Hellblazer
From BillionQuotes
Hellblazer (1988 onwards) is a comic book series by various authors and artists, based on the character of John Constantine, a magician-cum-conman created by Alan Moore for his run on Swamp Thing.
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Issue 3, Going for It by Jamie Delano
- John: [Thinking] I've never bothered with the cats for this ritual - too hard to catch, and they shriek like fury when you impale them. Anyway, all that messing about with rotten corpses and pain stuff is just to impress the marks - all you really need are the right contacts and a bit of nerve.
- John: [Aloud] Wake up Blathoxi, you bladder of bile. It's me, John Constantine. I want a word with you. C'mon, you pus-sac. Don't keep me waiting. I'm calling in your marker, now.
- [A demon dressed as a butler appears]
- John: Who the hell are you? I called for the lord of flatulence, not one of his discharges.
- Steward: In Hell I am the steward of the club wherein the Lord Blathoxi takes his ease. He commands me to inform you that your ritual was incompetent and insulting. You should have used the cats!
- First Demon: I think we're going to have to skin him and tan his hide.
- Second Demon: Good, I need some new seat-covers for the BMW.
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Issue 41, Dangerous Habits, Part 1: The Beginning of the End by Garth Ennis
- John: I'm the one who steps from the shadows, all trenchcoat and cigarette and arrogance, ready to deal with the madness. Oh, I've got it all sewn up. I can save you. If it takes the last drop of your blood, I'll drive your demons away. I'll kick them in the bollocks and spit on them when they're down and then I'll be gone back into darkness, leaving only a nod and a wink and a wisecrack. I walk my path alone... who would walk with me?
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Issue 44, Dangerous Habits, Part 4: My Way by Garth Ennis
- John: All I ever wanted was for the world to be free of your kind, whether you were here in Parliament on in senate or junta or Hell or Heaven. Maybe that's pointless, then. Maybe the people are too small and scared to be free. Maybe they want you there, shitting all over them. But like a salesman who's only too eager to sew up his market and stitch up his customers, you're happy enough to exploit that. Aw, sod it. Sod you. For whatever it's worth, you were always the enemy. So you can listen to what I have to say. Matt was right. I'm not ashamed. I'm not ashamed.
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Issue 76, Confessions of an Irish Rebel by Garth Ennis
- John: [on Dublin] There's something about a town where nothing gets done 'cos they're all in the boozer talking about the best way to do it.
- John: What was dying like?
- Brendan: Could've done it in me sleep.
- John: You did.
- Brendan: There yeh are, then.
- John: Tell you who else is dead, came as a complete surprise: Terry Butcher. Header did him in.
- Brendan: Oh? I'd heard he ended up in a pie. D'yeh remember the time he lost his head wi' me? 'Cause I laughed at his idea for the book about the serial killer?
- John: Was that "The Noise of the Sheep?"
- Brendan: I tried to tell him, but what can yeh do?
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Issue 83, The End of Rake at the Gates of Hell by Garth Ennis
- [John, dying of lung cancer, coughs up blood while the First of the Fallen stands over him and gloats]
- The First of the Fallen: The air pressure alters and the air fills up with artichokes/A smell of piss and sodium, a noise like bitches twisting inwards, caught and left for carrion/(Razorlight, Razorlight)/And/I/Fall.
- John: What the fuh- hch-- What are you on about?
- The First of the Fallen: It's your friend's poetry. The twenty-nine-year-old teenage rebel. Execrable, isn't it? How does a bitch twist inwards? And is it only me, or do poems that don't rhyme reflect a fundamental lack of effort?
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Issue 129, Son of Man, Part 1 by Garth Ennis
- John: We are not children of celestial fuckin' light, walkin' arm-in-arm into the Age of Aquarius. We are wankers who wreck the planet an' piss on each other, 'til half the world's starvin' an' the other half's busy findin' new ways to keep from noticin' it. That's the fuckin' limit've our potential, believe me.
- [On hating children]
- John: I know, I know. "You were one once." I was a sperm once, but you don't see me wantin' to cuddle up to a fuckin' wankstain, do you?
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Issue 130, Son of Man, Part 2 by Garth Ennis
- Church Congregation: Satan! I'm worshipping Satan!/'Cause Satan has the things I adore.../Satan! I'm worshipping Satan!/'Cause Satan keeps me stocked with drugs and whores!
- Mrs Potter: How are we supposed to worship alongside these-- these perverts? These practitioners of the black arts? This is blasphemy!
- Rick the Vic: Mrs Potter, that's what the church of the blessed reconciliation is all about... How can we expect our dear lord god to welcome his fallen angel back into the fold, to love the unlovable-- if we ourselves turn our Satanic bretheren away from our door? Please, Mrs Potter. In the name of universal peace: share your hymnbook with Lord Gorgamoth Scumflagon.
- Brendan: What in the name've Jaysis is he doin' this for?
- John: Bet with the Pope.
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Issue 132, Son of Man, Part 4 by Garth Ennis
- John: Some soddin' possessed brat's about to rip this town apart an' God knows what else an' all of a sudden big bleedin' expert Chas Chandler turns into a fuckin' necromancer? Do me a favour...!
- Chas: 'Least I know how to drive a cab.
- John: Gettin' pretty fuckin' lippy in your old age, aren't you?
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Issue 133, Son of Man, Part 5 by Garth Ennis
- Fuckpig: You belong here, don't you, Constantine? This is your world. Eyelids slit off and babies on hooks. Guttings and rapings. I swear to fuck, yours is the kind of life serial killers wank off to.
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Issue 134, Haunted, Part 1 by Warren Ellis
- Detective Inspector Watford: [On seeing a boy inhaling from an aerosol] I had one like 'im the other day. Little girl. She did five cans of that. Froze her lungs solid. Nine years old.
