Both writers were in Australia recently, so I caught up with them to discover their take on John Constantine's world, and what they've been up to since they left it.ĭavid Carroll: As far as most people are aware, you started off with the Hellblazer comic.
Indeed, the success of his run let Ennis create his own title, Preacher, now Vertigo's best selling comic. Ennis took the title through the transition to the Vertigo imprint and greater popularity than ever. The two who have written more of Hellblazer (a 'meaningless title' as Delano says, coined by DC after Clive Barker beat them to the more obvious choice) than any other are Delano himself, and his successor, Garth Ennis, at about forty issues apiece. I would go further and say that John is the most realistic character to have a long-term starring role in a mainstream comic, but then, maybe my biases are showing. But he gets by, and does what he has to, or at least what he can. In the first issue, way back in 1988, penned by Jamie Delano and under the quintessential pen of John Ridgeway, John is already running from dead friends and lovers, past mistakes, his own impotence against the unleashed demon. But then, he always was, which is probably the point.
It also recently turned 100, which is pretty scary all on its own, if you ask me. At its best, Hellblazer - a comic in DC's Vertigo imprint for its rogue pack of mostly-British horror and dark fantasy writers - is smart, literate and scary.
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