GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #835: THE BEST COMIC BOOK OF THE WEEK IS . . .

 . . . all of my books. They were great, each and every one of them. And I am so happy to have something other than my misery to talk about, I'm going to do an old school cool-shit type GF tonight. If you weren't with me back in the day, every Thursday I would post a Cool Shit talking about my favorite comics of the week. There are spoilers, as this is not a review series. It's just me talking about cool shit. So let's start!

JAMES BOND 007 #4: Shockingly enough the least excited I was for a book this week was for a Garth Ennis book. That is very much unlike me. I like in this book that Bond mentions that M is not the M that's always been with us, but that people fill in the role. He's distrustful of the current M. He currently trusts only Moneypenny because he's known her the longest. He's just returned from space and will soon be working with Felix again in the very near future.

TRANSFORMERS #7: Starscream is one of my favorite Transformers. He's a weasel. He will do anything to be in charge of the Decepticons, and curiously he actually is their leader in this new series. Megatron has yet to show his face in this series, although he's depicted in another as out of working order. How did he get that way? Did Starscream have something to do with it? I'm sure we'll find out. But Soundwave just challenged Starscream's leadership. Starscream is at his best when he's using words as weapons, but Soundwave much prefers to use weapons as weapons, and he's not above cheating. It reminded me a little of how Roland the Gunslinger bested Cort in the Dark Tower series. While it seems Image is not afraid to kill some Transformers, I wouldn't count Starscream out yet. I'm sure he'll be back.

COBRA COMMANDER #4: Cobra Commander is a lot like Starscream, and not just because the two characters were voiced by the same actor back in the 'Eighties. I'm glad that Nemesis Enforcer is around and beating the mortal shit out of the Dreadnoks, but the best part of this issue was Cobra Commander's sudden realization that he wasn't the main character of his own book. Like Starscream, he's got tricks up his sleeve. In a fair fight there is no way he'd be able to defeat NE. Luckily he's very adept at cheating. I think the next issue is the last. Too bad. I'm very much enjoying this one.

QUICK STOPS VOL 2 #4: I never thought I'd need to hear an origin story for Mooby, but goddam! I'm very happy this exists. In the final part of the story Kevin Smith ratchets up the action to a ridiculous level. I never thought I'd see Jay beat the daylights out of an elderly naked Satanist lady wearing a Mooby golden calf mask, but that's the world I currently live in. (I didn't expect Silent Bob to snap a selfie with her after, either. He's a man of few words, and his actions speak volumes.) It's good to see that the Quick Stop has a plaque commemorating Dante Hicks, but in pure Randal fashion, it's at the coffee station with a sign declaring Dante *was* supposed to be here today. This is probably the last issue, but I'm hoping for a volume 3.

HELLBLAZER: DEAD IN AMERICA #4: I don't talk about it often, but I'm fully on board with this new incarnation of Hellblazer. It feels like the Vertigo Hellblazer of old. It's more in tune with Jamie Delano's version of Constantine rather than Ennis's. There's even a nod to the original series in this issue. John is still a walking dead man, but it seems he's finally got Swamp Thing on the same page with him. It was good to see ol' Con-job pulling a scam on people, and to have it not work out for him? It was kind of funny. What I very much liked was how the people he was scamming, who had covered up the rape and murder of a teenage girl by the high school football team, got their comeuppance when they all were cursed to relive her final moments for hours in one night. It's not often that John does something good. Usually it's an accident while doing something very self-centered, but this was good work.

I feel a lot better for having written this one. It reminded me what fun was like, and fun has been running very low around here. This will be the last GF for a while, now that I'm at 835, which was my goal. Hopefully my life will stop sucking so much soon, and I can get back to having fun. Living with overwhelming stress 24/7--and I mean 24/7, I can't even escape from it in my dreams--is not helpful and needs to stop ASAP.

