I liked comic books as a child. My brother and I had a compilation series of comics called “Starstream,” consisting of science fiction works by noted authors–Isaac Asimov, A. E. Van Vogt, and many others–from the pulp/paperback era, adapted by famous comic artists. My favorite was a story by the horror writer Robert Bloch (best known for “Psycho”), titled “And the Blood Ran Green.” It was a harrowing tale of a crew of Earth astronauts who visit a planet covered by dense, rain-forest-like undergrowth everywhere, inhabited by strange, intelligent plant creatures who immediately want to hunt them down. Even in comic book form, the story was terrifying; I can only imagine what a great and frightening movie it would make. Now that I’m more familiar with his work, I can definitely see the influence of H. P. Lovecraft, who was a friend and mentor to Bloch, on the latter writer’s work.
In the comic version, perhaps the most impressive thing was the way the artist for the Starstream version, Nevio Zaccara, created an aesthetic that captured the garish green overgrowth of the plants on the alien planet. The art made it clear that this was a sinister place, not the pastoral setting that a reader would normally associate with the color green. I’m reminded of the way that film director Werner Herzog, in the documentary about his jungle filmmaking titled “Burden of Dreams,” describes the Amazon rain forest as a place he loves “against my better judgement.”
I took this picture during a visit to the normally-not-frightening-at-all McCrillis Gardens in Bethesda, Maryland, not far from where I live. It’s a roughly 5-acre property with a wide variety of flowering plants, shrubs, and trees, providing a small oasis in the suburbia around Washington, D.C. I took this picture with one of the analog filters, which darkened the underbrush and (to my eye) made the greens look gaudy and otherworldly, reminding me just a bit of that comic story that scared me as a child. (This is not to claim that my work is the equivalent of Zaccara, only that it reminds me of that of the artist just a bit.) Take a look and see if you agree.
(By the way, you can read “And the Blood Ran Green” in its entirety here, although I very much encourage you to buy the original comic, which is available on Ebay and Alibris, among other places.)
Out West Writings 