pnergen

Hey all

Well registration is tommorow. i finally finish work and begin three years of working on this.

 

Obviously the more i read the more ideas expand. I need to filter down to making some ideas and basically coming up with pretencious labels for comic movements. Basically [and this idea was sparked with regard to burroughs influence on watchmen et al] I'm considering coming up with a label to describe the late 80's to present comic movement as as radical as the wells to burroughs era of fantasy. I realise I'm getting a little scott mcloud in nature but mine will focus considerably on literary influence and themes.

 

Therefore, and i know this will be subject to contention which three writers do you think I should focus on primarily [i have a personal perference but need the essay to be accessible]

 

Damn structuring chapters... why can't i just get up and do and 1hr 1/2 dylan moran rambling...bah!

 

PS as im going to have to reference the comics in reproducing them I assume it works the same as quotes non?

 

btw

 

"it'd be pretty hard to convince anyone that Hellblazer is more literate than just entertainment"

 

They used to say that about the works of some shakespeare guy :D

Hey guys

 

Sorry for not dropping in sooner .Glad to have started the debate. Thanks for the heads up on some of these. Manga isn't going to be tackled in depth as many of the allusions and analysis I'm going to study is by using the 50's / 60's acceptance of fanstasy & magical realism into the mainstream i.e burroughs et al to place hellblazer in a light. One has to remeber that universities are actually very conservative when it comes to reference and analysis . 'From Hell' and 'Maus' are the best examples of this really due to tumult of mainstream examinations they have ideal for western literary references. Roughly I have to come up with 5 different chapters ; 3 of which are more broad analysis; two of which are case studies [Hellblazer/Sandman]

 

[Apologies for spelling/rambling.... it's four in the morning... I live in the town of Hellblazer 13 so a drunk to sobering walk down the beach kicked me into action on this]

 

Goodnight

Hey all

 

You may remember over a year ago I was about to begin a PhD Thesis on Hellblazer. Well after deliberating for a year I'm about to begin my research on adult comics as a literary-art form. At present I'm desperately trying to catch up with my comic reading [i've been travelling and returned to set-up my own online vintage clothing store] so basically here’s a list of questions I have for you all

 

1] What have been the main [or best examples of] literary comic books over the past 12 months?

 

2] As I'm mainly literary-based does anyone have some recommended reading on the art side comic book? [Though any new literary anaylsis is appreciated; more heavy going the better :)]

 

After being on hold for a year I’ll get my accepted proposal on here soon enough. I’ve got three years to study this all in depth so obviously I want to do an awesome job; rom September I can dedicate myself solely to this. If any one can recommend any other forums [Though, as im doing this at Newcastle University, it will be based primarily on Hellblazer ] for debating this that’d be grand, as obviously discussion is the best way to be even-handed in my writing

 

All the best

 

PS The internet is my colloquial world so any laziness in diction on here won’t been found in my formal ‘righting’

Hey guys just an update

 

I've switched my MA course at ysj to a the more appropriate surroundings of Newcastle University [ahem a Masters from an old Polytechnic wasnt taken very seriously by Establishment universities]

 

Therefore switching from my chaos theory Dissertation ive decided to tackle hellblazer this year during this for this MA

http://www.ncl.ac.uk/postgraduate/taught/s...tics/courses/18

 

I'm really glad i got accepted they just got a 4million quid cultural lab [Whatever that is :p ]

 

Here are my proposal notes which are submitted to the University. A huge thanks to james [who needs to pm me his details for a ref] This now needs to be fine tuned down to 18,000 words of pure gold

 

Straight To Hell: A Study of the Comic-book as a Literary Form through the work of Hellblazer

 

This thesis will focus primarily on the ‘underground’ comic-book ‘Hellblazer’ published by ‘Vertigo Comics’ an alternative imprint of the comic-book and graphic novel publisher DC comics. It operates underneath the ‘Vertigo’ title in order to separate their titles from the mainstream, family friendly DC comics of which Superman and Batman are associated worldwide.