- John: Hello, Watford. Life in the police still a little ray of sunshine every day, is it?
- Detective Inspector Watford: Never been a better time to be a copper, John. Thought we'd miss a Tory government something chronic, you know? But this new lot: "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime." Great stuff. Things get worse every bleedin' day. It's like Maggie never left office. Lovely jubbly.
- Clarice: John, I've known you a long time. I know you. I've known what you are since I went down on you in Highgate Cemetary when you were twenty-four years old. You're an adrenaline junkie. Don't turn some poor dead girl into today's fix. She can't deserve that.
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Issue 138, Haunted, Part 5 by Warren Ellis
- Clarice: Talk to me, John.
- John: Dead girlfriends, Clarice.
- Clarice: Ah. Your favourite drug.
- John: And magic.
- Clarice: Your favourite fuck.
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Issue 139, Haunted, Part 6 by Warren Ellis
- John: My name's John Constantine, and here I stay: haunted by London. And London, haunted by me.
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Issue 143, Telling Tales by Warren Ellis
- Man: I got into a fight with this bloke last night. Didn't like the way her was looking at me girlfriend, know what I mean? Weird fucker, he was, all covered in tattoos and shit. And, you know, I was a bit lagered up, know what I mean? He he hit me. Here. And his hand was all twisted up when he did it, and he was laughing. So I go to the bog this morning, and... well, I've got it in the bag here. I think I shat out me own heart.
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Issue 175, High on Life, Part 1 by Mike Carey
- Angie: I'm into [magic] meself. I can probably help you.
- John: Okay. So who are the big players locally? If I want my wife's toy boy to start shitting razorblades, who do I go to?
- Angie: Oh, for fuck's sake!
- John: What about zombies? Say I want to shag one, or rent a few to work someone over. Or I'm desperate to score a pint or so of baby blood. Where's the best place to buy?
- Angie: Is that the lot, or is there more after the adverts?
- John: I'm just making a point, love. Magic's a nasty game. Go and play with your dad's chainsaw instead.
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Issue 176, High on Life, Part 2 by Mike Carey
- Detective Inspector Watford: It's half past three in the sodding ante meridian. Whoever you are, your organs of generation are in hanging in the balance. Speak.
- John: You couldn't find a balance big enough for my balls, Watford. Are you ready to play "Inspector Fuckwit Investigates"?
- Detective Inspector Watford: Constantine, Interpol have got your down as dead. If you're looking for directions, move towards the light.
- John: Can't, your fat arse is blocking the view
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Issue 177, Red Sepulchre, Part 1 by Mike Carey
- John: I've already blown my cover, so I may as well drop my pants and bugger it properly.
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Issue 182, Black Flowers Part 1 by Mike Carey
- Slimy Demon: I am the emissary of King Arawn Pen Annuvin, who wishes you health and plenty.
- John: Plenty of what? Mucus on my duvet?
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Issue 186, Third Worlds, Part 3: The Pit by Mike Carey
- Angie: You're going to stoke up on magic mushrooms and talk to ghosts?
- John: I'm going to take a dream walk. Find some of the locals and have a chat. This is a quick and easy way to get started.
- [Later]
- Angie: And this is all historically authentic, is it? The torches? the mushrooms? The stripping down to your y-fronts?
- John: I told you, they died out. And they didn't have a written language. This just-- just felt--
- Angie: A) Pretentious. B) Stupid. C) A good excuse to get naked. Jesus wept!
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Issue 194, Ward 24 by Mike Carey
- Peter Gill: Thank Christ I can put this thing away now. I hate guns. Killing someone with a gun-- that's like shagging with a rubber on.
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Issue 213, The Gift by Mike Carey
- John: My talent's for lying. For sticking the knife in when people least expect it. Then walking away with a smile and a wave before they even realise they're bleeding.
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Issue 214, R.S.V.P. Part 1 by Mike Carey
- John: Four o'clock and it's already getting dark. Solstice only a few days away. Winter magic, where we kill and eat the sun to give us strength to make it through the cold. Only it feels like it's already dead.
John has been handed an invitation to a magician's ball.
- John: Well I'm just lost for words, mate. Overwhelmed, that's the only word for it. I mean, two hundred generations of bearded old geezers have used magic as a tool for unlocking the mysteries of creation. Breaching the walls of life and death. Stuff like that. But fuck them if they can't take a joke, right? It's time we all put our glad rags on and had a good old knees up. A verbal answer? I'd rather have my guts drawn out with hooks than waste an evening with a shower of chinless fuckwits like you.
- Etheridge: That's-- I'm-- I find that really disappointing, John.
- John: I don't know where it comes from, this impulse to set everything by. To save it up. As if the past doesn't die unless you give in and fucking bury it. Or as if you can read your own past, like runes. But the past is another country, and there's razor wire along the border and machine-gun nests every fifty yards.
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All His Engines, graphic novel by Mike Carey
- Chas: You'll still need a driver. And there's me martial arts training-- that'll come in handy.
- John: Tai Kwon Wheel Wrench? Shut up now, okay?
- Melosa: He wants to know if you're-- devout. If you believe.
- John: Devout? No. But there's not a lot I don't believe in.
- Mictlantecuhtli: You forget yourself. I am no upstard demon, scrabbling in the dirt of the human soul. I am Mictlantecuhtli. I am a god.
- John: Great stuff. I'm John-- and I'm a bastard.
- John: Happy Families. What's that all about, eh? A bloody busted flush is what it is. You surround yourself with other people so the night doesn't seem quite so dark. Shout down the sound of the wind with arguments about whose turn it is to wash the dishes. Best not to kid yourself. Best not to give any hostages to fortune. You're on your own in the end. Always. Where else would you want to be?
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