Birth of the Author (How to finish a novel after forty years after numerous attempts Part 3)

 

(John Constantine, Hellblazer Art by John Paul Leon)

I was going to talk originally about schizophrenia next for Part 3 of the story behind my forthcoming novel, but before I come onto that I want to talk about another major influence on my Author series.

In my previous posts, I talked about Marvel’s Moon Knight and how mental health affected my earlier attempts at the stories which resulted in me killing off the character when I was 16 which then resulted in a suicide attempt myself then again at 18 (which I will talk about in future parts) mirroring my character.

Into my early 20s, after some years away from American comics, I got into Vertigo comics, the then adult wing of DC Comics when I discovered some graphic novel reprints of Alan Moore’s classic run of Swamp Thing.

While this run is an incredible run of Gothic horror and well worth your time reading alone, what really grabbed was the first appearance of John Constantine, a man of mystery (Perhaps best summed up Winston Churchill who described Russia as ‘a riddle wrapped in a engima’)

“John Constantine is a working-class warlock, occult detective, and con man from Liverpool who is stationed in London (also UK)” He is described in Wiki who is known “for his endless cynicism, deadpan snarking, ruthless cunning ruthless cunning, and constant chain smoking, but he is also a passionate humanitarian driven by a heartfelt desire to do some good in his life”

In Swamp Thing, he sparkles across the pages he is with his one liners and his desperation when his helpers / friends in the stories start vanishing and getting killed one after the other.

Somewhere a little after this experience, I was hooked on Hellblazer the solo series featuring John Constantine who span out from this work, firstly with the neo political work of the incredible Jamie Delano, then the North Irish writer Garth Ennis who took it further stating in an interview the source of which I forget “all the girls fancy him and all the guys want to be him’ even if he is the kind of guy you want him to have a beer with, perhaps it would be better to run away afterwards.

Why I adapted some of the snarkiness of Constantine into the Author I can’t remember in hindsight whether it was to give it a bit of a bite or a edge like I said, it was just reflected almost naturally in the story mixing the street working magician with massive mental health needs and at 22 or 23, I wrote a 20,000 word short novella called ‘The Return of the Author’ which was a return to the series after killing the character off when I was 16.

It wasn’t great I have to be honest, but it was a start and set things off in the right direction for what came next.