londonsurrealist

Yeah, Keanu's an actual actor so that gives him the edge over old man Sting.

 

We've spoken more than enough about Angel Heart before but now that Mickey Rourke's star is back on the rise maybe....

 

 

...ok, probably not.

If only I'd seen that in time I could have given it a "Don't talk to me.." balloon and won a copy of Pandemonium...

Well, according to most branches of the rumour mill it's all over bar the official announcement, and Paterson Joseph is the Eleventh Doctor.

 

Which, of course, probably means it's going to be Sean bloody Pertwee or Ricky Gervais. But hey, assuming for the sake of argument that the internet has got it right this time...

 

...good call. He wouldn't necessarily have been my first choice (without wanting to sound too obvious, that'd probably have been Chiewetel Ejiofor or Bill Nighy), but of the suggested candidates who actually sounded like plausible possibilities, he's been my favourite since his name first came up.

 

Like everyone else who saw it, I thought his performance in the otherwise-largely-cack Neverwhere was about as good a dry run for the role as anyone's ever given (for those who haven't seen it, watch

, introducing his character, and you should understand exactly what people mean when they say that*). Given his history playing slightly harsh, hard-to-like characters we may be in for an interesting change in direction, but that was always going to be the only sensible approach to following on from Tennant.

 

Aside from the obvious differences from recent Doctors (by which, of course, I refer to the fact that he's balding), he'll also be the oldest actor to take on the role since Jon Pertwee in 1970, which is a terrific up-yours to the conventional wisdom that it's a young man's part these days.

 

The only major concern I have is his possible lack of range - while I like the idea of a slightly harsher Doctor, making the character genuinely unsympathetic would be a huge mistake, and there's little in Joseph's previous career to suggest that he's capable of adding that spark of warmth and likeability which is so essential for the role. I've also heard from a number of people that he was dreadful in Moffat's recent Jekyll, which doesn't bode entirely well. Any UK types who happened to watch Survivors - how was he in that?

 

Still, Moffat generally seems to know what he's doing with Who, and aside from his inexplicable fondness for James Nesbitt, has generally done a decent job of casting his various shows. So, for the time being I'm cautiously optimistic.

 

Roll on 2010, I say. Can't wait to see what the new TARDIS is going to look like.

 

 

 

*Gaiman apparently had the William Hartnell Doctor in mind when he wrote the part, and was surprised by Joseph's casting - but was won over by his performance, which brilliantly channels Hartnell via Pertwee and Colin Baker (the latter in a good way, which is a neat trick to pull off).

Hi, hadn't said anything on this thread before. I hadn't heard the story that the next doctor might be Patterson Joseph, but I did see that the Christmas Special was titled The next Doctor and had David Morrisey alongside Tennant. I'd be very happy if it were Morrisey (David, not just Morrisey, although that has a certain piquancy as an idea...) and he'd certainly he able to convey some less sympathetic aspects of the Doctor's personality, but the photo showed him in a victorian cravat, so that looks like a reversion to earlier Doctor dress codes.

Everybody summon a demon then call it a wanker!

Yeah, did that, he just cried and said everybody hates him. Demons are not what they used to be.

Our hero is 55 tomorrow, wearing well, isn't he? Another 5 years and he gets a bus pass. THAT should add piquancy to the odd chase sequence...

Well, it depresses me. But the scuttlebutt on that site says the dude's edit is better than the original. Considering the director has [over-used word]-stantine, Legion, Britny and Justin Timberlake videos as his film credits, a mouse with an xacto knife and a stack of Polaroids could probably make a better film.

Wwell, this at least has a sense of humour...

I got the trade of "The Gift" last night. Being a new boy in the wonderful world of Constantine I hadn't read Carey's run as comics but had collected all the trades of it. So "The Gift" was the only one missing.

The first thing that struck me was that it made Mina's run seem even worse than before. While I rather liked "Empathy..." I thought "Red Right Hand" wasted some promising ideas. Now I think that she actually didn't have many ideas and didn't seem to have read much before Carey.

As a graphic novel I thought "The Gift" made a lot of sense as a part of a greater whole. You wouldn't understand much that was going on if that was your introduction to Hellblazer. I can imagine it being a bit tough as a comic as well in that you'd not get much taste of what typical Hellblazer stuff was like and you'd never imagine that it was mostly set in London.

I liked almost everything about it, especially the desperate and nasty reduced version of Nergal, part humanoid demon, part giant rat. Manco's drawing seems to get rougher as the story goes on, but while in Mina's story it starts to seem rushed and half-hearted, here it adds to the intensity and gives a sense of Hell being a very unstable environment that might warp the actual physiques of its inhabitants.