THE JOHN BRUNI MUSEUM OF MEDIOCRE (AT BEST) SHIT #26: REVIEW OF HELLBLAZER HARD TIME

[This is another one where I come off as a raging asshole. I have changed my mind about everything I said here (except the part about the logo, as I still prefer the original). Richard Corbin, as I believe I’ve mentioned here before, really is a horror master. I was just stupid and inexperienced with the comic book world back then. Also, I have since learned to love Azzarello’s run. The prison stuff was a bit iffy, but all my doubts were met by the end of that storyline. It laid the groundwork for John Constantine’s journey to the heart of the American dream. Looking back, I fucking love it now. Also, at the time I was unaware of why Warren Ellis was kicked off the book. It was for a one-shot story involving a shooting at a public school. Unfortunately, this happened just after Columbine. Vertigo thought publishing it would be in bad taste. Ellis walked out on the rest of his run. Vertigo eventually published that story. It was pretty good. Anyway, this was in the Elmhurst College Leader on April 24, 2000.]

Okay, this has got to stop. Hellblazer has had its ups and downs (thankfully, there have been more ups), but the latest story arc, Hard Time, is quite possibly the lowest Vertigo’s longest-running title (not counting the newly resurrected Swamp Thing) has ever sunk.

First of all, give credit where credit is due. Writer Brian Azzarello has one of the greatest ears for dialogue in comic books. He took a pretty dull comic from the ‘Sixties called Jonny Double and gave it a hard-edged cynical look for the ‘Nineties that was simply beautiful and gruesome at the same time. He writes another ongoing series called 100 Bullets, a formulaic concept that he somehow manages to write wonderfully every month. There is no doubt as to his abilities as a writer.

Tim Bradstreet, the cover artist, has published some amazing pieces of artwork in the past, from his haunting Unknown Soldier covers to his earlier Hellblazer covers, all very spooky stuff.

As for artist Richard Corbin, well, he just sucks. His drawings look like a child’s dolls. He’s supposedly a horror master, but if he is, then Ronald McDonald is God. Sean Phillips, with his use of shadows (perfected by skipping pencils and going directly to inks) and rough drawings is a horror master, but not Corben and his doll-like drawings.

Corben excepted, Azzarello and Bradstreet have proven themselves in the past as worthwhile. However, with the Hard Time storyline, their talent has gone to hell. Bradstreet seems to have lost his eerie edge (which is also evident in his Punisher covers)—he’s grown sloppy with his shadowing technique, and it looks like he’s trying to imitate Corben.

As for Azzarello, he broke one of the rules that has made Hellblazer such a strong comic book for so long: whenever a new writer takes up the reins, the writer always wanders into protagonist John Constantine’s mind and world. Instead, Azzarello plucks Constantine out of his scummy, disease-ridden angst-ridden London and throws him into an American prison. What’s he there for? Azzarello still hasn’t answered that. Constantine has engaged in ample badness in the past, but he’s an ace at avoiding the authorities.

What it comes down to is yet another story about how bad prison life is. Just what the world needs . . . There are times when Hellblazer wants to go back to its more terrifying self, like the bloody shower scene in #146, but for the most part, the horror Azzarello is emphasizing is the horror of prison. You know, sodomy, cigarette debts, skinheads, the occasional body cavity search form a gloved screw, the usual stuff. Again, the dialogue is great, but whatever happened to the old Constantine? The one that tricked the Satan into curing his lung cancer? The one that couldn’t keep his friends alive?

Azzarello, in a recent interview, said that he wanted to emphasize the con man side of Constantine, but the thing is, that’s not all he ever did. Besides, he usually had a reason to screw people over. Here, there’s no reason—he’s just in prison screwing a lot of people over and up.

Azzarello isn’t the right writer for the job. Whatever happened to Warren Ellis’s run? Granted, his one-shot issues weren’t that great, but his Haunted story arc was the last great Hellblazer story. Bad artists are common in Hellblazer, but there has never been a bad writer. Again, Azzarello isn’t a bad writer, but he’s just not right for this comic book.

