Donnie Van

You didn't seriously just pull a "I've been here longer so stfu n00b", did you?

"You were expecting maybe Ambush Bug?"

I wouldn't mind that :D Haven't seen that guy in forever.

Looks great. I've been on a Giffen binge lately (I even finally managed to pick up The Heckler and the first issue of The March Hare).

It's refreshing to see a book that doesn't take itself too seriously again :)

There's no real win situation here.

You continue buying the books, you continue to add drops of disposable income to the ocean of wealth that comprises AOL/Time-Warner.

On the other hand, you quit buying the books and you're losing a a hobby that (I'm assuming) you thoroughly enjoyed throughout the years just to spite a heartless megaconglomerate. The worst part is, of course, that your boycott of their product will go completely unnoticed by them, like losing a grain of sand from an entire beach.

I'll keep buying, personally. It's a rough deal that the executives and their puppets back-handedly badmouth the fans, but sad to say, it should be expected from them. I still enjoy the books I buy, and really don't give much thought to what the powers-that-be, their media underlings, and the people who would believe all of that have to think, anyways.

I'd feel differently if it were the book creators saying and implying these things, but they seem to be about as enthusiastic over the movie as we are.

My two cents, anyways.

Never felt self-conscious about reading a comic in public, really. If people can go about wearing professional wrestler t-shirts and do fine, I sure as fuck shouldn't be in any danger of ridicule.

When battling demons, you need a big gold gun. Click this image for a gallery of stills from Constantine!

It's painful just reading parts of that thing.

He's had seven or eight years to change his attitude though...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

More than that, perhaps. Like you mentioned in the other thread, time passes differently in Hell.

I said the Golden Boy. I'm sure I'm wrong, but oh well. Really, I'd just love to be the one guy who got it right :p

And the giant yellow logo for God sakes.

I'm fighting the urge to force the nitwit who lays this stuff out to take my "Graphic Design for dumbfucks" course.

Lesson one: We know it's fucking Hellblazer, we don't need a neon sign across the middle of the cover to tell us this. First rule of trade dress graphic design - COMPLIMENT the cover, don't overpower it. Sheesh.

 

- TB

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yeah, first thing I thought when I got my copy was how much of an eyesore the logo's placement was.

Still a gorgeous cover, though (as usual). It's a shame I can't just sort of peel the Hellblazer logo off of it.

It's probably a bit hypocritical of me, but I only want the "important significant deaths" to be characters I don't care about. Which would mean I don't want Kit or Dani to eat it.

But then again, those deaths would have huge repercussions on the story ...

I'm so torn :(

How about this: Maybe there are a bunch of "big" deaths that have happened already, and we just haven't seen them yet. The kids wait until they get John right where they want him, and then pop out the corpses - Rich the Punk doing his pincushion impression with forty knives deeply planted in him, Zed (or at least her upper half) dangling from a hook, Cheryl with her neck twisted a complete 180, so on and so on.

Just a thought. That'd certainly be a major blow to John.

("Major's" an understatement, I know.)

Just for future reference, most of the Hellblazer-related discussion would go on the Monthly Title board. No worries, though. I'm sure someone will be kind enough to move it there.

I don't see why reading the trades in that order would be any problem. If you're a Garth Ennis fan (which you may be, having read Preacher), he does have two other trade paperbacks out that would come between Dangerous Habits and Damnation's Flame (they'd be, in order, Fear And Loathing -and- Tainted Love).

If you're pressed for cash, they don't really need to be read in order. You could toss the other two Brian Azzarello books and just pick up Freezes Over (really, his best work on the book).

As for the gaps ... yeah, they're there, and that's rather unfortunate, particularly towards newer readers. There aren't really any trades to fill them, and I can't imagine them being produced in the immediate future, either. Sorry.

Luckily, you've stumbled upon the most informative forum of Hellblazer fans on the Internet, so any questions you might have can likely be answered by someone here.

Good luck, happy collecting, and welcome to the board

Make mine medium.

(Looks great, btw)

^Or even worse, Shade The Changing Man.

I do think there could be a few more Hellblazer trades put out (not a thing from Jenkins or Carey?? Or another Delano trade??), but I'm pretty satisfied that we've got any at all, to be honest.

Flash #218: Best "villains" in comics today, truth be told. Too bad they have to do this whole Identity Crisis shit spilling over into it. I don't want Captain Cold to only be who he is because of an out-of-character magic lobotomy. Fucking IC ...

Hellblazer #204: Naturally.

JSA: Strange Adventures #6: I'm a Justice Society mark, what can I say?

Planetary #22: Something about a cowboy is what I've gathered.

That looks like it, really.

Very nice makeover. The color scheme is nice on the eyes, as well.

Are all the profiles going to get a similar change eventually?

Hey, you showed Welcome to the board, Mr. Shirley.

