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crowyhead's review
5.0
At first I had trouble getting into this Hellblazer installment. The artwork and setting are very, very different from what we've become accustomed to. Constantine has been incarcerated in an American prison, for reasons that we don't learn until the end of the story arc. The artwork is gritty and grotesque; the characters' heads and hands often appear out of proportion to their bodies, facial features protrude, and the action is often illustrated from a perspective that's slightly above head height, as though you are looking down on the characters. This has a disorienting effect that suits the subject matter. I'm told that this is a deliberate homage to similar comics written in the 1970s, which makes sense.
Like I said, at first I had trouble getting into this; besides the artwork, the prison setting is brutal, and since nearly all of the violence comes from normal human beings rather than supernatural sources, it is harder to shrug off. In the end, though, I think what Azzarello and Corben have created here is a truly exceptional chapter in the Hellblazer canon. I read it three times in a row, to make sure I had a complete handle on it, and with each re-reading my respect for the author and the artist grew.
Like I said, at first I had trouble getting into this; besides the artwork, the prison setting is brutal, and since nearly all of the violence comes from normal human beings rather than supernatural sources, it is harder to shrug off. In the end, though, I think what Azzarello and Corben have created here is a truly exceptional chapter in the Hellblazer canon. I read it three times in a row, to make sure I had a complete handle on it, and with each re-reading my respect for the author and the artist grew.
wealhtheow's review
3.0
John Constantine is a complicated prisoner--both frightened and frightening.
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