Yes, this is the first post of this blog. Rather than begin with a rambling manifesto, I would much rather just jump right in to doing what I started this for: talking about comic books, in all their many forms.
If you read comics on a regular basis, you’ve probably heard of Garth Ennis (and if you read comics on a regular basis and haven’t heard of Garth Ennis, you’re reading the wrong comics). He wrote the superlative Preacher series for Vertigo, as well as the best John Constantine stories this side of Alan Moore and some damn fine war comics. His Punisher MAX series continues to bring the goods every month. But Hitman was something else. Namely, it was batshit insane.
Set in Gotham, but eschewing any of the usual tropes of the superhero genre, Hitman followed Tommy Monaghan and his pals as they shot, stabbed, drank, and bullshitted (bullshat?) their way through 60 issues. There were zombies, vampires, and dinosaurs. There were mobsters, soldiers, and spooks. There was action, laughs, and some goddamn genuine tearjerking moments.
There’s a great interview that just came up on Newsarama, talking about the series and how it came to be. Ennis talks about the upcoming arc in JLA Classified, and his hopes that this will get the original series collected in its entirety (right now, only the first 28 issues are in paperback). Oh, how I hope he’s right. I have a spotty collection of the last half of the series, and would love to see the remainder on my shelf. This is a great series that was as consistently entertaining as anything DC has ever put out. Give it a look.
