I don’t care what non-geeks say, post-con depression is a thing. One minute you are surrounded by so much talent and are having passionate conversations about your favorite fandoms with your people, and the next, you are out on the sidewalk in the cold light of day, trudging homeward. It’s a hard transition. As I was attempting to navigate the real world again last night, I received a staggering blow:

The link above is clickable, so you can see the news that Daniel Cerone broke, that Constantine‘s cast and writers have been released from their contracts. In layman’s terms, Constantine as we knew it on NBC last year is over.

What it means for me: the show that woke me up to how social media could unite a fandom is gone. No more Friday night drinking games on Twitter with Charles Halford calling the shots. No more more live tweeting with Matt Ryan, Angelica Celaya, Harold Perineau, and thousands of Hellblazers around the globe. No more geeking out when a character from the comics would show up, or when I recognized a storyline from the Hellblazer comics. No more freaking out over creepy children, or evil angels, or demon possessions. No more great storylines and excellent acting. And no more chance to see where the writers and cast were going to take us all.

I wasn’t a fan of Constantine before the TV show. I hadn’t read the comics, hadn’t seen the film. My awareness of John Constantine started the night I saw the series premiere at the Empire Stage at NYCC’14. It was new, it was different, it hooked me even before I saw Matt Ryan and Angelica Celaya do the mini-panel after the screening. And it brought me into the comics, because you know I read every Cosntantine anthology I could get my hands on starting the very next day. Constantine on NBC was a gift, and now that it’s gone I feel like a close friend has passed. There is a mourning period for my fandom and what it could have been. There’s also a fair amount of irritation (on my part, of course) that NBC didn’t realize what they had, and that despite Daniel Cerone trying to shop it to other venues, no one realized how great the show could be (I’m working through several stages of grief at once, apparently).

One thing is certain…that genderbent Constantine/Chas cosplay that Grace and I were planning for DragonCon? It’s on. It’s the least we can do in memoriam. Cheers, Constantine. Requiescat in pace.