(EDITOR’S NOTE: Welcome to Saturday Night Shivers, a feature at Paint Monk’s Library. In the spirit of Elvira, the Ghoul, and other horror movie hosts, we’ll be featuring a review of one classic horror comic each week. Most horror stories we review (with a few exceptions) are from books approved by the Comics Code Authority or from comics that were published before the code was enacted. This installment is written by Bob Freeman.)

I bill myself as The Occult Detective. I own the URL and everything. I’ve been a fan of the genre since I was a wee lad, growing up on a small farm outside of Nowheresville, Indiana. My first taste was probably The Sixth Sense, a TV series than ran in 1972, starring Gary Collins as parapsychologist Dr. Michael Rhodes.

As far as occult detectives go, it’s hard to do better than the Alan Moore-created John Constantine. Constantine’s a nasty bit of work. Don’t believe me? Just ask him, he’ll tell you straight. The fact that he might actually exist in some bloody way or another, based on the testimony of several creators who have worked on these comics is just icing on the cake.

Hellblazer works because when it’s bad it’s pretty good, but when it’s good it’s brilliant.

Take the issue I’m preparing to review for you, a floppy called “Hold Me”. Written by Neil Gaiman, with surreal artwork by Dave McKean, we are presented with more than just a ghost story. It has layers of social commentary littered throughout, some to the fore, some to the aft, and that’s something Hellblazer was very good at, mixing the real world and its foibles alongside the supernatural and strange.

A good occult detective traverses all these realms, for better or worse, and bloody well makes for a darn fine comic. Although iterations of Hellblazer and John Constantine still exist, it was that initial volume from Vertigo, all 300 of them, that sang the proper song. Here’s to hoping that magic can be recaptured at some point in the near future.

Review: Hellblazer #27

Our tale begins on a cold London night. Fat Ronnie and Sylvia, drunk and homeless, hunker down in a small flat, tearing down curtains to huddle beneath while they hold one another for warmth. They pay no mind to Jacko, who’s alone and curled up nearby.  

The scene shifts to John Constantine hailing a cab. The cabbie is a National Front poster boy and John, hearing enough, decides to walk the rest of the way to a party thrown in the memory of Ray Monde. John arrives shortly and the host greets him and introduces him to a woman named Anthea, an old friend of Ray.

Elsewhere, a child calls out for her mother. Someone is in her room. The mother enters to discover Jacko. He is cold and wants to be held. He draws the woman close, sucking the heat and life out of her. Jacko leaves the mother dead on the floor, her child wondering why she has grown so cold.

Back at the party, John thinks Anthea is interested in him. The conversation gets rather personal then she asks him to walk her home. Constantine agrees. Arriving at the housing complex, John notices a terrible smell from inside. Anthea explains a homeless couple were found dead in an abandoned flat, huddled together under a curtain. They had been there for months before they were found and had to be carried out in multiple plastic bags.

Anthea invites John into her apartment and she begins trying to seduce him. She mentions her flatmate and he suddenly remembers why her name sounded familiar to him. Anthea is a lesbian that Ray Monde often spoke of. This entire seduction was a ruse. Anthea and her lover wanted a baby and Ray had always thought highly of John, so she had hoped to father a child by him. Angry at being duped, he leaves in a huff.  

In the hall, John runs into Shona. She is worried about her mother who is lying cold on the floor of their room. John agrees to look in on her for the child, discovering the woman dead. He leaves the child with Anthea, then goes off to search for the spirit responsible.

Breaking into the flat where the couple had passed, John is approached by Jacko who is cold and wants someone to hold him. John embraces the spirit, giving the homeless man in death what he had wanted in life, someone to care about him. He passes on and John is overwhelmed with emotion.

Constantine returns to Anthea’s apartment and asks her to hold him.

CAPSULE REVIEW: This is a brilliant example of a well-written comic with a social conscience that delivers its message without being heavy-handed. The supernatural element underscores the plight of the homeless and mentally challenged. Gaiman delivered a Constantine slightly out of character, but well within the realm of the man we had come to know through his appearances in Swamp Thing and the first 26 issues of his own title.

As for McKean’s artwork, when I first read this nearly thirty years ago,
I was not a fan of the art style. I was into artists like Adams, Byrne, and Buscema. This sort of scratchy, surrealistic approach did not sit well with my sensibilities, but the writing kept me glued to the page. Now, I have a much greater appreciation for the artist’s approach and feel the mood it invokes is perfect for John Constantine. Where I had once felt a disconnect, I now resonate with McKean’s kinetic line work.

If you’ve never read a John Constantine tale, this is a great place to start. On a scale of 1-10, I’d rate this issue a 9. On eBay, this issue can sell between $20-80, but it was a free Halloween giveaway last year from DC Comics and can be snagged for less than $3.  

Alba Gu Brath – Bob Freeman (aka The Occult Detective)