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The Geek Pride Comic Blog – 24/05/2014

Welcome back to the Geek Pride Comic Blog! This week we dive into all things Hellblazer, work out some of our frustration with George Lucas and ponder the merits of casting David Beckham in a comic book movie…

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Cristina Andreea Bogdan: I’ve gone retro this week. After reading most of Justice League Dark, I picked up Hellblazer and had a fit over how good it is by comparison. So…yeap. Retro.

Ben Fee: Are you reading from the beginning or jumping into Ennis and Milligan’s stuff?

CAB: I started from the very first issue, got to issue 10, read that one and took a bit of a break (until tomorrow that is). I can’t start a story in the middle of it, even if there are different people writing it. It’s so good, though!!

BF: I know, I love Jamie Delano’s stuff – heck, the entire series doesn’t really put a foot wrong until really later on. It’s a bit sad that DC decided to reboot John Constantine – until then I think he was the only comics character to have aged in real time…

CAB: Yeah, I don’t get it. I mean I was all hyped about the chance of starting a comic “in real time”, as in, not something that needed years of research, but then I started Hellblazer and went: “The fuck, DC? Were you dropped on your head or something?” I suppose they might have angled for a TV series and they wanted a younger man to play the part, so they figured a reboot was needed, but…no. That’s like rebooting Batman and not killing his parents. Eh, at least Matt Ryan doesn’t look twelve.

BF: Just watched the trailer and…meh. Too much Harry Dresden meets the Winchester brothers for me. I’d like to have seen him as more scumbag and less rugged antihero. Although I reckon he’ll be joining Tennant, Cumberbatch and Hiddleston on the wall of sexy British men.

CAB: You forgot Joseph Morgan, but that’s excusable since his show is utter shit. I kinda like the trailer, mostly because I liked Dresden, the books and the show and I am a huge Winchester fan! I do hope they’ll keep up with some of the Hellblazer history. They had the Asylum! I read issue 8, I think, the one with him remembering what happened in Ravenscar and I was: DAMN! I guess we’ll see this fall how it goes.

Andy Haigh: I have written at great length about how great Hellblazer is. John Constantine is hands down one of the best characters in comics full stop.

BF: Did you ever read Planetary where a pseudo-John Constantine attends pseudo-Superman’s funeral and as he’s talking slowly morphs into Spider Jerusalem? Epicity.

AH: Not only is Constantine a great character but there’s so many other great characters too but I don’t want to spoil things for you Cristina.

CAB: Yes, yes. No spoilers. I can summon demons too! But on a more serious note, he is awesome. I only ever heard of Constantine some years ago, might have been Keanu’s movie, but I am happy I started reading it. Though that movie kinda sucked.

BF: Aw, I kind of liked it. It was like if a child had read it and tried to write his own Hellblazer story.constantine24

AH: I think the film worked really well in a “Ultimate Hellblazer” kind of way. It does a really good job of establishing its world, how it works and the characters that dwell in it. I love the idea of Hell being an alternate dimension that’s just the same only it looks like it’s a bombsite in the throes of an unending nuclear blastwave.

CAB: Well, I guess it was good back then, cause I had no idea what Hellblazer was about, but I am not a fan of Keanu. He’s a bit wooden.

AH: The guy makes Pinocchio seem like a real boy.

BF: That guy is one of my favourite people. You know he gave away $35 million dollars to the special effects & makeup staff on The Matrix? Said he didn’t need it, could live off what he’d made for the next few centuries.

AH: I love his mentality towards life and his altruism but his acting not so much.

CAB: He is a great guy, but he’s not that much of an actor. I know he did amazing things, donating money to everyone in need, helping out friends and crew members and such. He’s a hero in his own way. But…he’s still not a great actor, lest the part actually asks for next to no facial expressions. Of course, that doesn’t mean I didn’t like Sweet November *cough* I’m a sap *cough* or A Walk in the Clouds, cause…sap. But he’s not that good.

BF: Speaking of people who are no good, I hear Tom Cruise is amazeballs in the All You Need Is Kill movie

CAB: Haven’t seen that one.

BF: its new. i think they’re calling it “Edge of Tomorrow” which sounds like a Star Trek episode.

CAB: It’s not the one where he keeps reliving things, is it? I watched the trailer of that one.

AH: That film looks so utterly bland I’m so sick of seeing the trailer everytime I go to the cinema. Emily Blunt looks kickass but aside from that it’s just a bit meh

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AH: I’m finally reading Alec Longstreth’s Basewood and it is glorius by the way. It’s everything that’s great about indie comics in an oversized hardback. Also generally superhero comics annoy the piss out of me or rather the Big Two’s approach to them  with their endless BIG EVENT MAJOR DRAMA ACTUALLY NOT REALLY bullshit..

