WE VISIT THE NATIONAL BANK AND EAT TOO MUCH MEAT!

10.22.10
The day begins with a trip to the National Bank to cash some checks. There’s no teller lines...everyone just gets a number and waits in a big room for the number to appear on a TV monitor. It’s a bit like being at an OTB: packs of people standing around, clutching tickets in their hands staring up at a TV screens in a place stinking of money and desperation. Jim almost causes an International incident because he’s texting on his phone...a big scary guy with a submachine yells at him to stop. Maybe they think we’re casing the joint...we get our dough and get the hell out of Dodge.

Back at the hotel. the ninjas appear and whisk us off for the ASADO. It only occurs to me later that I just got into a stranger’s car with no cell phone, a wad of cash in my pocket and no idea where we were going or who was taking us there. Sometimes you just gotta let it roll.

Now we don’t know what to expect of this lunch – i’m guessing they will be taking us to a restaurant – but instead we arrive at a the ARTE HOSTEL. It’s a typical youth hostel but it’s covered with amazing paintings, murals, sculptures and such. They lead us into an enclosed courtyard (this is where they’re going to whack us!) and waiting there is a table that must be 25 feet long covered with place settings, salads, wine, beer, sodas, chips and a lot more! In the corner of the courtyard is an grill that’s really an oil drum cut in half and one of the guys from the day before grilling about 20 different kinds of meat. It’s an amazing spread!

We re-introduce ourselves and proceed to have one of the most wonderful meals of my life. Just the perfect blend of food, drink and conversation. It’s all over too soon...we exchange contact info, kiss about 1000 times and then it’s back to the show. I do a bunch of portfolios reviews (tipsy ones!) and the day and night passes in a blur. At some point we hit an Irish pub (every city in the world has one!) and I’m in bed by 3AM.

10.23.10
Over breakfast, i look at about 80 portfolios in an attempt to trim down the number of people i will meet with one-on-one. Over the course of the weekend i’ll look at over 200 portfolios and meet with about 30 artists out of that number. It’s hard – you want to talk to everyone – but i really treat these trips as a talent search and so i need to focus mostly on artists i feel really have a chance of getting work in the American market. It’s still a great way to get discovered – my trips to Italy over the years have borne that out.

I don’t have review until 4:30, so the plan is to have lunch with MARCELO FRUSIN, his wife Jorgelina and their beautiful daughter, Sophia. Marcelo is the the artist we worked with on LOVELESS and HELLBLAZER. He takes us out to his favorite Asado place where we get Empanadas that are too die for. Azz and Marcelo mock me relentlessly because i won’t eat the BLOOD SAUSAGE ...apparently i’m not “MUY MACHO” enough! But, this is news?

Afterwards, we visit his apt/studio – another lovely view of the city – and then it gets serious. Marcelo is a HELADO (ice cream) snob. The ice cream in Argentina is incredible – this luscious mix of Italian Gelato and American Ice Cream – and it comes in flavors you can’t even imagine. He drags us to his fave spot and proceeds to order TWELVE different flavors. He’s like the Caligula of Helado...My favorite is a coffee colored one called SUPER SAMBAYON that tastes like WINE! By the end, my heart is racing and i have to unbutton my pants. Marcelo helps me buy some soccer jerseys for my kids (BOCA JR!) and gets me back to the show an hour late. As one of the other Argentines later says, “Marcelo has an interesting notion of time.” No kidding.

I have no idea what i’m telling these artists by now. But cut me some slack...It’s 5:00 PM and I’ve already had three steaks, three Empanadas, a bottle of wine, four espressos and TWELVE scoops of ice cream. It’s a miracle i’m not in the morgue.

Dinner is once again at EL CAIRO (i had fish and salad!) and we finish the night at a sushi bar (?) drinking FERNET & COKE...if you’ve never had it, it sorta taste like a melted tire. Not my favorite. Bedtime is 3:30...at least i'm consistent.

MONDAY: WORST TOUR EVER = BEST TOUR EVER!

This weekend is Halloween. The day for tricks and treats...and costumes!

So, if you find yourself dressing up as, say Gus from SWEET TOOTH, Skinner Sweet from AMERICAN VAMPIRE, John Constantine and Epiphany Greaves from HELLBLAZER, Fly Catcher from FABLES, Delirium from SANDMAN, or any of Vertigo’s many amazing characters this weekend, do send us a photo. And maybe, just maybe, we’ll post a bunch of them next week.

So get your outfits together and your camera’s ready!

Then send your photo as a 72-90 dpi jpeg to pamela.mullin@dccomics.com.
Please include: What character you are, your age and your okay to post.

We can’t wait to see what you come up with!

John Constantine has walked the streets of London, been to hell and back and has aged gracefully since his first appearance 25 years ago. Now, HELLBLAZER, the longest running ongoing Vertigo series hit’s issue #272 with a story that will shock you.

It was announced at the Vertigo: On the Edge panel that the chain-smoking con man may be getting married! That's right, married!

John Constantine’s potential wife Epiphany Greaves finds herself shunted off to London in 1979 by a love-spurned Shade, The Changing Man! Back in the present, Constantine finds himself right in the path of a succubus with evil on her mind.

Written by Peter Milligan and with art by Giuseppe Camuncoli, Simon Bisley and Stefano Landini with cover by Simon Bisley, HELLBLAZER #272 is on sale October 20 / 32 pages / $2.99.

What do you think about that?

I asked Peter Milligan to give us a bit more insight into this and here's what he had to say:

AN ENGLISHMAN IN NEW TERRITORY

There is an old saying that tries to delineate the romantic differences between “Latins” and their North European brothers:

An Italian man will tell a woman he loves her, just in case he does. An Englishman will refrain from telling a woman he loves her…just in case he doesn’t.

Until now, John Constantine has fallen firmly in the English camp. It’s not that he hasn’t loved before. He has. But he’s never taken that big step. He's never got hitched.

This time things are different. For a start, he’s older. Yes, here’s a comic character who actually ages.

Secondly, Constantine doesn’t have to hide anything about himself from the young woman he proposes to. You could say she’s got some pretty interesting baggage too.

What’s exciting for me about writing BLOODY CARNATIONS is that it feels a little bit transgressive. It feels like something Constantine can’t imagine himself doing. Something many of his fans can’t imagine him doing. Real people do things out of character. Real people do things they can’t imagine themselves doing.

I come with a certain degree of experience in these matters, speaking as a man who has been married twice.

Vertigo has a long history of publishing thought provoking stories that resonate whether they’re horror, crime, war, western, fantasy, urban memoir, science fiction or reality based.

So why not dig through the archives and bring some of them back? Welcome to VERTIGO RESURRECTED – a series of one-shots and specials geared to do just that--embrace history and stories that connect with the present day activities of our favorite protagonists, antagonists and creators.

“Shoot,” Warren Ellis’s much-talked about, but never published, HELLBLAZER story involving schoolyard killings leads this mega-sized VERTIGO RESURRECTION special.

Also included are rarely seen tales exploring the disturbing depths of horror, war, romance and science fiction by Brian Azzarello, Grant Morrison, Garth Ennis and artists Jim Lee, Phil Jimenez, Bernie Wrightson, and others. Cover by Tim Bradstreet.

VERTIGO RESURRECTED #1 On Sale October 20 / 96 pages / $7.99