Constantine the Hellblazer #4

The Surgeon General reports that smoking will cause good times and death and getting laid and good memories.

Did anybody watch the new Muppets show on ABC and not receive a phone call afterward that told them they have seven days left to live? Was it supposed to be a comedy? I did notice some complaints around the internet that it wasn't kid friendly enough and it had too many references to drugs and sex. The people who were making those complaints must not remember the original show. You do remember that it starred a frog that was fucking a pig, right? Sure, it wasn't blatantly stated but what did anybody think was going on? And who didn't already know Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem were all fucked up on drugs? Who was naive enough to believe they weren't just because it was never explicitly stated? Look, Gonzo was, and always has been, a chicken fucker and people just let that shit go! Apparently subtlety really does fool stupid people (and by "subtlety," I suppose I mean "not explicitly stating something outright but making it as obvious as possible anyway"). The original Muppet Show was written and played for adults. It was never meant to be a kids show. I mean, Alice Cooper guest starred on one show and tried to purchase their souls. Was that meant for kids? Sure, it didn't play anything in a way that kept parents from letting kids watch. But neither did the new one. Back when the original Muppets aired, parents seemed to understand that adult jokes were not going to be picked up by the kids. Parents nowadays seem to think that if they can understand a joke in an adult way, their child has just been corrupted. People, your kid didn't even notice.

The new Muppets really was a trainwreck though. It definitely wasn't funny enough (or at all?) to end with that serious breakup scene between Kermit and Miss Piggy. Was that supposed to be emotional? Because everybody has been screaming at that frog to drop that horrible pig for decades now! People should have been cheering at that scene! Kermit should have taken control of his life and eaten a bacon wrapped hot dog with extra bacon and a side of bacon right in front of her! He should have had her arrested! I wouldn't have minded if he'd sold her to the local butcher and beat it out of town.

The show takes a giant misstep filming it Office-style and being more about the behind-the-scenes of running the show rather than just airing it like a variety show with behind-the-scenes happenings during the show (like the old one!). Sure, maybe that would have sucked as well because, again, the writing was terrible. But I'd rather see weird acts by Muppets than Tom Bergeron acting like a sad sack. If the show gets any better, somebody will have to let me know because I won't be watching it again. Probably because I'm going to be visited by a girl climbing out of a well climbing out of my television in a few days.

And now on to our regularly scheduled broadcast which has to be better than discussion of the Muppets which did not have a single laugh-out-loud moment no matter what easily amused people say. Last issue, we met Georgie Snow. I hope she turns out to be Elijah Snow's sister! She, like everybody in the paranormal business, hates John Constantine and refused to be pulled into his shenanigans. She might still be since she was introduced but I think she might be sitting this story arc out from now on. Unless the ghost of her friend Veronica turns up to tell John he was a lousy lay (which would probably be a lie but then you don't go around telling the person who's probably to blame for your death that they were fantastic in the sack).

He can't be drinking "that" in here. Because you're only allowed to drink PBR and Old Milwaukee in record stores. Possibly Hamms and Rainer as well.

Constantine has decided drunkenness is better than heroics so he's going to just drink and drink and lose himself in memories of the past instead of helping a bunch of ghosts not get eaten by the Ghostbuster.

In John's memories, Veronica wants to quit the band (Mucus Membrane (probably not named for the ones in your nasal passages)) because they're getting too wrapped up in the magic. They're playing for demons instead of people now. She called home and nobody remembers her. She's freaking out but John doesn't want to hear it. He's deep in the thrall of the magic and it's all he cares about. Pretty soon he'll learn that he cares more about staying alive which will force him deeper into the magic and further away from caring about the welfare of his friends (at least when it comes to his life versus theirs, ya know?).

So far Elijah Snow hasn't appeared in any of John's memories. But it'll happen! It has to happen! Why name a character Georgiana Snow and not make her Elijah's sister?!

John, stop being a dick. These people have obviously chosen beauty over truth. Most people do. It's why religion is so popular.

