I admit I picked this one up because I really liked the movie. I'd been warned that the movie was nothing like the actual comic, but all the elements of the movie that I enjoyed most were present.

The art is dated and doesn't add much, but the writing is amazing, especially in the middle story, a supernatural tale of war life and rural reality colliding most violently, "When Johnny Comes Marching Home". "Waiting for the Man" also features some very disturbing sections, but like the rest of this volume it's full of loose ends and set ups for later plot lines.

A lot of the imagery in the movie did come straight from the comic, as did large portions of the plot. In fact, I have to wonder, other than the comic Constantine being blond and English rather than Keanu Reeves, what the complaint is. The same callous, ballsy Constantine finds himself dragged into paranormal threat after paranormal threat, often by a damsel in distress. While it's made clear that he's neutral and not on the side of heaven, hell or the ethereal, most of the plots in HellBlazer: Original Sins have Constantine coming up against the demonic side of things more than anything else.

It's definitely a good read, filled with strong, emotional writing and gritty, interesting characters. But beware, this volume leaves off, literally, in the middle of a scene so you might want to buy volumes one and two together. ( )

Atmospheric, political and ever so slightly dated urban horror that positively revels in the seedy grotesquery of late eighties Britain. Delano's Alan Moore-aping purple prose is occasionally a bit longwinded, but it doesn't detract from a great collection of stories that serve as a fine introduction to the working class magus John Constantine. ( )

I started reading Hellblazer around issue 60, and only much later was able to go back and read the first ones. I enjoyed these first few stories, but I'm very, very glad that I was able to move quickly through the interminable Dream Machine storyline that followed. That would have been a year of my life I would have found difficult to get back, and I'm not sure I would have still been reading the comic by the end. But I digress.

John Constantine remains one of my favorite fictional characters. He's not always been consistent as writers have come and gone, but for the most part he's retained his sarcastic, cynical and ultimately human self that first drew me into the series. ( )

[close] This is my first Constantine comics (it's the one the guy who sold it recommended), and the third comic (graphic) book I've ever read in my life (oh the drama).

Although it is not the volume on which the movie is based, I have found a lot of things which slightly differ from the movie. Such as Midnite's club. (Although Midnite himself looks exactly as I would have imagined him).
John Constantine himself was cute and great, and cynical like he was in the movie. The only problem was that he seemed a bit stupid every once in a while, but perhaps that straightens out in the next volumes.
The only thing which really pissed me was that the illustrators tended to colour his green sometimes for no apparent reason!

I like the world they've created there, with the demons and the monsters. But I didn't find it as rich and full as in the movie, although perhaps that too improves with the next volumes.
So when I have an extra 25 dollars, I'll buy another. :)

12.3.07 ( )

Original Sins is some early Hellblazer work by Jamie Delano. This is back from the 1980s era, and is definitely more overtly political than some of what comes later. This is also the time that Swamp Thing was a character or perhaps a similar style, so the two crossed paths a little bit, so that may be of interest to some.

http://graphicsf.blogspot.com/2006/12... ( )