Oh yeah, and the new trademark sucks, too. Forget the high-tech crap and go back to the old trademark—it was much better.

THE JOHN BRUNI MUSEUM OF MEDIOCRE (AT BEST) SHIT #10: REVIEW OF HELLBLAZER (DON'T REMEMBER THE ISSUE NUMBER)

[Here’s a little nugget of information I remembered upon rereading this piece: I didn’t come to Warren Ellis through Transmetropolitan, as I had previously believed. Nope, I came to him through his Hellblazer run. That’s odd. Anyway, I had just discovered Hellblazer a few months before I wrote this. It was the first comic book I found on my own without the assistance of a friend. I devoured the whole run so far (even the one Neil Gaiman wrote that is hard to find and a bit on the expensive side). So, all things considered, I was new to the book at the time. I still can’t believe Vertigo killed it to bring Constantine back into the DCU so he could rub elbows with the likes of Superman and the rest. Ah well. This is from the Elmhurst College Leader, April 27, 1999.]

The first and foremost question on all Hellblazer fans’ minds is, “How’s the new team doing?” Put simply, don’t worry about the integrity of this comic. Tim Bradstreet, who worked on Unknown Soldier, follows in Sean Phillips’s footsteps, capturing the moody darkness of John Constantine’s world on very devious looking covers.

John Higgins is not disappointing, either. In a comic where artists have been a dime a dozen (a lot of whom didn’t know what they were doing), Mr. Higgins is definitely one of the best. He combines the shadowy, ink-laden art of Sean Phillips with Steve Dillon’s sense of the real world. He just has one problem—drawing blood. It just seems unreal and out of place. Then again, that could be the colorist’s problem. It’s hard to tell. One way or the other, Higgins makes up for this in his own sick way. Haine (issue 137) has got to be the most repulsive looking human being I’ve ever seen, aside from maybe Arseface of Preacher fame.

The glittering gem, though, is writer Warren Ellis. Oddly enough, he didn’t start out where Paul Jenkins, the last regular writer, left off. Instead he brings us a story of his own, which is a bit reminiscent of the days of Ennis. Ellis’s first story arc, “Haunted,” still has two issues to go, but it’s vintage Constantine already. An ex-girlfriend of his has been murdered Ripper-style, and John’s trying to find out what happened, and well, this is familiar territory. While the plot is the basic revenge story, it’s the population of his search that is unique. The first person he goes to is a leery, questionable detective named Watford. As usual, John has something on him that makes Watford cooperate. He’s a twisted man who likes to look at crime scene photos, and his blunt nature is beyond tactless. When he tells John the victim had VD (there was a very grotesque image that went with it), he added, “Any road up. It has a quick wash. We’ve got the flannel. Pus and come.” That, in addition to continuously refer to the victim as “it” instead of “she” is definite grounds for a beating I’m sure John will administer in the future.

Another contact, a guy named Map, is just plain odd. He’s apparently a very powerful magus that works in the subway tunnels under London. Then there’s Hawkstorm, a magician/pimp/electrician. His brother, another lunatic, was told by Jesus to cut off his own, ah . . . ahem!

One thing Ellis is bent on is the idea of a dark and foreboding London. The scene with the kid blowing his mind with an air freshener isn’t very optimistic about the youth of the UK. Neither is the naked baby lost in the alley. Very depressing stuff.

On a lighter note, it’s very good to see Chas again, considering his absence throughout most of Jenkins’s run. John is also seeing ghosts again, except she’s not out for his blood like the others.

Speaking of friends, no one close to John has died yet during his investigation. Give it time, though. It’s pretty early in Ellis’s run. John will get them all killed eventually. It wouldn’t be Hellblazer any other way.