A bunch of the ghosts following John around hoping he'll help them suddenly appear on stage with Constantine. And then the Ghostbuster appears and begins feeding on the poor, lost souls. The living people run screaming from the joint. Constantine just stands around wondering where his next drink is going to come from. I suppose one of two things is going to have to happen to pull Constantine out of this drunken spiral. Georgie Snow is going to have to decide to help him, or he'll run into Veronica's ghost which he'll care enough to save.

Constantine heads back to the Secret Library Wing at Cambridge where Georgiana studied the dark arts where he meets the old librarian who says he can answer John's questions. But John doesn't want questions answered. He just wants to wallow in his despair and misery and alcohol.

And write Magnetic Poetry!

Constantine remembers the last time he saw Veronica and how he abandoned her and how he broke not only her heart but her entire life. But mostly Constantine remembers how little he cared. Although now that it's too late, now that he's so far removed from that time and place, he's found he does care. Isn't that the way though? Isn't it always easier to believe you cared more about something than you actually did when you're suddenly steeped in the nostalgia of the thing? So John--saddened by his current place in life, distraught that he's lost the ghost of Gaz, disturbed by his memories of the way he treated Veronica, mind clouded by alcohol--has come to a point of despair. He calls out to the Ghostbuster and allows it to come for him. He stands his ground and allows it to consume him. He's ready for it all to end.

Bom chicka wah wah!

Constantine the Hellblazer #4 Rating: +1 Ranking. Doyle and Tynion understand how to write Constantine. It isn't all about defeating the Bad Thing by casting the most dangerous spell in the world that has too high a cost to count! And then casting the spell and succeeding and then never really paying much of a price at all. Constantine is about the dark places he's allowed himself to travel. It's about living a life damaged by all of the prices he's paid along the way. Yes, he's cocky and arrogant and always has a trick up his sleeve. He's full of bluster and sound and fury to hide the fact that he's nearly always just flying by the seat of his trenchcoat. He's not just the guy who always finds a way out. He's the guy haunted by the things he did to find those ways out. Doyle and Tynion understand Constantine enough that they are succeeding despite the limits placed on this book due to it not being in the Vertigo line. If you were disappointed with the original run of Constantine after The New 52, it's safe to come back to the character now. I give this book the Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea Stamp of Approval.

Constantine the Hellblazer #3

One out of every fifty people finds this cover sexually exciting.

This blog is not for you. This is not a blog where I review comic books, no matter how much I dress it up to look like a goddamned whore ("Goddamned whore" is my preferred nomenclature for professional critics). This blog is a meditation. It is a private diary. It is my scalp torn back, my skull sawed off, and my brain exposed for the curious and perverse to gawk at and to judge. It is sometimes more honest than it professes to be, the honesty hidden between the lies. When I'm depressed, I can mope about here while trying to make others smile. When I'm manic, this place is a fucking circus where the clowns are allowed to jerk off in your face and the elephants allowed to run free. But far too often lately (and I blame Convergence and/or the death of my writing partner, Judas), it can become a chore. It's just another item on the list to be completed so I can earn a sticker and a brief amount of praise ("praise" meaning, as I learned as a child, "being ignored instead of yelled at"). I don't want this to be a chore. I don't want this to be work. So I'm taking this blog back from all of you. I'm taking it back from every person who complained that I used the word "cunt" or "retarded." I'm taking it back from every person that expected to know my opinion of a comic book after they finished reading a review and were left thinking, "What the fuck was that?" I'm taking it back for my sanity. Although I'm not going to take it all the way back to what it was when I first began because--HOO BOY!--some of that stuff was shit! Who was that guy from three years ago? Who let that asshole have a blog?!

Here's the very first entry on the original manifestation of Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea (a blog I created simply for the name) from February 16th, 2010:

How do people plan their lives? How does one go about it? If life is like a maze, never knowing what will be around any approaching corner, how do you stick to your plan? How do you find your way? Perhaps you hurry through the inevitable wanderings, arterials, and dead ends, since they're easily recognizable as not part of the plan. But what if the newly found path is more entertaining, more magical, more interesting than the path you've already chosen for yourself? Do you throw away your initial plan? Do you write up a new one? Do you throw in the towel or rally against fate or God or the universe? Do you throw your arms up to the sky in defeat or defiance?

