"I'm a nasty piece of work, chief. Ask anybody."

[prof_pangaea]

comics i have read in the past three weeks:

Swamp Thing:
The Curse
A Murder Of Crows
Earth To Earth

Hellblazer:
Original Sins
The Fear Machine
Rare Cuts
Dangerous Habits
Bloodlines
Fear And Loathing
Tainted Love
Damnation's Flame
Son Of Man
Setting Sun
Highwater
Red Sepulchre
Reasons To Be Cheerful
The Red Right Hand
Chas: The Knowledge
Pandemonium

The Books Of Magic
The Books Of Magic

but not quite in that order. so yah there is a general theme there and it is JOHN CONSTANTINE, who i have always sort of meant to read but never got round to til now. that's all the constantine i've been able to get from the library (so far), with the exception of "the family man" because i've been saving it so i don't run out of jamie delano. BECAUSE I LOVE HIM. imma probably start that in about five minutes, tho.

which reminds me, if you like hellblazer and you haven't read "pandemonium", you really should. not only the first new delano hellblazer in years and years, but the first time i've read a story about iraq where i wasn't tensed up the whole time waiting for the author to throw me out of the story with shitty politics.

also, violetisblue, you should totally be reading this. i mean not just cos i think you'd like constantine's fuck you attitude, hatred of fascists, and general surly sense of humour, but also because he looks like sting. :D THINK ABOUT IT, VALI.

Comments

[prof-pangaea.livejournal.com]

i really, really liked garth ennis' run, but jamie delano, man. he just gets constantine like no one else. and his stories... i fucking love him. also, even though it's ennis who establishes that john's john's cnaonically bi, i really get more queerness from delano's run. i mean, the fear machine probably has more queer characters than straight ones! and yah, "pandemonium" is totally worth buying, i think -- but i found it in my local library, so check there first if you're curious! good writing and excellent art (http://cdn.springboard.gorillanation.com/storage//upl_images/hbpan1(1).jpg).

i wish the one boyfriend we get to actually see with john wasn't just a bizarre batman parody, but ah well. he's just gotten married in the current run of hellblazer (and i haven't read any of her issues yet but she seems like a good match from what i've seen about her), but DC constantine is now a young, handsome dude free of most if not all of hellblazer's continuity, so it'll be interesting to see what DC might do with him.

ETA: A while back I posted scans of Hellblazer #51, which is the issue where we learn that John is bi. They're here.

wooo! wikipedia says vertigo is going to collect all the uncollected hellblazers into trade and reprint everything, but yay for not having to wait! i was a bit side-eye when i saw there was a trade that had several issues before 51 and several issues after, but not that one.

[kindkit.livejournal.com]

Wait, DC has brought Constantine back into the main continuity? Or rebooted him, I guess? It makes me wonder what the fuck they can do with him outside of Vertigo, which is much less limited by the need to be kid-appropriate.

It wasn't Ennis who wrote the issue where John is revealed as bi, it's a one-off writer named, as I recall, John Smith. (Which now makes me suspect that some version of the Doctor--maybe Eight when he had amnesia?--had a stint at writing comics.) It may well have had Ennis's approval though since he was the main writer at the time.

[prof-pangaea.livejournal.com]

constantine is being brought back into main DC continuity AND he's continuing on in hellblazer over at vertigo. he's the only DC character who's going to remain at vertigo, so that other than hellblazer, vertigo can be an imprint strictly for creator-owned material. DC's bringing back swamp thing, and of course they decided to bring back john along with him -- but john the way he was when he was first introduced in swamp thing back in the 80's, i.e. younger and better-coiffed. sans earrings, though.

vertigo wasn't developed until (*checks wikipedia*) 1993 -- so all the hellblazer before that was published by regular old DC. and of course his storyline in swamp thing was a lead up to crisis on infinite earths, which leads to a surreal scene with john and swamp thing on a space station with the justice league. so john's had plenty of time over in the regular DC universe. he probably just won't say "fuck" and there'll be fewer storylines where a demon fucks a guy through a slit in his belly to impregnante him with the antichrist. but he can get those over in hellblazer, still, so it's an ideal solution!

It wasn't Ennis who wrote the issue where John is revealed as bi, it's a one-off writer named, as I recall, John Smith.

ahhhh, that completely explains why it wasn't collected in the trade! ha, i was also wondering why on earth ennis would do that when he writes him so straight.

[prof-pangaea.livejournal.com]

first appearance of new DC constantine. (http://s3.amazonaws.com/data.tumblr.com/tumblr_lmmacpUXCo1qi0ou1o1_1280.jpg?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAJ6IHWSU3BX3X7X3Q&Expires=1308404277&Signature=cfHHn%2FE8KkDM7xXR7qYcUuP9OzE%3D) nice shoes.