BF: Basewood looks cool! Wolf-Dragons!

AH: The art is amazing, it’s so intricately detailed.

CAB: Oh, haven’t heard of that one. Is it…multiple issues?

BF: http://www.alec-longstreth.com/basewood/

BF: who does that artwork remind me of?

AH: It reminds me a little of Georges Remi but more detailed.

BF: I was like “who?” but, yeah definitely Herge

CAB: Damn, getting Basewood costs more in shipping than the actual thing, but it does look good. I just read the guy did a kickstarter campaign to fund the publishing.

BF: Amazon Free Shipping yo!

AH: I did an article about it, I knew nobody read my stuff.

CAB: It never ships free to the wast wasteland I live in. Or I assume that’s what they think, since I can never get anything from them. They just don’t want my money.

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Mike Orvis: Just finished Secret Service, man. Then saw the film trailer and wondered if they actually read the comic at all.

CAB: I think when making a movie adaptation the guy/girl behind it has someone else read the source material, then asks said person for some cliff notes. Bit how like The Hobbit came to be.

BF: Woah, David Beckham is in the Secret Service movie? What the actual fuck?

MO: Yeah. and it has nothing to do with the story at all. fucking annoyed doesn’t cover it.

Callum Tyndall: Got to be honest, out of context I thought the trailer was fairly amusing. Was left more than a little dubious though when it claimed to be coming from Mark Millar

MO: Read the comic, dude, it’s incredible.

CAB: Oh, I found it on BD, six issues, right? Too bad it’s 199 days to go until the hardback is actually available. Oh, well. Blessed be Comic Rack.

CT: Definitely need to take a look. It does just seem though that Millar’s stuff is too “adult” for cinema so they like the core idea but they want to do their own thing with it that won’t limit their viewers. It’s like Kick-Ass, I thought the film was great and it was pretty dark, but the comic is so much grimmer.

MO: The comic starts off with the kidnap of Mark Hamill. His kidnappers then berate him about the prequel trilogy. ‘Nuff said.

CAB: Damn it, so many good comics, so little time!! Also, I blame Andy for my Hellblazer addiction. Well, I mostly blame myself, but Andy is convenient, so we’ll pin it on him.

CT: That’s pretty awesome. In a similar vein, I still love that there’s a scene in an issue of Deadpool where he shoots a guy for saying he likes the Staw Wars prequels then holds a gun to the other guy in the room forcing him to repeat that Jar Jar Binks is an abomination

CAB: Jar Jar Binks is George Lucas’s middle finger for the fans. That’s my theory, at least.

CAB: I meant the embodiment of his middle finger.

CT: I think Jar Jar just goes to show what happens when no one is willing to tell you to sit down, shut up and look at what you’re doing. Also, some seriously racist ideas going on there. But anyway…

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CT: I got my hands on Things To Do In A Retirement Home Trailer Park When You’re 29 and Unemployed which I believe, though memory may fail me, Andy reviewed for us at some point. It’s pretty damn good, very poignant. Lots of feels.

AH: I did indeed Callum I met the writer at Thought Bubble last year. It’s one of the best portrayals of loss and mortality in sequential art.

CAB: That’s one very long title  But it sounds like something I would like to read. Because I am giving up on Justice League Dark and I need to fill the void.

CT: It’s about this guy having to come to terms with his father dying and having to look after him as he does so..

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MO: I picked up Suicide Squad Vol 3 yesterday. still waiting on Deathstroke

CT: Suicide squad is awesome. I just love King Shark. Everything is made better by a giant man eating mutant shark

AH: I thought Suicide Squad was great to begin with, then got better when Ales Kot started writing and then DC went “no we can’t have you writing all this good stuff please leave” and it rapidly went downhill.

CT: Yeah, it was pretty damn hard hitting. I really liked the kind of out of body, psychedelic scenes and the transformations throughout

BF: I’d not heard of Ales Kot before but he did the infinite comics backup for issue 2 of Original Sin for Marvel. Pretty interesting but hampered somewhat by the format.

AH: His best stuff is for Image. Wild Children, Change and Zero have more going on than half of the Big Two’s output.

More fun and games next week, but in the meantime check out more from today’s contributors here:

Ben Fee; Callum Tyndall, Cristina BogdanAndy Haigh; Mike Orvis

Ben Fee
Ben Fee
Trapped in the past, Ben Fee finds himself leaping from life to life, putting things right that once went wrong, and hoping each time that his next leap will be the leap home..........

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