How does one go on with life when life doesn't care about your plan?

My aunt once asked me when I was barely in my twenties, "Where do you see yourself in ten years?" I answered, "Where did you see yourself ten years ago?"

I've never had a plan. Perhaps, now 40 [actually 39 when this was written--Know It All Tess!], that was a mistake. But I had dreams. Maybe it's time to start following those instead of simply wandering.

So that was me five years ago! Guess who's still fucking wandering, bitches?!

Oh yeah! I'm taking back saying "bitches!" at the end of sentences too! Not all sentences. I don't want to seem insensitive.

So I will actually be 45 at the end of September [Actually, 44!--Know-it-all-but-only-on-the-second-edit-Tess!]. I think. Let me do the math. Where's the calculator app on this thing? Um...yep! Forty-five [Nope!--Know-practically-nothing-Tess!]! And I've got nothing to show for it except my own small business and an intense hatred for shaving and a dead best friend of fifteen years buried in the backyard and a loving Non-Certified Spouse of eighteen years or so. Let me get out my calculator app again. Hmm, this thing is useless! Why doesn't it have a button to show the date I met the Non-Certified Spouse?!

I don't know what anybody should expect to change around here. Probably nothing. What simply needs to change is my attitude.

Goddammit. My high school English teacher was right!

Oh wait. I lied about my first blog entry! The one I previously said was the first one was the last one from the first month of the blog being set up. The first entry was this:

My cat is staring at me.

Stop it. Stop staring at me! Go away. Thank you.

I must have been preparing to masturbate.

Here's another post from the first month which I just read and now I'm crying:

A Dream

I was in some weird refugee camp when a Mexican guy entered the camp and sat by me smiling. A number of versions of him entered and sat down by other people, whispering in their ears. I looked at him quizzically and he said, "Watch this."

An older woman entered the camp and began walking up to the people being whispered to. She'd touch them gently, smiling, and move on. She came to me and took my hand. She began to walk off but before letting go of my hand completely, her smile faltered. She looked concerned and held my hand a bit tighter. She looked down at me and said, "Tell me about your pet."

"My pet?" I said as she said the same thing at the same time, laughing. "He's black and fuzzy?"

"No, tell me about him. He's very affectionate, isn't he?"

"He is. He loves head scratches and when you take your hand away, he'll grab it with his paw and pull it back to him. I call him my familiar. He's very much like me. He's quite aware of his surroundings and quick to learn things to his advantage."

"Is he good or evil?" she asked.

"Hmm? He's good most of the time, I guess. But he can turn on you if he's in the mood. He's not good or evil. He's a cat."

"Would you kill him to save the world?" she asked me seriously.

"No," I told her and she looked sad and moved on.

That was a dream about Judas who died October 22nd, 2014. I dreamt about him a couple of weeks ago. In the dream, I was simply happy to be cuddling with him (I was lying sort of over him restraining him so he didn't attack some newly hatched ducks. He was busy licking up the birth goo from the broken eggs). I said to Judas, "I thought you were dead! I'll never make that mistake again!" And it felt like reality had been the dream and the dream was now reality and I couldn't have been happier. Before I awoke, I was gazing into his eyes, just happy to be with him again. I was not sad when I awoke. I was jubilant, and satisfied.

Most of you still reading are probably wondering what this has to do with Constantine. I don't know. I haven't even opened it yet. But I will. Just let me go wash my face first.

This issue of Constantine begins in the past so that's what all this rummaging about in the past of the blog has to do with anything! So there! Nailed it!

Oh. I really thought he was talking about the adrenaline of being punched in the face!

