In countries like the U.S. and Great Britain, we exist in a wholly sexualized culture, where everything from cars to snack food are sold with a healthy slathering of sex to make them more commercially appealing.

Happiness is the most insidious prison of all.

You wear a mask for so long, you forget who you were beneath it.

It is the oldest ironies that are still the most satisfying: man, when preparing for bloody war, will orate loudly and most eloquently in the name of peace.

Judged by the stark, sure-footed portrait in Hard Time, Brian Azzarello and Richard Corben clearly have John Constantine down, cold and to the life. Azzarellos grasp of pacing, character and situation resonates through every scene with a black crystal clarity thats short of masterful, while Corben contributes what is, perhaps, one of the most darkly expressive pieces in a long, already-legendary career.

It's early days. A few skeletons are bound to keep jumping out of the closet.

A world grows up around me. Am I shaping it, or do its predetermined contours guide my hand?