 

Hellblazer is such a title directed at a mature or adult audience, whose protagonist John Constantine, an unconcerned, somewhat amoral occultist with a British working-class background who manages trick his way through the modern world saturated with myths, magic and the supernatural by a combination of luck, trickery, and genuine magical skill. Constantine is a contemporary anti-hero, fighting for his survival by being highly manipulative; even so far as sacrificing other lives and souls to achieve his own ends. In turn these individuals haunt him frequently finding himself haunted by an ever-increasing entourage of ghostly figures.

 

This thesis will demonstrate that Vertigo comics are as relevant as ‘The Novel’, rather than a form of ‘underground’ literature. Fittingly Garth Ennis, a writer for Hellblazer, recently won The Guardian’s ‘Book of the Week’ in July, 2001 for a graphic novel collection of another Vertigo Title ‘Preacher’ but within the same review the comic medium was criticised for

 

“….the novelty, and precarious sustainability, of the form. Not many graphic novels either ask or deserve to be taken seriously; and the bande dessinée format very often itself implicitly asks that it not be judged seriously at all. The greatest practitioners of the art operate in an area between seriousness and flippancy; they don't pretend that they're writing something else, such as literature”

 

In the following chapters I will address such ‘literary prejudice’ towards the comic book form cannot be applied to Vertigo the titles of which it investigates comic art's varied genres from humour and adventure, to the underground and alternative whilst allowing for one to charts the rise, fall and resurrection of the literary medium. Much like the Bloomsbury Group beforehand, Vertigo introduced a plethora of new titles without any constraints as to when or where the plot happens. In 1993 the Vertigo line was created to attract writers who wanted to publish sophisticated adult texts for those who had matured with medium of the comic-book. Indeed in an era when almost all of the big names in comics were artists most publishing companies such as Image Comics pushed for the art style over the literary. Vertigo was unique in pushing writers to the forefront.

 

Chapter 1. Introduction

 

Focuses in on the medium of comic book writing as a literary form; analysis of past and present research [bibliography of research can be found on following page]. I will expand on Scott Marshall ‘Toward a Literary Treatment of Comic Books’ by drawing upon the ‘evolution’ of the comic book from Pop Art to Vertigo’s conversation of the medium as a valid literary form. Then I will focus writers with literary acclaim who have wrote for Hellblazer such as Gaiman, Morrison and Ennis to draw parallels of Vertigo and Bloomsbury as two institutions who produced equally significant quantities of work. I also want to do further research into comparative study to see if the themes explored in HB are similar to the themes explored in other literary genres at the same time. For example Hellblazer writer Delano was writing about the Cold War before Noam Chomsky’s The Cold War & the University: Toward an Intellectual History of the Postwar Year.

 

Chapter 2. The Contemporary Mythology of Hellblazer

 

Contemporary myths are often re-creations or reinterpretations of ancient myths. Buffy the Vampire Slayer by Image comics, which recently was televised into the mainstream, can be considered a contemporary myth as it employs the same symbols as used in the Nosferatu myth. In ancient mythology it was also common for a person to employ an animal mask to take on the spirit and energy of that animal. In a contemporary myth such as the superhero story of Batman, the hero uses a mask and costume to endow himself with the power and iconic force of that animal. The well known story of Superman echoes the ancient myth of a Changeling, a non-human child who was raised by humans and grew to become their champion.

 

Study of contemporary mythology often includes comparisons with ancient myth, more recent folklore, and with established formal philosophy. Theories of contemporary mythology are also becoming more consciously and deliberately employed in religious practice, psychotherapy, and the analysis of popular culture. One of the more notable twentieth century theories of contemporary mythology applicable to art-literary compound of the comic book will be the idea of a collective unconscious popularized by Jung.

 

This chapter will focus on the contemporary mythology [or urban mysticism] employed in Hellblazer from which comparisons with ancient myth, folklore, parable and formal philosophy will be made.

 

 

Chapter 3. The Post-modern Elements of Hellblazer

 

Beginning with a focus on the skilful manipulation and occasional destruction of the "fourth wall", the barrier that separates the reader and the protagonist that resulting in some of the most comprehensive meta-fiction found in literature. These will then be reflected against religious practise, psychotherapy of the text as an analysis of the comics representations with ‘mainstream’ culture.

