing swamp monsters."[4]

Other swamp monsters in comics include:

Examples in film, television, and literature

See also

References

  1. Nickell, Joe, Tracking the Swamp Monsters, retrieved 2006-04-03
  2. Lewis, Rusty. "Environmental Specialist". Bluffton Breeze.
  3. Cotter, Robert Michael "Bobb" (2008). The Great Monster Magazines: A Critical Study of the Black and White Publications of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland. p. 80. ISBN 978-0-7864-3389-6.
  4. "Interview with Alan Moore Page 5 of 8". Seraphemera. February 19, 2013.
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