I was already impressed with his work on Batman. I just started New 52 Swamp Thing after having my mind blown by American Vampire. This guy is doing incredible work. As a youth, I valued art more than story. But now pretty pages are less impressive if there's nothing compelling to go with them. Being a huge X-Men fan in the mid-80s early 90s, I was spoiled by the writing of the great Chris Claremont. The artists for many years didn't weigh much as far as purchasing a comic. It was mostly character driven. I liked Wolverine. I bought Wolverine related comic books. Same goes for Spiderman. Until McFarlane, Liefield and Jim Lee. After they liberated pages with their art, I can remember people skipping buying issues if one of the three didn't pencil them. While the 90s birthed some awesome storylines (Dark Phoenix Saga, X-Tinction Agenda, Fall of the Mutants), the art was definitely king. As I hit my 30s, outta college, young professional, (at least I thought. I'm laughing just thinking it.) I started to pay more attention to plot and the level of detail in books and movies. I stopped collecting around 92ish. The X-Men animated series came out when I was in high school and reminded me of the world that I hadn't checked in on for years. Needless to say I was mad the show butchered the origins of several of my favorite characters, but I digress. I rediscovered comics through the recommendation of a message board. Here were all these old fogies like me getting chubbies discussing titles and authors that I'd never heard of. Six months in and I jumped at discovering many of these titles and even overcoming my DC bias and delving into the New 52. Needless, to say, Batman by Snyder stood out. I did my ComicVine research on Snyder and decided to take a chance on some of his other titles. AND WOW!!! I'm deep into it now. American Vampire is awesome. The dialogue, the story is well put together and very original on a familiar genre. So after ripping through American Vampire, I was still hungry, so.... Swamp Thing has been one of those comics I've seen on the shelf all my life. NEVER appealed to me. It seemed Creature of the Black Lagoonish to me. I never liked cult following type products. I'm reading Snyder's version with new eyes. I don't know the backstory. I don't know the character or his powers. And it's great reading. The art is not Jim Lee, but it fits the story. Much like American Vampire. I've seen better, but the story balances it all out. I recently listened to a Snyder interview where he explains Animal Man crossing over into Swamp Thing's universe, so now I'm checking out another new (to me at least) title that I would never have picked up otherwise. I really like the idea of the Green, The Red, The Rot. This is totally new to me and effin awesome. After I get caught up on Swamp Thing and Animal Man, I might have to check out Alan Moore's Swamp Thing run. I guess I said all that to say, Scott Snyder is one of my new favorite writers.
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