Hellblazer, Vol. 3: The Fear Machine by Jamie Delano

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Remarkably wordy, this feels more like an illustrated novella than a graphic novel or trade. There's also a touch too much deus ex machina, coincidences where Constantine and the secondary characters are either witnesses to or dragged along by the plot. Their decisions, and thus them at characters, come across as irrelevant, which is one of the downsides of Hellblazer as a series. At its best, it's the adventures of Constantine in the shadow-world of magic-infused London. However, here it's Constantine as half-capable tour guide of the magical horrors the writer and artist dream up.
And not to be relentlessly negative--I did give it three stars, nearly four. There's still a neat story at the core and, as wordy as the book is, it's well-written, so much so that I'd almost prefer reading it as a prose piece. Constantine's interiority and wondering about himself as the corrupting force and whether he can ever be redeemed, escape that corruption, or refrain from ever hurting others with it is the most compelling part of the collection. While the action picks up as that falls away, that's when the book becomes less interesting; becomes watching someone watch a story.
The biggest downside, apart from what I've noted, is the moral absoluteness of every character. The good guys are uncomplicatedly good and the bad guys are irredeemably bad. That doesn't determine anyone's fate--which would have made the book childishly obvious--but since Hellblazer involves literal deals with devils and real choices between lesser evils, these characters seem lazy and didactic. I find that when characters reveal essential information shortly after they appear and quickly die to keep from complicating the plot it's a sign that the writer knows what they want to have happen in the story, but don't know how to make it happen.
As a side note, I find it difficult to imagine reading this series issue-by-issue as it came out. This particular storyline is nine issues long with very little payoff at the end of each chapter. What is a very carefully, almost lackadaisically-paced story took nine months to tell. If nothing else, this volume is evidence of how people read comic books before the current age where being collected into a trade is assumed.



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Usagi Yojimbo, Vol. 26: Traitors of the Earth by Stan Sakai

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


No one joins a series at volume 26 so I'll avoid contextual commentary (I'd suggest vol. 12 Grasscutter as a good introduction point--Sakai is well-skilled as a storyteller by this point and there's enough narrative to stand alone while also enticing the reader to explore earlier volumes).
This volume is composed of shorter stories, a few 2-3 page affairs from Dark Horse anthologies and 1-3 issue story arcs. There's less of the epic feel that infuses Usagi at its best, but the stories deliver the fun, adventurous side of Usagi. "Plot-driven" would be the best description of this volume with characters arriving at precisely the right moment and conclusions being obvious from the start--not due to a deficit of storytelling, but because these are stories relying upon old tropes.
Rather then being stories Sakai needed to tell to further the tale of Usagi, these are short pieces he wanted to tell. They are fun because Sakai is a master of comic storytelling, but they don't inspire further excitement in samurai stories the way other Usagi trades do.



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New Comics Day

Slow week. I only picked up the new Hellblazer and Penny Arcade collection. I'll post about the latter later since I want to write about webcomic print collections in general.

Hellblazer 246: "Newcastle Calling" Part two of two

This two-parter manages to cover everything I love and hate about Hellblazer. Last issue, focused on a group of amateur documentarians producing a special on Constantine's punk band Mucus Membrane and they, of course, awaken some sleeping evil and embark on journeys of personal terror. This issue continues the story with a rundown of all the terror afoot in Newcastle. Constantine walks through, observes it all, puts the evil down and then explains all the relevant back story to the one surviving member of the film crew who then dies.

What I love about this story and Hellblazer in general is the really evil imagination that's brought to bear. The stories, at their best, manage to draw out the human themes of responsibility and shame and tie them to fantastical and disturbing visions of monstrosity. There's a refined nightmare logic that runs parallel to the human drama. That's what makes the series both stand out and be consistently readable.

On the other hand, that very nightmare logic disrupts the narrative. When it doesn't work you end up with some character putting on the hat of Basil Exposition to explain everything that's happened up to that point, why it happened and what it means. It's like reading a Cliff Notes of the comic within the comic itself. Unfortunately it falls upon Constantine himself to take that role this time around. While Constantine's attitude when confronting the Terror Elemental is nice, you don't actually see him deal with it. He starts the staring contest and, next time you see him, is lighting a cigarette. Tease. No doubt it'll come up later in the series as a major plot point. After all, this story is seemingly drawing on the original Newcastle story from the first year of the comic, twenty years ago. Good thing my library has most of the trades.

More satisfying, and exploring the thematic strengths of Hellblazer, is the new mini-series Chas: The Knowledge. The first issue came out a few weeks ago and you should still be able to find it on the shelves. It's a five-issue series focused on the Chas of the title, Constantine's old taxi-driving friend who can always be counted on to stick his neck out a little too far. "The Knowledge" refers to the cab-drivers' routes around London and no doubt is tied to the supernatural force that strikes at the end of the issue. While the first issue largely sets up the situation that'll play out over the next four, it reads well and really taps into the best repeating themes of the Hellblazer universe: responsibility and shame. It looks very promising.