HOW TO #SAVECONSTANTINE (IF YOU'RE REALLY INTERESTED)

Many of you are aware that I was not thrilled with the aspect of a show based on the exploits of John Constantine. I am a long-time fan of HELLBLAZER, and I knew that they could never faithfully adapt him to TV. I still kept an open mind, but I did not expect much. I figured they'd give us the New 52 version of him.

Surprise of surprises, NBC gave us the middle ground between HELLBLAZER and the New 52, and even better, as the series moved along, it inched closer and closer into HELLBLAZER territory that I suddenly found myself loving the show. It can only get better from here on out. Matt Ryan is the perfect Constantine, and I've come to like the Americanized Chas, even if he does have special abilities. (I take that as an in-joke, because Chas is the only series-long friend Constantine has managed to keep alive.)

The sad fact of the matter is, CONSTANTINE is very likely to be canceled soon after the season finale next week. It's not because the show isn't good. It is. It's just that not enough people are watching to merit the high costs of production. If the budget remains where it is, there is no way the series can continue.

So I have an idea on how to save the show, or to at least give it a second season and thus another chance for survival. It's pretty simple, too. GIVE US THE GARTH ENNIS VERSION OF JOHN CONSTANTINE.

Take a look at the show now. It's heavy on special effects and high stakes end-of-the-world kind of material. It's good. It reflects the general feel of HELLBLAZER. However, that's the kind of thing that costs a lot of money. Scale it back. Make it more personal. As the show stands now, it's a monster-of-the-week kind of thing with just a little emphasis on character. Ennis's run on the comic book showed us the inside of Constantine's heart. It showed us his personal life with some monsters thrown in. There would be very little need for special effects if we were given the Ennis perspective on the show, yet it would ratchet up our love (and sometimes, repulsion) of Constantine. Not only that, but it would serve as a great way to introduce Constantine's greatest villain (aside from himself) to the show. The First of the Fallen has been mentioned in passing, so I'm sure he'll rear his head eventually, but what better way to introduce him than by adapting "Dangerous Habits?"

This would drastically lower the cost of production, which makes it a more attractive show for NBC to continue with. It might even increase the ratings, although the only sure-fire way to make that happen is to move it off of Fridays entirely. If we can make this happen, I'm sure CONSTANTINE would prove itself as a reliable show.

Here's to hoping. And thanks for listening.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #97: NOT MY CONSTANTINE

Looks like tomorrow is the debut of CONSTANTINE, a TV show based on one of my favorite comic book characters from the Big 2. I know I'm going to hate it. I'm going to give it a shot, but I know I'm just going to shit all over it later.


I don't want to, but the thing is, this show is based on the New 52 Constantine (pronounced CON-stan-TEEN), not the HELLBLAZER Constantine (pronounced CON-stan-TYNE) that I loved so much. It's pretty easy to cover that bullshit version of Constantine pretty well, since bullshit is easy for TV to deal with. However, I think it's impossible for a TV network to capture the essence of an incredibly complex character, like the Constantine portrayed in HELLBLAZER.


I think they're going to pull a WALKING DEAD on us. In the TV version of TWD, the characters of Michonne and Andrea are written as if they're the comic book versions for TV. Here's the problem: on the TV show, neither of those characters earned the things their comic book counterparts achieved so well. TV Michonne displays a hatred for the Governor that borders on the insane, which only makes sense if it's comic book Michonne, who was raped and tortured by the comic book Governor, things that never happened to TV Michonne. The same goes for TV Andrea, who thinks she's a bad-ass only because comic book Andrea really is a bad-ass. TV Andrea is a full-on fuck-up. I'm thinking the same thing is going to happen with TV Constantine.


At least this time they got a guy who actually looks like comic book Constantine. That's the best I can say, so far. I'm sure I'll let you know more of my thoughts when I see the series premiere tomorrow. Until then, goodnight fuckers.




























