Hellblazer

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Hellblazer

Hellblazer is a comic book series published by the Vertigo imprint of DC Comics, which features the central character John Constantine. It has been ongoing since January 1988.

Creation

John Constantine was originally created by Alan Moore as a recurring character in the horror series Swamp Thing. When he first appears, John Constantine is a trenchcoated sorcerer of ambivalent morality who physically closely resembles the musician Sting (specifically as he appeared in the movie Quadrophenia).

Moore actually created the character simply because artists Stephen R. Bissette and John Totleben, who were fans of The Police, wanted to draw a character who looked like Sting and had already drawn at least one background character in his likeness. In one Swamp Thing story this resemblance is acknowledged when Constantine is observed to be rowing a boat named The Honorable Gordon Sumner, a reference to Sting's real name.

Comic book series

The character was given his own comic book series, titled Hellblazer, in 1988, featuring writer Jamie Delano and artist John Ridgway, with distinctive painted and collage covers by Dave McKean. The original title, Hellraiser, was dropped due to the simultaneous release of Clive Barker's unrelated film of the same name. Others who have worked on the series include writers Garth Ennis, Paul Jenkins, Warren Ellis, Darko Macan, Brian Azzarello, John Smith, Mike Carey and Denise Mina; and artists Mark Buckingham, Tim Bradstreet (notably on covers), Steve Dillon, Marcelo Frusin, Leonardo Manco, and Sean Phillips.

Hellblazer is a decidedly dark series, its main character portrayed as a kind of confidence man often seen doing morally questionable things while tricking his way through a modern world, with a lot of magic and supernatural conflict going on behind the scenes. While sometimes clearly heroic, Constantine more often than not merely fights for his survival and usually makes more enemies in the process. He is also highly manipulative and has frequently sacrificed the lives and souls of others around him in order to achieve his ends. Many of these individuals haunt him, and he finds himself being followed around by an ever increasing entourage of ghostly figures.

Constantine has made appearances in several other comic book titles, such as The Sandman and Shade, the Changing Man. For some time, he was a recurring supporting character in both Swamp Thing and The Books of Magic and still makes appearances in both comics.

Films

A U.S. film starring Keanu Reeves, loosely based upon the Hellblazer comics and the character of John Constantine, was released in 2005 under the title of Constantine. The movie was not well received among Hellblazer fans because it considerably altered the character. Rather than an Englishman roaming the world, he was depicted as an American living in Los Angeles, California, and instead of an ambiguous figure struggling against the forces of both Heaven and Hell, he was depicted as a (somewhat) dysfunctional agent of the forces of Heaven.

In 2006, filmmaker Dez Vylenz announced an independent film about the life and career of Alan Moore entitled The Mindscape of Alan Moore. An actor portraying the comic book version of Constantine appears in that film.

Trade paperbacks and graphic novels

Hellblazer has been incompletely collected as a number of trade paperbacks by DC Vertigo. In chronological order, they are as follows:

Original Sins (Hellblazer #1–9): written by Jamie Delano
Rare Cuts (#11, 25–26, 35, 56, 84): Delano, Grant Morrison, and Garth Ennis
Dangerous Habits (#41–46): Ennis
Fear And Loathing (#62–67): Garth Ennis & Steve Dillon
Tainted Love (#68–71, Hellblazer Special: Confessional and a short story from Vertigo Jam): Garth Ennis & Steve Dillon
Damnation's Flame (#72–77): Garth Ennis & Steve Dillon
Rake At The Gates of Hell (#78–83, Hellblazer Special: Heartland): Garth Ennis & Steve Dillon
Son Of Man (#129–133): Garth Ennis
Haunted (#134–139): Warren Ellis
Setting Sun (#140–143): Ellis
Hard Time (#146–150): Brian Azzarello
Good Intentions (#151–156): Azzarello
Freezes Over (#157–163): Azzarello
Highwater (#164–174): Azzarello
Red Sepulchre (#175–180): Mike Carey
Black Flowers (#181–186): Carey
Staring at the Wall (#187–193): Carey
Stations of the Cross (#194–200): Carey

Constantine: The Hellblazer Collection is a movie tie-in which collects the official film adaptation as well as Hellblazer numbers 1, 27 (written by Neil Gaiman), and 41. All of these issues are available in other collections: #1 in Original Sins, #41 in Dangerous Habits, and #27 in Neil Gaiman's Midnight Days, a collection of Gaiman-penned stories.

All His Engines is a hardback original graphic novel by Mike Carey, presenting a completely new story as opposed to a collection of previous issues. It also includes a character summary and history of the series taken from Vertigo Secret Files: Hellblazer.

Original Sins ends on an uncollected cliffhanger—that storyline was completed in issues 10, 11 and 12 of the series. Issue 11 is collected in the Rare Cuts trade, but #10 and 12 remain unavailable.

Hellblazer: Papa Midnite collects the five-issue spin-off miniseries.

Hellblazer: Lady Constantine collects the four-issue spin-off miniseries.

Writers

1–24: Jamie Delano
25–26: Grant Morrison
27: Neil Gaiman
28–31: Jamie Delano
32: Dick Foreman
33–40: Jamie Delano
41–50: Garth Ennis
51: John Smith
52–83: Garth Ennis
84: Jamie Delano
85–88: Eddie Campbell
89–128: Paul Jenkins
129–133: Garth Ennis
134–143: Warren Ellis
144–145: Darko Macan
146–174: Brian Azzarello
175–215: Mike Carey
216–present: Denise Mina

Novels

A series of novels by John Shirley began in 2005, starting with an adaptation of the film Constantine which made an effort to ease the awkwardness of the comic-to-film transition. In January 2006, War Lord—the first of Shirley's original Hellblazer novels (based on the comic, not the film)—was released at about the same time that Mike Carey stepped down as the series writer and was replaced by Denise Mina. In November 2006, Shirley's third novel (including the Constantine adaptation) Subterranean is due to hit stores.

External links

Hellblazer at DC Vertigo - Official site
DC Comics - Issue #1 as a pdf
Hellblazer Trades - List of John Constantine appearances
Interview with Hellblazer writer Jamie Delano
Straight To Hell - Fan site with summaries of many issues
The Sting connection - Interview with Alan Moore discussing the creation of John Constantine
Hellblazer Art - Collection of fan renderings of John Constantine
Roots of the Swamp Thing - A look at Swamp Thing, the series from which Hellblazer initially spun off and Hellblazer-related material
Fresh - designs showing the evolution of the latest Hellblazer logo
The Mind of Alan Moore Trailer of documentary DVD

DC Comics titles | Vertigo titles

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