 

Textual Examples:

Issue #24, "Larger than Life" in which Constantine realises that he's in a fictional story

#120 in which Constantine invites the reader on a pub crawl with him

#129-133 Son of Man storyline which mixes up all kinds of genres and has John addressing the reader direct to camera

 

Chapter 4. The Socio-Political Elements of Hellblazer

 

Focusing upon Constantine’s rare position as a British comic-hero and how the character acts as a critique of contemporary society. The comic frequently alludes that the British are demonized/demoralised by an unliberated society. Through the mythological Hellblazer then reveals a deeper truth: in order that a man may be free within an unfree society, he must become unmoral or ‘monstrous’. It is this very monstrosity, that which separates and distances Constantine from society and which that enables him to escape and critique the social shackles that are forced upon him either manmade or supernatural.

 

But as Constantine depicts, a tortured soul is not bound to a society that values conservatism. Hellblazer as a work of fiction is therefore equally bound and freed by time and realistic characterization.

 

Constantine often demonstrates individualistic post-modern man can also go too far: a tortured soul whose magic/mythical expressions of his free will amount to death and destruction. Freedom through monstrosity is not limited to Constantine alone other marginalized groups and individuals can also achieve sovereignty by embracing their (often imposed) monstrous nature. This is the case for both Saladin Chamcha and the non-Anglo-Saxon youth of London in Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses. Whether the monster is occultist or immigrant, natural or constructed, do these texts all argue that freedom is gained through the acceptance and celebration of one’s own monstrosity?

 

Textual Examples of society/authority as monstrous

(#1-2)An African hunger demon gorges on the decadent and greedy people of New York

(#3)Genuinely soulless yuppies

(#5)General anti-Vietnam war sentiment

(#5)Small, forgotten AMERICAN towns with no purpose turn to god and allow themselves to be fleeced of money in the hope of a miracle

(#6) Skinhead neo-Nazis and undercurrents of fascism in 80s society

(#13) Cheap nuclear power plants chosen despite potential threat to the public

(#25-26) A Northern town with no hope for the future since its mines were shut down self-destructs when the dark, repressed desires of its residents are brought out (it's also supposed to involve the Cabbalistic abyss which is supposed to reflect the worst parts of yourself - you can find out stuff about it on the internet)

(#27) Homeless people ignored and cast aside by society; three of them die because the Government starts hosing them down with water in the middle of winter to get them off the streets

(#36)Vision of the future as post-environmental-apocalypse hellhole

(#37-38) Male domination over women complicit with consumption of meat

 

Chapter 5 -Constantine as the Post-Colonial hero

 

‘No man who knows ought can be so stupid to deny that all men naturally were borne free, being the image and resemblance of God himself’ -Milton

 

Using the ‘God’ metaphor as a representation of the British Empire will deal with why North-East England has been so curiously absent in English fiction, even in historical moments, from the industrial 1840s to the post World War II reconstruction of 1950s, when 'England' was discovered to lie outside the traditional centres of political and cultural authority, and when regional writing was understood to express something important about ‘Englishness’? Why is the birthplace of the railways, the Victorian industrial experiment, which for many years set the world price of iron and steel, almost entirely absent from the collective vision of British Literature? How can one attempt to describe a hole the North-East in British fiction, to explain its cultural limbo, and to ask as to why there are so few familiar, recognisable, resonant images of Teesside in British fiction. In Hellblazer allusions to the disenfranchisement of the North-East abound from Constantine being committed to ‘Ravenscar’ Asylum (Ravenscar being a small NE seaside town), a botched exorcism in Newcastle to a post-industrial nightmare taking place in the anonymity Victorian resort of Saltburn (My hometown). From these examples I will evaluate how Hellblazer as a comic book post-Empire attempt to ‘write’ the North-East of England into Literature. From here I will debate whether primarily stereotypes of the north-east are highlighted in Kingsley Amis’ Booker Prize winning novel ‘The Old Devils’ , where Muriel writes to her friends to reassure them that there really is life so far North. They, however, are not fooled:

 

'the theatre, what's she talking about ? In Middlesbrough? [North-East Industrial City] It can't be the theatre as civilised folk think of it… If you want my opinion, she's protesting too much. Life's not turning out to be much fun, how could it in a hole like that…'

 

and debate whether the area still must find its fictional place in industrial and existential decline.

