A review by crookedtreehouse
Hellblazer: Fear and Loathing by Garth Ennis
5.0
I feel like I've been reading a rut of comics where not a lot happened but conversations. Plot is pushed to the side, in favor of characters examining why the plot has gone/is about to go to certain places. Yet, this comic is almost all conversations, as opposed to plot-focused action, and I loved every page.
The trick of having a run of comics with conversation-focus, as opposed to action-focus is to give us a better feel for the characters and their motivations, not to drown the reader in exposition. Ennis nails this in this volume. We get a feel for every character still alive in Constantine's orbit (from Ennis's run, there are a few Delano-era characters who don't appear). And while the plot appears slender, every recurring villain or neutral character's action expose a major flaw in Constantine that affects his relationships with his surviving friends.
This is a masterstroke, and perhaps my favorite volume of Hellblazer yet. I recommend it to anyone who enjoys Sandman but haven't yet read a Hellblazer volume that really spoke to them. If this one doesn't, then Hellblazer may not be for you.
The trick of having a run of comics with conversation-focus, as opposed to action-focus is to give us a better feel for the characters and their motivations, not to drown the reader in exposition. Ennis nails this in this volume. We get a feel for every character still alive in Constantine's orbit (from Ennis's run, there are a few Delano-era characters who don't appear). And while the plot appears slender, every recurring villain or neutral character's action expose a major flaw in Constantine that affects his relationships with his surviving friends.
This is a masterstroke, and perhaps my favorite volume of Hellblazer yet. I recommend it to anyone who enjoys Sandman but haven't yet read a Hellblazer volume that really spoke to them. If this one doesn't, then Hellblazer may not be for you.