SmallBlueThing

I DO celebrate the death of evil, evil people. I quite happily do, in fact. I found out she was dead while walking around a churchyard in Rye, and immediately let out a "WOO-HOO!" shouted "Maggie Thatcher's snuffed it!" at a group of strangers and ran around with my children like a lunatic. We then all sang "Ding dong, etc etc" while playing hide and seek. Scarily, while playing Eye Spy on the train this morning (before the news broke) my eldest answered "Margaret Thatcher" to an "M" question- as if her evil spirit were flying around the country seeking an outlet.

So, so happy to see her dead. Utterly disgusted with the way it's being reported in the media. And Ed Miliband claiming he owes his career to her and praising her to the skies on Facebook was like a kick in the bollocks. Did anyone see Newsround? Fucking hell, it was like Mother Theresa had died again. Thankfully, both my kids have come to understand a different version, thanks to an extended political rant that might have lasted most of the day.

Anwyay- yeah, she's dead. Hooray!

SBT

I couldn't be further away from being happy about any of this. No fan of Del Toro (at least, not when he's got his "I wanna make popular movies!" head on). And yes, I can see James Marsters already practicing his irritating mockney bollocks and OH CHRIST THIS HAS JUST REMINDED ME HOW MUCH I FUCKING HATED BUFFY AND HIS RUN IN TOSSWOOD. breath, breath... there, calm down old chap. Anyway, this all sound hideous- you couldn't possibly find a bigger Swamp Thing fan on the planet than me, and I tell you now, Swampy will never, ever, make for a good movie. Never. It will be bollocks. I sincerely hope this dies a quick death.

SBT

According to Bleeding Cool. "You would think after twenty-five years of being a Hellblazer the cynical British magician would want a break, but he’s been sent into the regular DC Universe to lukewarm sales in Constantine #1. If the book can establish itself against those disappointed with his departure from Veritgo, there is certainly room for growth. We’ll see if it does better next week when it has had a full sales cycle."

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2013/03/22/comixology-all-over-the-world-a-global-saga/

SBT

If Dial H has gone I can't say I'm at all upset. I gave it three issues and found it as impenetrable, and unreadable as the majority of Mieville's prose work. While Perdido Street Station was good enough to gain him a reputation and an absolute blastwave of ideas and images, I've found everything else the man's ever written to be dull and like reading treacle. Dial H was just the same.

I'm surprised to see Swamp Thing and Animal Man still on the shelves. Now, I'm a huge Swamp Thing fan- I own every issue of all the series with the exception (currently) of HoS#92 and vol 1 #1. I also own the vast majority of his appearances outside his own book- which is the only reason I've been buying Animal Man. I'm going to see how Animal Man #19 holds up (in other words, is Swampy still a cast member?) and drop it like a cold turd if it's as I imagine. I will thereafter rely on Internet sources to tell me which Swampy-related comics I need to buy.

As for his own title, I've not been enjoying this series too much- it picked up during 'Rotworld', but I'm certainly glad to see the back of the current creative team. We shall see how it goes- but frankly, I'm more excited that with one more issue (#19) it has equalled the run of the swiftest cancelled series (vol 3, with 20 issues) and so won't be seen as the character's nadir from a financial point of view. Which translates as "more popular than he used to be" which translates as "more Swamp Thing stuff out there", hopefully.

Of the New 52 I've seen Frankenstein cancelled (which was my favourite book) and am about to hopefully drop Animal Man. I dropped Dial H, All Star Western, Resurrection Man and JLD aaaages ago, and this will leave me with just Swampy and Wonder Woman. Time for a new reboot, DC?

SBT

Well, I read it. Awful. Is John still even British? You couldn't tell. I don't think I've ever read a comic that has so annoyed me. Quite literally the very worst thing I've seen all year so far, and the other day I walked into work to find that the person I was supporting had shit all over his entire flat and them puked in his bed for good measure. I had to clean it up. That was more fun than Constantine #1. The good news is that it's had "lukewarm sales", so it may fuck off soon.

SBT

Why not keep Hellblazer as Hellblazer , but start a second title under Contstantine ?

 

It can be about a scrawny dull-eyed American exorcist-for-hire that uses a lot of holy gizmos.

 

Oh! And don't forget his faithful sidekick!

