John Constantine is one of my favourite characters from the comics world - somehow retaining some semblance of humanity while he skirts the low life of our species.
For those who don't know of him - he's basically a straight talking scouse tosser, who gets drunk alot, smokes too much, sleeps with prostitutes, takes drugs - plays with magic, cheats the devil out of souls, and even chainsawed the wings off the back of the Archangel Gabriel. And he says "Bollocks" alot.
He is one of the best expressions of anti-character in comic (perhaps matched only by the exposition of Judge Dredd as a brutal fascist - another great thread there).
Jamie Delano took the reigns for the Hellblazer series when DC Vertogo used it as a flagship along with Neil Gaiman's Sandman, and carried it on to around issue 40. during that time he gave us Voodoo, Newcastle, hippies, and a complete rebirth. He effectively finished the series as a series when he left - but Garth Ennis actually managed to bring the series back to life again.
I always preferred Delano's writing and characterisation - he focussed strictly on character, whereas Ennis was given over a little too much to sensationalism, IMO (such as taking a chainsaw on the Archangel Gabriel's wings).
That finally stopped my reading of that series - it had moved too move from the grotesuely psychological to the grotesquely physical.
But John Constantine still endears as a character. Would love to write for him one day, actually. Neil Gaiman did, actually - think that was an issue on lay-lines being tapped by the government - around issue 25.
Oh - but one of my comic acheivements - picked up issues 1 and 2 of Hellblazer, though they're in my loft with the rest, now. Collected stright from about issue 15/20 to around 70.
For those who don't know of him - he's basically a straight talking scouse tosser, who gets drunk alot, smokes too much, sleeps with prostitutes, takes drugs - plays with magic, cheats the devil out of souls, and even chainsawed the wings off the back of the Archangel Gabriel. And he says "Bollocks" alot.
He is one of the best expressions of anti-character in comic (perhaps matched only by the exposition of Judge Dredd as a brutal fascist - another great thread there).
Jamie Delano took the reigns for the Hellblazer series when DC Vertogo used it as a flagship along with Neil Gaiman's Sandman, and carried it on to around issue 40. during that time he gave us Voodoo, Newcastle, hippies, and a complete rebirth. He effectively finished the series as a series when he left - but Garth Ennis actually managed to bring the series back to life again.
I always preferred Delano's writing and characterisation - he focussed strictly on character, whereas Ennis was given over a little too much to sensationalism, IMO (such as taking a chainsaw on the Archangel Gabriel's wings).
That finally stopped my reading of that series - it had moved too move from the grotesuely psychological to the grotesquely physical.
But John Constantine still endears as a character. Would love to write for him one day, actually. Neil Gaiman did, actually - think that was an issue on lay-lines being tapped by the government - around issue 25.
Oh - but one of my comic acheivements - picked up issues 1 and 2 of Hellblazer, though they're in my loft with the rest, now. Collected stright from about issue 15/20 to around 70.