[see submitted work on Andy Croft for research based on]

 

#7-10 Heaven portrayed as an archaic force that wants to control all of the people of Earth; Constantine makes efforts to ruin their plan

#4- 5, #7-10 Humans all too ready to bow before an authority (Heaven) that wants to quash all free choice and force humanity to be only "good".

#14-22 The Government revealed to be under control of Masonic lodges; Government-funded labs used to destroy and fence off Stonehenge-style monuments across England to control ley line energy; Government ordering child to be kidnapped for psychic research; riot police using violent force against unarmed hippies; Government sanctioning use of weapon that drives a train full of civilians insane just to get one target

#25-26 when a town's death instinct is brought out, its vicar is transformed into a religious deity and symbol of death.

 

 

Chapter 6 Conclusions

 

Drawing upon the application of literary theory and methodology in the previous chapter’s one can identify that Hellblazer, as a flagship title of Vertigo Comics aims to challenge the notion of "popular" culture the simple, undifferentiated culture that subsumes all comic book literature, whilst simultaneously. The very notion of "popular" is demonstrated to be more a political discursive strategy than a theoretical concept. The concept of habitus, on the contrary, is used for the making of generalizations about complex, dissimilar objects, as is the case of comics. The analysis of the structure of meaning of Vertigo comics aims at challenging the notion of "popular" literature as simple, formulaic literature, by the demonstration of its ever-shifting complexity.

 

The language of comics will then be juxtaposed an investigation into the narrative structure and linguistic complexity of comic strip stories to should be treated as literature and art how 'structurally' and 'textually' in his analysis the components of a comic book contribute to the story in the book the way they disseminate messages and meaning to an audience making Constantine himself a textual entity.

 

There will also be a brief analysis on the conversion of comic books to film, which I argue is parallel to the opposition that film itself, has a historical dimension which television lacks. The distinctions between the ‘comic book literature’ Hellblazer and its Hollywood bastardisation to the film ‘Constantine’ are vitally important in considering the reception of the character. The two mediums seemingly have fundamentally different ways of presenting characters to an audience and it is important to consider whether these are so different in terms of characterisation and audience reception of character. This in some way debates whether the characters themselves are not just limited to one textual form or to one genre.LT

 

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oh yeah the only drawback of this is that i have to front up £1500 on september the 30th for tuition so if you want to bid on my v.i.n.t.a.g.e clothing ebay items you'd be helping a brother out [Higher Education is still the bastion of the wealthy]

http://search.ebay.co.uk/_W0QQsassZv.i.n.t.a.g.eQQhtZ-1

Hey guys nearly finished my research proposal its at 2000 which ill need to trim a bit but ho hum

 

It's coming along quite nicely; a special thanks to james for his textual input who ill happily acknowledge along with this site that has refreshed my memory so wonderfully

 

Now the hardest part..... a title...

 

"If man is 5: The evolution of literature as examined in the comic book Hellblazer"

 

though obviously ill have to ridulously use over-technical terms in an attempt to project intellectualism...

