Hellblazer
Apr. 27th, 2026 05:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI started reading the Hellblazer omnibus, Delano 1, so starting at the beginning.
(I used to have a very tatty Hellblazer 2 I acquired when it was wrapped in the cover for Hellblazer 1. Gave it to my brother to sell many years ago. Wouldn't bet on it being readable by now anyways.)
I can tell already this is going to be a different reading experience to Justice League Dark. I've read the equivalent of two issues and I am going to pause and ponder.
Also it isn't just comics as an artform I'm fed up of, the art and layout in these serrve the story in enriching ways I can spend time thinking about. None of that endless empty motion I got annoyed with, new horrors crammed in every panel. As they should be given the genre.
The story is Hunger & A Feast of Friends, and the TV show covered these in one episode.
Big difference the first, TV made it episode 4. Here it's how John is introduced.
Big difference the second, TV prettied it up and made John more palatable in one significant way: he gave Gary a choice.
But it's the same choice in the comic and TV show realistically, if Gary had said no, John wouldn't have a workable alternate option.
So it's interesting pondering the motives of the man who has that extra conversation.
For the people making the TV show it's obvious, John is a teensy tiny bit difficult to make acceptable to a mass audience, let alone if his first action is to betray one friend while the ghosts of his other dead friends look on.
But why would the character himself do it?
Could be to feel better about it.
Could be to avoid the dangerous bit where Gary attacked him in the comics.
But could also be because the choice is meaningful to Gary, if he's making it for the right reasons.
That would get right into the theology and DC theology is *deeply* strange.
Interesting though.
Probably it is not to avoid danger though, both TV and comics has the lesson in how to bind the demon underline the cutting out of the tongue of the victim so they can't curse you, and that's the bit John doesn't do. Gary can beg ans theoretically curse right up until the end.
Interesting sort of courage, that.
On TV it's John who holds his hand though, not John's ghosts. In the comics John sits with him, but the other side of prison bars.
The art feels more worth analysing in Hellblazer, though JLD has a lot of detail, I didn't expect it to speak.
Smaller differences include drug use and the exact things the hunger demon makes people hunger for. Gems and comics and a crucifix aren't a major feature on TV. Calling it an infection was played way up on TV instead of being a background bubble that leads to the other opinion that it's all a judgement from god.
The compare contrast with the TV is interesting but the comics are already good.
Going to think on them more.
(I used to have a very tatty Hellblazer 2 I acquired when it was wrapped in the cover for Hellblazer 1. Gave it to my brother to sell many years ago. Wouldn't bet on it being readable by now anyways.)
I can tell already this is going to be a different reading experience to Justice League Dark. I've read the equivalent of two issues and I am going to pause and ponder.
Also it isn't just comics as an artform I'm fed up of, the art and layout in these serrve the story in enriching ways I can spend time thinking about. None of that endless empty motion I got annoyed with, new horrors crammed in every panel. As they should be given the genre.
The story is Hunger & A Feast of Friends, and the TV show covered these in one episode.
Big difference the first, TV made it episode 4. Here it's how John is introduced.
Big difference the second, TV prettied it up and made John more palatable in one significant way: he gave Gary a choice.
But it's the same choice in the comic and TV show realistically, if Gary had said no, John wouldn't have a workable alternate option.
So it's interesting pondering the motives of the man who has that extra conversation.
For the people making the TV show it's obvious, John is a teensy tiny bit difficult to make acceptable to a mass audience, let alone if his first action is to betray one friend while the ghosts of his other dead friends look on.
But why would the character himself do it?
Could be to feel better about it.
Could be to avoid the dangerous bit where Gary attacked him in the comics.
But could also be because the choice is meaningful to Gary, if he's making it for the right reasons.
That would get right into the theology and DC theology is *deeply* strange.
Interesting though.
Probably it is not to avoid danger though, both TV and comics has the lesson in how to bind the demon underline the cutting out of the tongue of the victim so they can't curse you, and that's the bit John doesn't do. Gary can beg ans theoretically curse right up until the end.
Interesting sort of courage, that.
On TV it's John who holds his hand though, not John's ghosts. In the comics John sits with him, but the other side of prison bars.
The art feels more worth analysing in Hellblazer, though JLD has a lot of detail, I didn't expect it to speak.
Smaller differences include drug use and the exact things the hunger demon makes people hunger for. Gems and comics and a crucifix aren't a major feature on TV. Calling it an infection was played way up on TV instead of being a background bubble that leads to the other opinion that it's all a judgement from god.
The compare contrast with the TV is interesting but the comics are already good.
Going to think on them more.