Hellblazer #299

With just one issue left before Vertigo's long-running series reaches its landmark end, issue #299 arrives with a cover by Simon Bisley that perfectly captures John Constantine at his most gloriously dissolute — battered face wearing war paint, cigarette dangling from his lips, glass of amber liquid in hand, and a dark-haired woman leaning against him, all framed ominously by what appears to be a gravestone bearing a skull and crossbones. Peter Milligan, Giuseppe Camuncoli, and Stefano Landini carry the interior through "Death and Cigarettes — Part Two: Post Mortem," a title that feels almost too apt for a penultimate chapter. Bisley's painted intensity gives this issue a fittingly raw, end-of-an-era energy.