 

<grumble grumble>

 

~Pru

[biting her tongue and running back to the "have-seen" areas to avoid dropping spoilers...]

So close!

SBT

I've long-since given up on this terrible, terrible comic- but as a Swamp Thing obsessive, I need your solemn promise that, should the muck-encrusted mockery of what it used to be ever pop up in JLD, someone will tell me, so I can buy just that single issue. Ta!

SBT

I too was going to give this a "fair crack of the whip"- at least six issues, time to bed in- but that preview has knocked that idea on the head. What a fucking piece of awful shit. DC can go to hell. I'm down to Wonder Woman, Swamp Thing and Animal Man (WW is brilliant, Swamp Thing I read to keep up my collection- it's dreadful- and with Animal Man I'm counting the days til it ceases to tie-in with Swampy, so I can drop it like an unexpected handful of old man's spunk, so bollocks is it.)

Constantine is dead.

SBT

It should be noted that the "page" above is no such thing- it's actually a montage of four different pages, including the cover (the "panel" of John dropping the fags) and one of the pictures- Zatanna's tattoo- is a detail from a full-page image. It's no wonder it doesn't read at all well! But none of this stops JLD being, on the most part, bloody awful and all the characters looking like those fucking terrible Pixar cartoon characters- all perfect skin and no character- crossed with the teeniest bit of manga. It's a contemporary style of comic art that makes me want to rip off my cock and beat the artists to death with both drippy ends.

SBT

SBT, while I totally disagree with your view on the comic, your coining of the term "Heckblazer" is brilliant. I am going to steal it as I refer to it elsewhere, though you own it here.

I'm afraid while I wish "Heckblazer" were mine, I lifted it from elsewhere- in fact, I'm pretty sure it was from this forum! As for disagreeing about the comic- remember I've not read Hellblazer in years, so this last year of stories (earliest I have is #289) has involved me coming back to an old friend. My critical faculties may be a bit off, I admit, due to my excitement. To be honest, I'm just enjoying that John seems to have aged in real time, has a wife and there *have been changes/ developments*. As a 2000AD reader for 36 years I'm used to that concept, but not to finding it outside the pages of Tharg's mighty organ.

As it goes, I'm rereading the series from the start- just coming to the end of the first year. I have the intention of eBaying as I go to fill in gaps and reading the whole 300 issue run in order (I have most of the first 130 or so) so by the time I come to the current issues, I may have a different opinion!

SBT

i recently read it and didn't care for it one bit. it was an obvious movie tie-in and i've never really enjoyed tie-ins of any sort except for video games, briefly.

 

Demonchas, your "doctor who reviews" url cracks me up because it looks like "Doctor whore views."

Heh..It does

It also says "Sarah Jan reviews"- you might want to change that!

Back on topic, I'm really quite excited about this new Constantine/ Constanteen/ Heckblazer series, I've decided. I know all the smart money is on it being utterly bloody awful- but I'm old enough to remember Hellblazer #1 coming out and the smart money there (at least among my Swamp Thing reding friends) was that it would be bloody awful too. I'm a 43 year old man and in the last year my favourite comic has become Wonder Woman... at this point I'd say all bets are off.

SBT

Crossover as in a masthead on the cover (a la Rotworld/ Brightest Day)? Issue #4.

SBT

With a million Batman and Spider-Man books on the market (which is not a bad thing per se, I love Spidey even if I hate all Batman not by Moench and Jones), I don't see why we can't have both. Why can't we have both Hellblazer and Constantine? While Hellblazer may not sell in the numbers that the first few Constantines no doubt will, it obviously shifts trades, or they wouldn't keep bringing them out (and getting multiple copies on the shelves of both of the two bookshops in my pissy little English seaside town). If DC want to open John up to the wider audience, with a view to somehow getting him into videogames and movies, why can't we have this AND Hellblazer?

