adam

I've been posting on this site for about a year and this is the first topic I've started, introductions aside let's get to it:

Paul Jenkins's run was basically all about John trying to lead a normal life but various demons kept using his new circle of friends against him in equally various ways.

The resolution came with "How to play with fire" where John ultimately sold his soul to the first to protect his current group of friends from himself.

In the past few issues we have seen both Weeble and Danni's family slaughtered by his children, tough they are still demons.

Does this mean John has his soul again? Carey reiterrated the First's power over over hell in #199 and it was his, and ergo Hell's, protection these people were supposedly under in exchange for John's soul. He Welshed so now John can possibly go up when (if) he dies.

Just a thought i had on the train a few weeks back anyone have any thoughts?

that said it is also true that classic comics in "mint" condition are so rare because of the haphazrd printing method and infact only 1 in every 50 comics come of the production line in mint condition.

If you want a valuable hellblazer just try and find a copy of #27, its the only one out of the lot thats gone up in value outside of inflation.

My copy of Lucifer #60 had the first 2 pages (and so the last 2 also) binded in twice, bit of a fuck up but then again the crisis on infinite earths box set with only one panel misprinted is worth $500 more in decent condition.

No smoke would ever smoke them, seriously.

I remember the show called 'this life' about lawyers and one character gives up smoking and so buys silks, by the end of the night she was tearing the filters off.

This is exactly what they're like. nobody could ever get cancer from them babies

Selkie is quite correct - the 'American Gothic' storyline (which is pretty loose by modern uber-arc standards

 

 

 

the beauty of the american gothic arc was that nobody realised it was an arc until the very end when Swamp thing faces the evil and then all events make sense, it is lost on contempoarary readers (myself included, don't think i'm being arrogant here) as we know its an arc but the fact all these (nearly 15 issues worth)seemingly unrelated events are linked together and made sense of in the space of 3 panels makes it unparalled in comic book arcs. There was no obvious set up to a big fight/conclusion like our current arc, there was no build up such as there is with the sandman, just good stories and the sudden realisation (a very hard thing to do in comics i might add) that the past near 2 years were a whole arc.

 

most satisfactory on the whole

I'm with Incer on this one, John would defo be a Benson and Hedges man

 

 

I'd have to say he'd be a Regal man. premier in british fags and only available in the north of england, you have to be an extremely resourceful character to find them in london.

 

Also it's true, you're at greater risk of a hernia than from cancer trying to draw smoke through a silk cut

 

Maybe he should switch brand, he did switch drink from gin and tonics to pints. Interestingly gin and tonics are considered an old lady drink in britain too.

i was thinking that saul would become the convert or something and 'betray' his siblings as in switch faith.

But then again i'm hoping anything will happen to make these 3 dull as fuck characters in any way 3 dimensional. Even the 'big enemy' Rosacarnis turned out to be nothing more than a plot device.

This whole arc is moving too slowly and yielding too little

Not a lot of stuff can make me wince. Seriously. So I'm always pleasantly suprised when HB does it for me.

The torture scenes in Setting sun when the girl's limbs are frozen and then dunked in warm water to flay them OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHH thats gonna sting in the morning.

Also being sodomised by a fear elemental until you stutter permanently doesn't rate highly on my what-to-do-over-the-festive-period-list

A soul can only be redeemed in a purgatory, once a souls in hell it's just there for punishment and can never rise or be redeemed, not even after judgement day(aside from limbo, but that's only a part of hell technically) so be good all you boys and girls out there!

I've never been able to get hold of guys and dolls to read, so thanks for that bbit of info

I have always presumed they're the same triumvirate from the sandman but when Lucifer's hell passed to the angels, they said they'd use it to redeem souls. This would upgrade it to purgatory.

It's still a big piece of supernatural real estate as they say in sandman but it's nolonger part of hell which the triumvirate still ruled until rake at the gates.

That's the best way I can reconcile the events in my mind but there's never been an official reconcilliation I think. Books of magic, Swamp thing and lucifer all use the image of hell with the angels running it inhereted from sandman, but HB uses it's own with the first. All the characters are interchangeable and the first supposedly took over in the triumvirate from lucifer (that's said in rake at the gates i think) but no resolution as to who owns hell, the angels (until last month) or the first.

It's all so long ago now that i don't think there'll ever be an official storyline to sort it out.

try Milehighcomics.com they have regualr sales and you can get issues at up to 80% off recommended back issue prices at times. If you live in England like me, the fact they're dollar prices and the dollar's shit at the moment gives extra savings. It's free delivery too if you spend over $100. I got about 60 back issues of various things for only £40 last year. Can be a bit hit and miss what they have in stock tho, but they email you when they get it in.

I think they owe me a commision cheque for that glowing little advert there.

Secondly:

At first i thought that the narator was the First, mainly because of the font used it's the same as it was in dangerous habbits and #199 and mr.carey does inkeep with the font-charcter schemes.

but after the first page i realised it couldn't be, it's definitely something to do with the rats, they're always present in the scenes with narration, can't think off hand of any of john's enemies that control rats (unless the deviant time line excludes the new swamp thing so that john was never instrumental and the swamp thing never relented his powers - then it could poosibly be saul with the power he took from his chained elemental in #200, bit of a long shot I'm sure you'll agree)

did brick myself when they came for map though, didn't want him to go.

Albert was a sad departure (though i'm sure there was some allusion to him being already dead and reincarnate in some fashion already, can't quite remember where though)

should be an appearance by Nathan Arcane soon though by my reckoning which is good, he was a good character, too good to just wander off as he did (I thought it was going to be an introduction of him to the new swamp things, but hey I know when i'm wrong)

also are we all agreed that Chas is fine and dandy. Mr.Bradsheet said he'd be on a cover soon and (no offence to Mr.Carrey) no comic book writer on God's earth would have the balls to kill off a 15 year old character so unceremoniously.

First of all: Mr.Bradshaw, i noticed that you're watching this feed, so i want to say thankyou, because my girlfriend gave you a big hassle this time last year because she saw a piece of your work on your site for sale and then got into a heated corresspondence because the item was 'lost' (it was the haunted tpb cover original pencil trace of john with his back turned). I'm very happy with my present and (i don't know if you remember but...) she won't tell me the precise words she exchanged but from what ive gathered she's happy with getting away without a restraining order. so Tim thankyou.

y'know for some reason i could understand what brad pitt and the gypsies were saying in that film so i didn't get the joke. weird that.

crap, i lost my little picture. well i suppose things always get lost in the move...

i liked it too.

i thought it was amazing.

so are these kids going to have super powers then? adam can control people, saul can control the green and the girl has.. a knife? she was a bit crap the other two were a bit fun though.

Can't remember who said it, but i think abby was in this issue because they were trying to ram as many 'blasts from the past' in as possible.

not sure about the new hellblazer logo, looks a bit.. well, crappy. i liked the one they just got rid of.

i'm also really loving Carey's one-thing-leads-to-another method of bridging story arcs. If you think about it, the last time john had a moment to himself was in a bar in america at the start of azzarello's run. he really hit the ground running.