Top 50 Modern Comic Artists - 50 More! - Lee Bermejo

Top 50 Modern Comic Artists - Sean Murphy

Top 50 Modern Comic Artists - Jim Lee

Jones is a very John Constantine type of character, and it makes me see how great Williams would be on art for a Hellblazer story. 

If he’s already done it, then let me know because I’d love to read it. 

Also: Who should he team up with? Of course I would say Morrison, but who else would be good both with Williams and on Hellblazer? Even people, like Morrison, who have already written the character. 

So a couple of months ago I decided to go headfirst into buying Garth Ennis’ run on Hellblazer. I started by picking up three volumes from my local comic shop that are out of print, so I have three of the seven volumes that he wrote. 

This volume was number seven of the set, so I was putting this one off as one that I couldn’t read for a while because I still had to get the others before it. Last night, however, I realized that this volume was completely disconnected from the other six on Ennis’ run, so I could actually read it now if I wanted, and I decided that I would indeed read it now because I could use a bit more Hellblazer in my life, and it’s only five issues, so I might finish it before work!

I will eventually need to get those other four Ennis Hellblazer volumes, though… (as I understand they’re much better than this one)

In the fallout of the Brightest Day, Swamp Thing may have become Guardian of the White Light, but John Constantine has arrived to keep his Shenanigans under watch.

A word from John on the subject?

“Bollocks.”

“According to actor Misha Colins, the wardrobe of the character Castiel on the TV show Supernatural is based on that of John Constantine.”

Damn right it is. 

I’m hoping to be able to finish this by the end of the weekend, but if I’m not able to that’s okay :)

Tomorrow I’ll also be bringing Gin Tama to work with me so that I may read it while I work the door. 

I bought three of the out of print Hellblazer volumes I wanted: 

• Damnation’s Flame
• Tainted Love
• Son of Man

So that was about $50, but it’s better than what I would have payed online. 

I also asked to see if any of the other shops had the two other out of print volumes

• Bloodlines
• Rake at the Gates of Hell

If they do have them then that’ll be spectacular because I’ll be able to read through Ennis’ entire run for a good price! If they don’t… I’ll be stalking eBay for a while. 

I also asked about the Variants for tomorrows issues and found out that once again the JH Williams III cover is the standard for Batman Inc, so I’ll be getting that one for $2.99. Yay!

So yeah, now I need food and Pokemon. 

Some of you might know that Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon’s Vertigo series Preacher is one of my favorite comics of all time, so naturally I’d want to see what they did together (with other artists) on Hellblazer. So I’m going to try and track all the volumes down! A lot of them are out of print so here’s a list of them all in order:

1. Dangerous Habits
2. Bloodlines OOP
3. Fear and Loathing
4. Tainted Love OOP*
5. Damnations Flame OOP*
6. Rake at the Gates of Hell OOP
7. Son of Man OOP*

OOP means Out of Print, and the * means that it’s available through Amazon for a price that’s close to the cover price (around $15 a piece).

Tomorrow I’m going to check what volumes they have at my comic shop and I’ll ask them to call up the other three locations to see if they have any of them. Usually I can find a lot of the volumes this way. 

• Shower
• Get Dressed
• Eat
• Go to Work
• Do my work thing
• Come home around 5:20
• I’ll have finished my Hellblazer: Rare Cuts TPB by then
• Hopefully have started on something else (Skrull Kill Krew?)
• Finish How I Met Your Mother season 4 (two more episodes)
• Start season five
• Maybe watch something else tonight, but I doubt it
• Try to be koala tea on hurr

Alright… let’s do this.

Also: I have not gained followers in like… a few days, which is odd because usually I’d get up and be like OH HEY NEW PEOPLE! and I’d have some new people I’d follow and we’d be friends and everyone would be happy forever. That hasn’t happened in a while, and it’s dumb :|

I figure it’s due to everyone going back to school, and since the break is over focus has moved. I still have a week, though :/

I picked up the Vertigo Resurrected: Hellblazer special this past week, and didn’t get around to reading it until I got on the plane back home today. The first half of the issue was two old Ennis/Dillon issues, but the second half was newer issues by Jason Aaron and Sean Murphy. I knew the combination would make some good stuff, but holy Jesus on Krypton that was the creepiest comic I can ever remember reading. No lies.

Essentially, it’s about a new punk band who is making a video about John Constantines old band, but then after some of them take some ‘shrooms things start getting really messed up. I think the combination of me being dead tired, Sean Murphy’s art, and previous stories I have read that consisted of tripping on various drugs made this REALLY damn creepy to me. 

I don’t know, but it was really freaky, and I loved every bit of it. I think I’m slowly becoming a Hellblazer fan, which is painful because there is so much material.

I know this won’t reach anyone important or anything, but when I have thoughts I just have to put them down somewhere. 

Recently DC Comics has been rereleasing long lost comics in special $7.99 100 page issues. I believe it was last week that a few stories relating to some characters in Brightest Day were compiled, and then a couple of weeks ago there was a collection of some old Batman stories that had never before been collected.

This week was a special one, though, because we got this special issue called ‘Vertigo Resurrected’, which compiles several old Vertigo stories that had never before been collected, into a special, square-bound issue. The issue was headlined by a Warren Ellis story called ‘Shoot’ which was never published. The story is about schoolyard shootings, and it never saw the light of day because it came so close to the Columbine shootings. Along with that story, one of the several short stories packed in the issue was one by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely called ‘New Toys’ which was from an issue of Weird War Tales. Now, since I’m attempting to collect the entirety of Morrisons bibliography, this came as a pleasant little surprise to me, because now I don’t have to track down the original issue just to have that story!

However, this just has me with other demands regarding my goal of attaining all of Morrison’s works:

DC, I would like for you and your Vertigo imprint to collect some of the other long lost Morrison stories, which are as follows:

Early Warning, from Hellblazer, issues #25 and #26. Those issues are collected in a trade called “Rare Cuts” but I’d rather just have them by themselves, maybe collected with something else 

Bad Gumbo from Swamp Thing, issues #140-#143. Those four should just get their own little trade. Seriously, I would buy it just because of Morrison’s name, I don’t care if the story was feces at best. 

And finally, the biggest thing I really want to see re-released, because it is so hard to find, and if you do each issue is so damn expensive it’s not worth it (but kind of it):

Flex Mentallo.

My desire to own this four issue series is strong, but I do not want to pay hundreds of dollars for it, which is why I would love for DC and Vertigo to rerelease it in one of the “Resurrection” special issues. 

And on that note, Morrison, get to work on Seaguy volume three, please.