SBT

I was a reader of Swamp Thing from Alan Moore's first issue- having followed Moore's career in 2000AD and Captain Britain etc almost from day one. I remember picking up Hellblazer #1 in a shop in Brighton and thinking that, as a spin-off, it looked like a terrible mistake. John Ridgway?! Never liked him! Jamie Delano? WHO?! Precisely one issue later I was completely hooked and continued to buy it monthly until around the #130 mark. I was approaching thirty and trying to cut a number of things out of my life that I saw as having outstayed their welcome. So some regular comics and a long-term girlfriend got the chop. Hellblazer eventually turned out to be a mistake only in the sense that I missed it when it was gone (unlike the girlfriend!). The next fourteen years I bought the comic four or five times- but didn't enjoy it particularly. Oftentimes, when borrowing the trades from the library, I'd find it deeply depressing and a struggle to get through. Nothing good or amusing ever seemed to happen to John, it was just a catalogue of horrible shit. When I get around to actually buying those runs, I'll see if that's in any way true- or if it was just what I saw at the time, being maybe in a not-so great place myself.

Over the last year I've been buying more and more comics- for many many years 2000AD and the Megazine were the only titles I picked up in floppy format, everything else being bought only in trades. Now I buy more floppies than at any time since I left my twenties. I'm lucky enough to have a wife who doesn't mind one bit, by the way.

Along the way I picked up Justice League Dark and was surprised to see John faffing about with the rest of the DCU goons. A bit odd, I thought. But then, he started off in that universe- Swampy was no stranger to Dead Man, Batman and the rest, so the link is there, and I have no real objection to him playing with those toys if the stories are good and Hellblazer continues to be distinct and different and by itself.

Oh.

And then the news hit. Argh! Whatthefuckdotheythinkthey'redoing?! To make matters worse, they published that terrible, dreadful, JLD #0- the only comic I've bought in years that made me actually physically angry- and I bought Dan Didio's Phantom Stranger #0, which is officially the worst comic ever written. Ever. I started buying Hellblazer again- as an act of protest really, not expecting it to be any good (after all, with sales of only 9000, surely the audience is making a claim that it deserved to end) and unexpectedly found I really enjoyed it. I'm now filling gaps in the first 150 and working backwards from #289, with an idea to one day owning a complete run.

As far as Constantine, the new 52 DCU book goes... well, I'm torn. There are some DCU comics I wouldn't allow my kids to read (neither of mine get anywhere near Batman, Detective et al, as they are on the whole nastier than they have any need to be) so IF they do John in that style, then great- there won't be any real difference other than fewer swear words and maybe a few more costumed underwear models with their nipples just-about covered flying about while homoerotic muscley men in tight pants batter each other in the background. Sadly, JLD is- like Frankenstein: Agent of SHADE (great comic, pick it up- oh, you can't, they killed that too) and Swamp Thing, one of those DC "horror" titles that plays with the iconography but doesn't really work as a "horror" book. It's a shaded fantasy- not really even "dark". Of everything DC is putting out, the Batman comics are the nastiest, and Wonder Woman is the best proper-horror title they do. The books they nominally class as "horror", well they aren't. So we'll see. But when I think of all that "Nick Necro" bollocks, my liver goes cold.

As things stand I'm with Hellblazer til the end and enjoying reading the back issues. I will certainly pick up the first few of the DCU book- even the actual title doesn't bother me and I'm surprised hellblazer didn't officially become Constantine around the time of that terrible film. Wasn't it supposed to be called 'Hellraiser' anyway- until Barker's film buggered that idea? What is a "hellblazer" anyway? It never made any sense. But if it's crap I'll have no worries about kicking it into touch- just as I'm eyeing the new IDW Judge Dredd series very closely after that awful first issue.

SBT

Hi- yes, I'm new. I read Hellblazer from the start up to about ish 130, then left it, picking up only the ocassional trade or wotnot. News of the cancellation made me pick it up again regularly (aint it always the way?) and I very much give a shit. Just read #298 and have to say that in my reading of it, John does NOT cause the deaths of all those people on the train. The train was always going to derail at that moment. John had no way of knowing that, he just knows it's unlikely he will be killed prior to the date he has dreamed. It just so happens that this "magical idea" alters/ does not alter his reality and he survives because the train was always going to do that. As he says, he didn't think it through- as he could have been horribly injured and on a lifesupport until the day of his predicted death. The point being he didn't do what he's being accused of here. And if you don't believe me, please don't stand in front of a train to test the theory. Train drivers don't have an option to "swerve maniacally because someone's on the line"!

Anyway- I'm currently rereading the first year of the book and loving it all over again. But the most recent issues? They more than live up to the legacy. Great stuff.

Nice to meetcha.

SBT