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True Swamp: Underwoods and Overtime
In
September 2000 Alternative Comics released Jon Lewis' followup to his
beloved True Swamp, which was one of the biggest independent hits
of 1995 and still generates enormous enthusiasm today. True Swamp:
Underwoods and Overtime picks up where the original series left off
in chronicling the life of Lenny, a self-absorbed but charming young frog
who, when not evading the beaks, jaws and maws of the swamp's many predators,
creates plenty of his own problems with his overactive mind. Luckily,
Lenny has his good friend Hale Marmot (the swamp's only inventor) to keep
his neuroses from getting the better of him. Then there's Lenny's newest
acquaintance, Nikolas: a nicer guy you could never hope to meet, but what
the heck kind of animal IS he? And is Lenny ever going to find anything
resembling a girlfriend? These are just two of the questions driving True
Swamp: Underwoods and Overtime. With lushly-rendered artwork, uproarious
humor, intricately imagined settings, and striking, inventive page layouts,
this new Swamp will envelop the reader even more thoroughly than the old
one. (However, familiarity with the previous True Swamp stories
is not necessary to read and enjoy True Swamp: Underwoods and Overtime.)
The new True Swamp presents 60 pages of story and retails for just $4.95. It begins with a reprint of the 20-page story (from 1996's Ghost Ship #1) that introduces Nikolas and details Lenny's new career. Then comes 40 pages of all-new story in which Nikolas proves revolutionary to Hale's research but disastrous to Lenny's peace of mind. Also, a cheerfully morbid tortoise takes an interest in Lenny, but her interest may not be the sort Lenny craves. And the secret doings at Hale's lab are overheard by the Swamp's most accomplished eavesdropper, who always has his price.
Lewis' characters fall outside the conventions of the "funny animal" or "anthropomorphic" comics genres — they look like animals, and do not wear little waistcoats or drive little automobiles. But saddled with the full weight of consciousness and speech, they testify just as much to the Human Condition as to Natural Selection. The reader who falls into the distinctive rhythm of life in the Swamp will find it neither carefree nor idyllic, but will be very reluctant to leave.
True Swamp: Underwoods and Overtime, written and drawn by Jon Lewis and published by Alternative Comics, does contain profanity and thus is not recommended for younger readers. Meanwhile, Jon Lewis' swamp-sense was on display to more readers than ever this summer in DC Comics' Swamp Thing: Secret Files with an 8-page story written by Jon and drawn by Michael Zulli. Also released summer of 2000 is The Expo Comic, which features Jon's elegant, distressing 13-page tale of two medieval avant-garde... Also, the original True Swamp stories are still available in a single trade paperback entitled True Swamp: The Memoirs of Lenny the Frog.
Jon Lewis premiered True Swamp: Underwoods and Overtime at The Expo: Small Press Expo, September 15-17, 2000 in Bethesda, Maryland. Check out the "Pitch Unger" collaboration between Jon Lewis and Tom Hart at U.S.S. Catastrophe.
SAMPLE ROUGH PAGES
| 4 | 5 | 6 | 29 | 30 | 57 | 58 |
Images, characters and
likenesses © and TM Jon Lewis