Writer: Chris Miskiewicz
Artist: Palle Schmidt
Publisher: Boom Studios
Released: 18th June 2014
My initial impression on reading the preview for Thomas Alsop was, ‘Oh, so they are going to try and launch an American version of John Constantine then.’ Now after reading the book I can confirm that my initial impression was 100% correct. That’s all I really need to say about it. It’s Constantine, but in Manhattan New York. The titular character is from an old American family that protects Manhattan from supernatural stuff. He drinks a lot, thinks it’s very cool to do so, does some reality television and blogs (to make him seem contemporary) and that’s it.
If you want to see the glorification of degenerate alcoholism with some ghosts thrown in, and echoes of the recent past of native people’s and slave ships then you might be interested in picking up this book. The art is okay. I liked it. It’s a bit scrambled, smudged and loose, and it fits the character of Alsop himself. A man who drinks, smokes and acts like John Constantine with an American accent.
This brings me to the reason why I can’t really be arsed with the book. It’s all very corporate focus group and box-ticking fake ‘rebellious.’ It feels second hand and forged, and there's something very unappealing about it all. Perhaps it's the smugness, perhaps it's the insistence that the main character is interesting, when he really isn't, but there's something really unlikeable about the whole project. And just because you talk about reality television and a blog it doesn’t mean that your mindset isn’t still stuck in the early 1990’s.
There is nothing new about this book, nothing exciting, nothing cutting edge and ultimately there’s no reason to buy it. If you want Constantine then get some of the old Hellblazer books, the good ones from 1988 that you can still get on Amazon in trade paperback. Thomas Alsop needs to be kicked out of his too cool for school drunken lethargy. He also needs to be told to stop pretending that it’s the early 1990’s, and to stop play-acting like he’s John Constantine. Constantine was good, back in the day (as none of the kid’s say), but generations have come and gone since, and an American clone in 2014 just doesn’t cut the mustard. This is derivative, and ultimately, pointless. Oh, and being a drunken celebrity really isn’t cool. Never was, never will be. Rating 4/10
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