Dangerous Habits

No, don't worry, I haven't taken up sky-diving or class A drugs. What I have been doing is revisiting the works of some comics writers whose writing I particularly enjoy (far less dangerous but consistently nerdy). One is Grant Morrison who writes comics that are bursting at the seams with idea after idea (which can sometimes make his stuff a little challenging but it is never boring). The other is Garth Ennis who I would say has more in common with someone like Quentin Tarantino - he writes with humour and a fair smattering of pop culture references combined with a healthy dollop of OTT violence. I recently re-read Hitman which is largely an opportunity for him to poke fun at a selection of DC superheroes but it was this that really got the nostalgia flowing…

Hellblazer: Dangerous Habits
Hellblazer follows Englishman John Constantine, a trenchcoat-wearing chain-smoking dabbler in all things occult and magical and somewhat morally complex - he’ll save the world but often only as a by-product of saving his own skin. In this storyline, he finds himself coming up something he can't obviously cheat and swindle his way out of:- lung cancer. It’s a compelling story and, as a naive teenager, I thought it was something that me and my mate could turn into a feature film over the summer.

Yep, this was one of the first forays we made into the world of film-making, despite not having any experience, cast, effects or money. We did have a VHS camera though (that we borrowed from the training college my mate’s dad was managing) so that was a start. John Constantine has since been played on screen by Keanu Reeves (in an almost unrecognisable film version) and Matt Ryan (a much closer version to the comics in a couple of TV and animated series) but neither of them came close to the majesty and grandeur of yours truly playing him. Yes, OK, that’s maybe massively overstating my frankly dreadful attempts to speak near a camera in something resembling (but only tangentially) acting.

Footage does exist of the few scenes we managed to shoot before we were crippled by our overly ambitious plan (and, not having had the rights to this DC Comics character, we wouldn't have been able to do much with it anyway). Can you see it? No, no not at all. It should probably be burnt, buried, dug up and fired into the sun to make sure that no one’s eyes are burdened by it. This is as close as you’re going to get - here are a couple of screengrabs:-

Anyway, back to the graphic novel itself - aside from the nostalgia, does the story still hold up? Yes, it does. Having not read it for a good few years, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed reading it again. The only drawback for me is that I’m not the biggest fan of Will Simpson’s style of artwork but the story’s strong enough to carry it through. 

We’ll never know how different the world could have been if I’d made it to the big screen as John Constantine first….