Most points have been addressed, so I'll hit my personal feelings on the Azzarello one: I think my main problems with it were that if you changed the names and appearances a bit and scraped the title off the cover, would anyone even know it was Hellblazer? Through most of it, there was a distinct lack of that sort of trademark Hellblazer feel for me (bastard of a guy caught up in supernatural shit up to his neck, you know?).

I don't entirely disagree with Azz's want to make most of the adversaries John faced human. It certainly carries a powerful message. For a bit. I did start to miss the more supernatural elements though, and when they were included in Azz's books, it felt like they were sort of forced in there, just to remind us we were reading Hellblazer and not 100 Bullets or some other pseudo-crime book. (I think the "It's people that are the real monsters" thing works best in small doses; see Warren Ellis' Hellblazer: Haunted for a good example, imo.).

The lack of a real supporting cast (sans Turro, who I couldn't have disliked more if I tried) also brought down Azz's book. Probably because I was a big fan of Paul Jenkins' run on the book, and that was (sort of) John at his most normal. He had a regular girlfriend and a regular cast of friends, and I really saw them as a sort of emotional anchor in his life. John's last words under Jenkins really said it all:

"Nobody got hurt too badly. Nothing that can't be fixed, given enough time. Nobody died. Except me."

But I'm going off on too much of a tangent.

Like I said earlier, welcome to the board :) These guys come off as a bit harsh sometimes, but they're really pretty easy going from what I've seen.

I'm sure if you've got any questions or comments or want to pick anyone's brains over something, they'd be more than willing to lend an ear. And the main site here also has a wealth of Hellblazer information, including quite a few issue synopses, issue annotations by the great Adrian Brown, a family tree, a little snippets on the major events in John's life, amongst other things.

Best of luck with the books, and you probably can't even believe how good it is to hear you're going with the comic version over the movie version

Also, there's the "Extreme Prejudice" bit.

That's what first came to my mind, anyways.

WARLORD?-John Constantine, American air force captain in charge of dropping an atomic bomb on the Soviet Union should the need arise, is sabotaged by an evil Commie double agent who he believed to be his friend (Chas?!). His plane crashes and he is thought dead....EXCEPT he is now in a land that time forgot! He grows a beard and put on a Viking helmet....The new Warlord is born!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I wouldn't mind seeing John Constantine in Skartaris, to tell you the truth :)

I don't even know if I can be bitter anymore. It died out months ago. All that's left right now is ... confusion.

I know it's been asked a thousand times before, and I know the answer is still "money" ... but WHY, if the source material has to be changed so much, is a John Constantine movie being made in the first place?

You could change the names and a few plot points and it would bear no resemblance to Hellblazer, and then, EVERYBODY's happy. The Keanu fangirls still get their shitty movie that they'll love regardless of quality, the dopey action fans who sluggishly fill the seats everytime a television trailer shows them enough bullets and explosions will still get to lose themselves a rather mindless action movie for an hour-and-a-half, and none of the fans of the comic are disgruntled over the senseless butchering and dumbing down of a perfectly good story.

It's a bit funny that they would choose to make a Hellblazer movie adaptation when the only group of people that would go to see it merely on namesake (the Hellblazer fans) are the ones getting the biggest snubbing in all of this.

Sorry. That probably came off as nonsensical. I don't get a chance to vent much on this movie, and I try to keep my negativity off the Constantine board.

I've read that doing puzzles that stimulate various parts of your mind, like crosswords, strengthen the memory.

I suppose it might not be coincidence that my 44-year-old lifetime alcoholic father happens to have one of the best memories I've ever heard of and just so happens to be an avid crossword solver.

You can take a look at a couple of preview pages for the first issue here.

I didn't see anything naming them. I'm sure AOL/Time-Warner owns a book publishing company, right? I'd suspect that's who it'd be coming out under.

I also went ahead and sent him an invite to the forum. Not sure if anyone else did, but I said he'd be more than welcome to come shoot the breeze or just lurk about.

It sounds alright, and it sounds like the guy really wants to keep the spirit of the comic around (and even if he's really going on about Azzarello, I can't say he's wrong or any less likely to put out a good book for it).

I'll give them a chance, and would really love it if Mr. Shirley could impress me (and all of us) with his books.

Thought this would be a good snippet for people who don't really feel like wading through the site:

I can tell you that --barring a change of course by the publisher--the first two Hellblazer novels to come, titled WARLORD and SUBTERRANEAN, are based on the Vertigo John Constantine, not the movie John Constantine.

John needs a magical sword is what you're saying, then? :D

Actually picked up a physical copy of this one.

Really liked it. The concept is great, and the writing is sharp and spot-on. The art ... well, it's not bad, but it's missing something, and I'm not sure what.

Great choice of comic to show, Rogan.