 

[i just really want a pixies reference thrown in there y'know]

ahem forgot to log in above there

 

anywho i ran a couple of ideas past a my professor who replied:

 

"It sounds a very interesting proposal for a PhD. We don't have anyone working specifically on the genre of comic books fiction, though a colleague of mine has done some work on comic books dealing w/ the Holocaust['Maus I presume]. We'd certainly be interested in seeing a formal application from you; it'd be easier to work out from that who could be a prospective supervisor"

 

Not as conservative as I thought huh? tonights reading Comics, comix and graphic novels by Roger Sabin

 

ou and i nicked this from wikipedia as a starting point:

 

"Contemporary myths are often re-creations or reinterpretations of ancient myths. For example, the ancient myth of the Vampire now exists in narratives such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which many consider a contemporary myth. It is also common for contemporary mythology to employ some of the same symbols used in ancient myths. For example, in ancient mythology it was common for a person to employ an animal mask to take on the spirit and energy of that animal. In a contemporary myth such as the superhero story of Batman, the hero uses a mask and costume to endow himself with the power and iconic force of that animal. The same is illustrated in the Spider-Man comics where, aside from himself, many of the characters have an animal motif like Doctor Octopus, The Scorpion, The Lizard and The Chameleon. Similarly, the well known story of Superman echoes the ancient myth of a Changeling, a non-human child who was raised by humans and grew to become their champion. Many super-hero stories can be included in the category of contemporary parable. The same comparisons appear in Science Fiction. Star Trek has been described as a futuristic version of the Odyssey combined with the American notion of the frontier.

 

Study of contemporary mythology often includes comparisons with ancient myth, more recent folklore, and with established formal philosophy. Theories of contemporary mythology are also being more consciously and deliberately employed in religious practice, psychotherapy, and the analysis of popular culture. One of the more notable twentieth century theories of contemporary mythology was the idea of a collective unconscious, or "racial memory", popularized by Carl Gustaf Jung."

to extend this idea if Rushdie claims that post-colonial countires 'write back to centre' i.e. Britian. Is Hellblazer/Ennis apt at writing 'from the centre' and therefore are mythologies integral to British [i.e. English] culture

 

fittingly in newcastle there is a current paper being on some of these lines

http://www.ncl.ac.uk/nuls/research/wpapers/ward2.html

 

Indeed it quotes an good line an excellent line from Milton with regards to JC condition

 

‘No man who knows ought can be so stupid to deny that all men naturally were borne free, being the image and resemblance of God himself’.

 

Apologies if my ideas seems disjointed.. im good at the idea's it's the fine tuning into a research proposal that I have difficulty with

I was considering using Hellblazer as a response to post-colonial decline.

In fact, I can't name another British hero to use as a critique of contemporary society. Here's something I bashed out for example

 

The british are demonized/demoralised by a unliberated society. Hellblazer reveals a deeper truth: in order that a man may be free within an unfree society, he must be monstrous. It is this very monstrosity – that which separates and distances costantine from society – that enables man to escape and critque the social shackles.

 

But as Constantine depicts, an tortured soul is not bound to a society that values conservatism. Ennis' fiction, from vampires werewolves etc – are freed from such bonds as time and realistic characterization.

 

Of course as JC often demonstrates post-modern man can also go too far: a tortured soul whose magic/mythical expressions of her free will amount to death and destruction. Freedom through monstrosity is not limited to JC alone – other marginalized groups and individuals can also achieve sovereignty by embracing their (often imposed) monstrous nature. This is the case for both Saladin Chamcha and the non-Anglo-Saxon youth of London in Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses. Whether the monster is a tortured soul or an immigrant, natural or constructed, these texts all argue that freedom is gained through the acceptance and celebration of one’s own monstrosity.

 

Opinions ideas?

i like this idea of the mythical as a modern form British perserverance

 

[ahem also apologies for my spelling I may be considering a PhD but my dyslexia is a bugger somedays]

Dear all

 

I'm currently deciding on a subject matter for my Literature PhD

 

For decades I believe hellblazer has been neglected by the literary establishment.

 

Therefore I would like to identify the comic as a form of literary. Though I specialise in the postmodern qualities I would very much like hear of other approaches to the text that fans [rather than professors] would like to see extensive research into. obviously i sample of issues 1-60 will probably be nessessary

 

I would then submit my thesis to the forum before I submitted it to a university

 

on a sidenote I have lived in Saltburn [the seaside town of issue 13] for most of of my teenage years Hellblazer has stuck with me ever since .

 

Ahem after reading... it wasnt wise to take mushrooms on the beach there though

:wacko:

 

all the best