I was punched in the face once (twice, if you count the time I was riding shotgun in a convertible BMW and my friend took a right hand turn way too fast and I tried to brace myself on the hood of the car which wasn't there and punched myself in the face instead)! The guy who punched me was five or six inches taller than me and full of muscles. After I jumped back up from the ground where I fell thinking, "He hit me!", I hit him with my Hosoi skateboard (I mention it was a Hosoi because if you know your skateboards, you know Hosoi made some motherfucking solid boards). I wasn't punched because I was being a dick. It was a total misunderstanding in which some meatheads misunderstood my passing by their house on a skateboard for...I don't know...terrorism or something. If I've ever been punched other than those two times, it was a really great punch which completely knocked the memory of itself out of my head.

Constantine was getting beat up so that he could steal two concert tickets to The End of the World show. He and the guy punching him say a few things that are just spelled with pentagrams. I think that means they're swearing! I usually just say, "Fudgsicles!" and then the Non-Certified Spouse says, "Now I want a pudding pop!" And then I say, "I was swearing! You're were supposed to hear a swear!" And then she says, "Fudgsicles!" and I say, "Stop swearing!" Then she says, "Fudge Packers!" and I go on a rant about how insensitive that is and how she really needs to think about how people whose job it is to pack fudge must feel whenever they have to tell people what they do for a living.

John's memory is about his first meeting with Georgiana Snow and Veronica Delacroix. They sound like vampires and/or plantation owners! One of them wants to fuck John and the other one wants nothing to do with John. That probably means he'll fuck George, the one that hates his guts. That's a typical story twist that everybody would prefer wouldn't take place but it always does. Although this is John Constantine and Hellblazer, so George probably still hates him and has always hated him and has never so much as touched him except to hold his hand during a seance. Especially since in the future (or present, depending on perspective), Constantine has traveled to London to get George's help killing the Ghostbuster in New York.

George currently has a lucrative career. Also dead people fucking! Did you see that panel?! Hee hee!

Constantine arrives and there are more panels of the dead people screwing and from different angles! I think I see some vagina! Unless that's a scrotum. Oh, who cares what it is! It all starts out from the same fetal material, so if I jerk to it, it doesn't make me gay or hetero or anything! Just horny!

Except now I've lost the mood because I said "jerk it" and "fetal" in the same sentence.

George's current problem is that the dead people didn't want to die fucking with runes cut into their bodies. They just wanted to not have runes cut into their bodies and to not die but they probably didn't mind the fucking bit. That bit is always a lot of fun. Except the first time when the girl you're about to lose your virginity to doesn't realize you're a virgin and she thinks she needs to prep your weiner with a little bit of sucking and you're thinking, "Should I come now? Does she want me to come now? I think she wants me to come now?" And then you just come because you really didn't have that much control anyway. I mean, a woman was touching your wiener! Just knowing that a woman wanted to touch your wiener when you're a teenager will make the stupid thing go off!

Anyway, um, Constantine wants to help George with her problem.

So what happened to Veronica? Did she get turned into a living marionette?! That loves to fuck?!

Constantine determines the demonic culprit behind the corpse orgy is a Succubus. He modifies his theory once he finds its lair full of lotion and video games and stacks of porn magazines. It's an Incubus. Constantine goes in to destroy it but he's quickly overwhelmed by the Incubus and its Incubus roomies. Luckily George was waiting for his arrogance to make him incompetent and she swoops in to rescue Constantine. Georgie tells Constantine that Veronica has been dead for three years and how it's John's fault and how it's always John's fault and maybe John should just go back to New York and never bother her again.

Oh, come on! Everybody knows that's not happening, Georgie! You especially!

Constantine the Hellblazer #3 Rating: +1 Ranking. Remember when DC Comics had that other book they were marketing which was called "Constantine" but it starred somebody other than John Constantine? I don't know who that guy was but it wasn't him. This is him. This is Constantine back to form. This is a comic book that I can point to when people say, "You read comic books?!" Then I point to Constantine the Hellblazer and say, "That?! No! That's not mine! I read things like Grape Expectations and War and Pizza!" Then I realize I'm hungry and I stop typing and I go to the grocery store. By, um...ahem...way of the comic book store, of course. It's Wednesday!