Dark Entries

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The first half of this was really good. But once we found out what was going on, the whole thing fell apart. Completely.

Ian Rankin είχα διαβάσει μέχρι τώρα (αν είναι δυνατόν!), ούτε κόμικ με ήρωα τον John Constantine, παρ'όλα αυτά το απόλαυσα πραγματικά. Η ιστορία μου κίνησε το ενδιαφέρον από την αρχή και το κράτησε μέχρι το τέλος, μιας και η πλοκή είχε αρκετό μυστήριο και ωραίες αποκαλύψεις, ενώ και ο χαρακτήρας του Constantine ήταν ιδιαίτερα ενδιαφέρων, κυνικός και σαρκαστικός. Το σκίτσο μου φάνηκε αρκετά καλό και απόλυτα ταιριαστό με το ύφος της ιστορίας, με απλά και καθαρά ασπρόμαυρα σχέδια, δίχως αχρείαστες λεπτομέρειες και σκιές.

Constantine's TV is a portal to hell. That's a nifty concept, but the idea that throwing it out the window would break the spell doesn't fit -- certainly not in Constantine's story-world, in which de-demonizing objects and places (and people) is often the pretext for multi-issue story arcs. I just started re-reading the series from the start, so I'm especially sensitive to the way tiny objects linger in the storyline like houses with hidden mold carcinogen, waiting for an unsuspecting new tenant. In an actual Hellblazer storyline, that TV would end up in a Salvation Army, and its parts would then be reused by some unaware Internet start-up, which would then discover a demon is its most generous angel investor. And Constantine, at this stage, would foresee such an eventuality and work to avoid it. Yeah, spoilers. Boilerplate, polite version: I promise I don't "spoil" anything about this book that would have bothered me had I known about it in advance of reading this book. That said, I cannot think of anything I have read in my life that would have been spoiled had I known the plot-advancing facts. And this is not, I promise, a mini–Cliffs Notes–style detailed summary of the story. Perhaps the only real way to "spoil" a book is to detail any serious flaws in logic, to the extent that you then can't get them out of your head as you read the book. I can't promise that I don't to that -- but neither can anyone else.] In tal senso, un racconto come “La scelta delle armi”, piuttosto raffinato nell’evidenziare con minacciose allusioni la scarsa consapevolezza di sé nel momento dell’esercizio sentimentale, avrebbe guadagnato nella portata drammatica con un’atmosfera surreale meno pervasiva e, al contrario, più attenta ai dettagli del contesto reale. The book also contains a couple of non exceptional ghost stories which are none the less well written. And a psychological haunted house story which begins the book called the "School Friend" which is more full of implications and innuendo than actual fright. Somehow it simultaneously roams around the fields of murder mystery, thriller, suspense with excellent balance and grabs 200% attention of the reader's mind. The writing is so smooth as if we have already been reading about this long ago. The characters, the twists, action, the dialogues are top notch! No, seriously top notch! And Mr John F'ing Constantine is at his best in the book luv! (Satan can go n' eat his heart out. Wait, does he have one?)

Another story I rather enjoyed is the final story in the book entitled "Bind Your Hair" a quite bizarre and strange story. You live surrounded by the claims of other people: to your labour when they call it peace, your life when they call it war; to your celibacy when they call you a bachelor, your body when they call you a husband. They tell you where you shall live, what you shall do, and what thoughts are dangerous.” I really loved Ringing the Changes, The View and Bind Your Hair with The Waiting Room being the weakest. In “Choice of Weapons” a man abandons his heiress girlfriend, and the secure future she represents, to chase after a girl he glimpses across a restaurant. His obsession leads him to cross swords with a dangerous otherworldly rival for her love. The hero in “The View”, meanwhile, meets a beautiful, enigmatic woman on the ferry from Liverpool to the Isle of Man and is soon sharing her stately home and her bed. Such is his infatuation that he is not deterred by the way the landscape around the house is constantly changing or the weird, shambling figure – like some sort of nameless pagan god – who roams the grounds. The tale of “an ever-open mouth of a house”, which gets hold of a middle-aged woman, plunging her into madness and tapping her vitality, told by her former school friend who learns that it may not be too wise an idea to pry too closely into other people’s life. It may be that the narrator’s friend is a victim of domestic abuse but it may also be that the house is possessed by an evil force that tries to feed on her.Constantine, a supernatural P.I. with a bad habit of leaving damned loved ones in his wake, was created by Alan Moore of Watchmen fame during his pre-Watchmen run on the series Swamp Thing. In Rankin's standalone volume, Constantine joins the cast of a reality TV show, essentially a version of Big Brother. Ghost-busting ensues. The first in the series, “Dark Entries”, was written by Ian Rankin, a popular British mystery writer best known for a series of novels featuring his detective John Rebus. Before DC pulled the plug on their adult-oriented horror line, Vertigo, they were still doing some really interesting things. In 2009, Vertigo started a Vertigo Crime series, a digest-sized hardcover graphic novel series written by well-known authors in the crime/mystery genre.