The SPARING use of First of the Fallen worked for me. I do understand why some people dislike him as a character, even though there's a load of stories I have to read yet in order to grasp his true awfulness, but while it often might seem that John beats him too easily sometimes, here he has the upper hand and disposes of John as he sees fit, in order to allow for a greater humiliation.

Anybody who looks at folklore should come across many tales of crafty peasants fooling the devil, John Constantine fits comfortably into that tradition, apparently too comfortably for some. I would hope this story might appease them a little. I must say though that as an incredibly ancient being of immense power and, one might assume, diabolical majesty, 'e don't arf fuckin swear a lot, the fuckin' foul-moufed ole fucker, I mean for a satanic majesty an all.

The question arises how do you follow that gloomy and apocalyptic tale? The title story, "The Gift" is even gloomier and on a much smaller, more intimate scale and it make way for the dark humour of "RSVP" in which we see John literally torch his past life. I really like the climactic party at Tate's. Actually, the club magicians seemed oddly familiar.

Something that came to mind in the middle of all this was that I got the impression Mike Carey was either setting up Angie Spatchcock as a potential serious love-interest or as thwarted serious love-interest. Sorry to keep harping on about Mina, but she managed to make Angie utterly pointless, as well as drab, in her run. Angie seems to have deep feelings for John and that can be developed in different ways, but surely not just ignored. The way it is set up here allows both for development and for keeping her either out of it or at a distance.

What strikes me is that the writer following on from Mike Carey needed to give John some kind of renewal, which is, of course, what Andy Diggle did and Denise Mina didn't. The Constantine at the end of RSVP is broken-down, depressed, near suicidal, even in giving up magic still playing cons because that is all he knows, going nowhere.

The story lines needed to be very different, needed to get back to something rooted in London and in which John finds some kind way out of his ruined life. Diggle's run seems to be doing this pretty well, a good start with "In at the deep end" setting the pace and continuing through the subsequent tales. Whether or not we are coming to a new golden age of Hellblazer remains to be seen, but at least it is looking very promising.

Anyone seen the Hellblazer review in this month's SFX magazine? It's sold out in my town. If someone could scan it I'd be grateful. Ta!

 

I can do it for you, if you don't mind waiting while Thursday (or unless someone can get it up quicker).

That's what I said to my girlfriend...oops...

Andy: Brixton? Is this for an anonymous, no questions asked place to stay?

He wants to live in London, and Brixton's a melting pot with a bit of life to it, without being too overdeveloped and wanky.

 

hmm, Brixton + wanky = Shoreditch, Brixton + overdeveloped = Chelsea, Brixton - murders = Clapham.

 

I could do this all day.

 

 

Brixton - credibility = Lewisham

 

If Constantine lived in Lewisham and the story was being written by Ennis he'd be drinking at Dylans.

 

 

 

 

 

 

You bastard - I live in Lewisham!!!

As do I. So you know exactly what I'm talking about.

True enough, although I did have some forlorn belief that my presence made it a bit cooler somehow...

One thing for sure is that Rankin is leaving Rebus alone for at least the next wee while. As well as all his promotional commitments for Exit Music, which stretch to the end of the year, he’s struggling with a graphic novel, Hellblazer (‘I’m three pages in, it’s harder than I thought’)

 

http://www.list.co.uk/article/4633-ian-rankin/

Hehe, and that nice Mr Diggle makes it all seem so easy...

Andy: Brixton? Is this for an anonymous, no questions asked place to stay?

He wants to live in London, and Brixton's a melting pot with a bit of life to it, without being too overdeveloped and wanky.

 

hmm, Brixton + wanky = Shoreditch, Brixton + overdeveloped = Chelsea, Brixton - murders = Clapham.

 

I could do this all day.

 

 

Brixton - credibility = Lewisham

You bastard - I live in Lewisham!!!

Hi I've sent a few posts so thought it might be time to introduce myself. Ok, I realised I was turning into a desperately sad case when I found myself thinking that I'm one year, one month and a few days younger than John Constantine. I also have blonde hair, but judging from the last issue don't look half as good as him without my clothes. (just take my word for it, evidence could be quite upsetting for the sensitive among you).

I only discovered Hellblazer recently, but have bought over half the trades so far and will soon have all of them and am now getting the magazine regularly.

Otherwise, I teach part-time, and work in a university library while trying to write a Ph.D. thesis on surrealism. I'm a poet, photographer and artist. Like our friend Constantine I misspent my early years wanting desperately to become a magician before deciding it was bollocks. I do still seem to know far too much about the subject for it to be good to me. As far as I know I have never been to Hell, though I did have a decidely rough trip to Broadstairs the other week, almost as bad, but much less colourful...

Stuart/Londonsurrealist