Return to the Tree Reading Series, as Audience Member

Thanks to literary event organizer Pearl Pirie, here's a pic of me reading at last night's Feb.27 Tree Reading Series at Black Squirrel Books & Espresso Bar. My voice was rough, and I have been having some rough times, having lost a friend recently. Still, l wanted to attend a series I once ran from 2000 to 2005 - but this time as an audience member. 

On that note, MC Chris Johnson did an admirable and affable job hosting. Jennifer LoveGrove, whose novel Watch How We Walk (ECW Press) I admittedly champion, delivered moving poems from Beautiful Children With Pet Foxes (BookThug, now Book*Hug) about supporting someone close to you who has mental illness. Nigerian poet and performer Segun Akinlolu involved the good-sized audience in his charming, folksy and roots musicality. 

I was heartened to see familiar writerly faces, including Grant Wilkins, Sandra Ridley, Michelle Desbarats, and Brian Pirie. And, of course, I got to meet Jennifer LoveGrove for the first time (and shamelessly comp her my book Town & Train after I bought another copy of Watch How We Walk for her to sign).

Constantine: The Hellblazer: Volume 2: The Art of the Deal: Great Ideas, But A Disappointing Mixed Bag of Art

Ming Doyle’s and James Tynion IV's Constantine: The Hellblazer: Volume 2: The Art of the Deal has great ideas and a portrayal of street mage John Constantine as openly bi, but title is enduring a harsh identity crisis that takes readers along for the confusion. And the confusion isn't about John liking men or women, it's about how John looks like a different guy in each issue.

The revolving door of artists on the book is a big part of the problem. The roster, including Riley Rossmo, Eryk Donovan, Brian Level, Joseph Silver and Travel Foreman, portrays the protagonist in vastly different styles. This is a jarring medley that isn’t working. Constantine appears, in turns, as a grizzled middle-aged man, a Nancy Boy in skinny pants and short leather coat, a spunky twenty-something, and a kid who is perhaps in his late teens. Rossmo’s lush covers feature the emaciated Nancy Boy version. Foreman has the dubious distinction, in his splash-page shots, of drawing blank-faced figures that resemble mannequins instead of people. The drawing appears unfinished. Where’s George Perez when you need him? Donovan’s Constantine looks adolescent, with stark musculature and boyish features. and very cartoonish. Cartoonish is admittedly an odd critique to make about a comic book/graphic novel, but the style is cartoonish and whimsical and disproportionate in a children’s book style or Saturday morning cartoon style, and not at all suited for a tale about  hardened rogue Constantine.

One wonders why DC Comics is making such an effort to make Constantine appear so young. He is the only DC character who has the noteworthy distinction of aging in real time and getting into his sixties by the end of Hellblazer volume one.

These art complaints and character depiction complaints aside, Doyle’s and Tynion IV's writing is close to the mark for a Hellblazer story. Constantine: Hellblazer brims with great ideas, if at time they get a little convoluted. The great ones include New York being an epicentre for magic that average civilians search out. The antagonist, Hell lord, Neron, is getting the souls of those people desperate enough to trade their souls for a taste of the real thing. He impinges on turf in the Big Apple, evicting all other magic users.

Doyle and Tynion IV also get bonus points for portraying Constantine as openly bi, desperately trying to make a seemingly doomed love affair with a fellow named Oliver work out. It is unfortunate then, that Doyle treats hunky Oliver as a man-sel in distress and little more. Their arguments about whether or not to stay together come across as contrived at times. Oliver is Constantine's Lois Lane, but with muscles, and children. Doyle and Tynion IV also get points for bringing Deadman, Zatanna and Swamp Thing into the mix and showing how Constantine wheels and deals, always at others’ expense. 

John Constantine being cute.There's the Oliver in question.

The writers do, though, reduce Constantine to kid saying “RULES ARE *$%ING STUPID” while he is doing serious spell-work. This seems a laughably petulant and teenage attitude for the streetwise street mage. And it doesn’t help that  Constantine looks all of 15 when he utters/thinks the statement.

In short, DC Comics is making headway, rescuing the Constantine character from the watered-down, milquetoast New 52 version. Yes, he’s an incorrigible, chain-smoking, booze-swilling cad again (although I thought he did not stray from his beloved pints), and he's dating men and women. However, the artistic portrayal in Constantine: Hellblazer: Volume 2: The Art of the Deal is wildly inconsistent, sometimes hard to look at, distracting, and makes his actual age impossible to guess.

Arc's Poem of the Year Contest Deadline: Feb. 15

Don't forget - Arc: Canada's Poetry Magazine's Poem of the Year contest extended deadline is Feb. 15. 

Your poetry's worth a shot at the cash prize. How much of a prize, you ask, dear reader? 

Well, the first place prize is $5,000 CDN. 

$500 CDN for the Honourable Mention.

There will also be a shortlist of ten to 12 poems, selected by Arc’s editorial board, that will be eligible for the Readers’ Choice Award. The Readers’ Choice poem is chosen by Arc’s readers through online voting. The winner receives $250 CDN. Visit the Arc webpage in March to read the shortlist selections and cast your vote

All shortlisted poems will also receive paid publication in an upcoming issue of Arc and on the Arc website.

And, to top it all off, the contest fee includes subscription, so you can't go wrong. You get a crack at a cash prize and a subscription to Ottawa's prestigious triannual literary magazine, published in in the nation's capital since 1978.

For more contest details, go here.