PS: If you're doubting my pronunciation of the HELLBLAZER CON-stan-TYNE, then we're going to have a problem. Alan Moore created the character for SWAMP THING. Constantine proved to be so popular, he wound up getting his own title, HELLBLAZER. I forget which issue it was in, but in the letters column of one of them, Moore is quoted as saying that Constantine, who was born in Liverpool and therefore has a Liverpudlian accent, pronounces his last name as CON-stan-TYNE. Here's a secondary source, which is also pretty official. Just scroll down to Major Story Arcs, under DC Comics: New Earth Swamp Thing.

COOL SHIT 1-3-13

G.I. JOE:  COBRA #20:  With all the attention I pay to THE TRANSFORMERS here, one would think I’d bring up G.I. JOE a bit more often.  The thing is, all three books have been lagging, ever since they did that stupid Hunt for Snake-Eyes thing.  Let’s face it, the only way that story arc could have worked out in an awesome, unexpected way was if Snake-Eyes really did turn out to be a traitor, and he died in a very obvious, very gruesome fashion.  Now that the bullshit is out of the way, we can get back to the grown-up G.I. JOE kind of action IDW has been getting us hooked on ever since they picked up the series.  Flint and Lady Jaye are in serious trouble as they infiltrate a Red Oktober installation on a mission that doesn’t even exist on paper.  Now that they’ve been captured by a crew of thugs and murderers who have no regard for human life, it falls on Joe HQ to sort things out behind the scenes.  The problem:  the only person who seems capable of doing that is Tomax Paolo, who has been a prisoner of the Joes for . . . how long now?  Coming soon, they’re going to discontinue the three series in favor of three new series.  Personally, I think we’d be better served with one series, considering how for the past couple of years, we’ve been treated to one long story broken up over three monthlies.  Might as well just consolidate the whole thing.  I can understand having one main JOE book and then having a SPECIAL MISSIONS book, just like back in the ‘Eighties and ‘Nineties, but come on.  I have faith in the storytelling, but do we really need three JOE books?  That's kind of like breaking up an adaptation of THE HOBBIT into three movies--oh, wait.

AMERICAN VAMPIRE #34:  Now that we’ve been through several decades worth of story, we’ve finally reached the mid-point, according to writer Scott Snyder.  At first glance, it’s a sedate issue, but when you think more about it, it’s a harbinger of things to come, and is thus a very important issue.  With a bit of quick exposition, we learn the fate of Will Bunting, the first chronicler of Skinner Sweet’s life, and who has replaced Bunting at the VMS.  We also get to see Abilena Book in her old age as she denies having been granted visions by being bitten by Sweet years earlier.  We get to meet the new enemy of the series, and we get a massive slap to the face in regards to how things are going to go for the rest of the series.  Here’s the problem:  THEY’RE GOING ON HIATUS.  Snyder says the next story is written, but he also says that they’re taking some time off to recharge their batteries (and to give the artist more time to illustrate the series, as he doesn't want to take any more breaks).  I can only hope that Vertigo will actually still be around when they do come back.  Many of you are familiar with my ranting and raving in regards to HELLBLAZER’s cancellation, and how I believe that Vertigo will be gone by the end of 2013.  I love FABLES and all the related titles, but I’m pretty sure they could survive in the DCU and make everyone a lot of money there.  Right now, AMERICAN VAMPIRE is the only book that has me hoping that Vertigo will survive.  They’ve done a lot of great work over the years, including my two favorite books of all time (PREACHER and TRANSMETROPOLITAN, even though the latter did, indeed, start out at the short-lived Helix).  HELLBLAZER, the Lansdale JONAH HEX, THE SANDMAN, 100 BULLETS, I could go on forever about all the wonderful books they’ve done.  Maybe Shelly Bond can do great things now that she’s in charge (and I know she’s edited many good books that I’ve enjoyed over the years), but considering all the really, really, really, really, really bad decisions DC has made recently, Vertigo is a dog with rabies.  It’s only a matter of time before someone puts it down.  I hope AMERICAN VAMPIRE gets finished before that happens.