By John Constantine

So, what a year it was. Everything changed. Everything remains the same.

Time for the annual roto-rooting of the inbox. Interesting catch in the net.

Herb, we'll get back to you on your request, despite the oxymoron of the company name :)

mattmagus@hotmail.com writes "So far you've done an excellent job with this site....when I found out that someone had taken hellblazer.com, I thought it was just going to be another stupid fan site. Thank you for not making it such. Your articles have thus far been very entertaining."

Wow. It's nice to see that the intent comes through. Cursed by Gödel, we are unable to get a good look at what we've become, so it's nice to see some positive feedback. Some of the comments we've gotten from the fans have been less than courteous....

poppadoc420@hotmail.com suggests "Hellblazer is not just good art, not your website, it is art. And I bloody take offence of you using John Contantine's name on your fuck'n site. Take it off!!! It's a fuck'n trademark motherfucker! If you don't I'll fuck'n call Alan Moore and he'll kick your bloody ass that's what! And fuck'n Frank Miller will make you eat your own shite! Damn, no fuck'n respect!"

The astute reader will notice the word "shite" in the above rant. I really love the juxtaposition of negatives in the first sentence.  Personally, we're actually terrified at the sheer level of bile that some people attach to intellectual property.

mattmagus@hotmail.com returned with "This site could certainly use some new material...it doesn't seem to have changed since the last time I was here...have you been in jail, or something?"

God, we sometimes wish it was all that simple. As the title suggests, this past year was not particularly entertaining. No, none of us ended up in jail. But there are far worse things that can happen to you.

latex_glove@hotmail.com leads off with "I think that you are a ugly bastard. So there. Don't put bad web sites on the net you faggot."

Oh right. Don't put bad web sites on the net. We'll just log that away so we don't forget that gem.

latex_glove@hotmail.com then follows up with a proposition "hi it's Dan again. You have a small penis, and I would like to suck it."

Nothing turns us on better than a rapier-like wit combined with an almost Shakespeare-like banter. Oh, and we don't all have dicks.

An anonymous coward tantalizes with "While the analysis of Death and Taxes was entertaining, I have to point out the your fundamental equation was slightly off. The real equation, as handed down from the Illuminati is: Money^x 3D Power So it is an expoential equation. I could tell you what the value of 'x' is, but then they would hunt me down and erase all traces of my existance (yes, this is the *real* reason for web crawlers, keeping the overlings informed)."

We disagree. Not about the reason for web crawlers, but with the proposition that money^x 3D power. We're well aware of what x is, and have already started the process of erasing your existence. We're leaving this entry on our web as your epitaph.

allout_helter@mailcity.com ends with "perhaps this isn't working out as you planned. if you build it, they won't necessarily come, or didn't you build it correctly? i'm all for forums for the absurd, but if that's what you're after, trying dangling a few carrots our way, amigos. a cynic like constantine might have thought of that, eh? i like the delano flavor, incidentally- in my mind, he is still the best."

Hey, if we actually had a plan, we'd think it wasn't working out. But being meat puppets for an adolescent refugee from a corporate sin galaxy, we are doing all we can to simply dance to the whatever tune the puppeteer happens to be playing. Implying that what we do actually is planned by us is giving us way too much credit. But, we'll take the compliment anyway. As to carrots to dangle. Well, the GM food growing upwind of us has toppled those intentions. Would you accept turnips or an old cork we found laying on the floor? We can paint them orange if you like :)

Well, hopefully it won't be another year before we get enough time to clean the place up. We do appreciate the time spent to leave a note, whatever the content.