GRAPHIC NOVEL
John Constantine, Hellblazer
Red Sepulchre

Author: Mike Carey
Artists: Steve Dillon and Marcelo Frusin
Titan Books
RRP: £8.99
ISBN 1 84576 068 9
Available 24 June 2005


Back from the dead (or at least from America), John Constantine has returned to his native England to begin picking up the pieces of the life he left behind. His usual luck still hold, though - on arrival he stumbles knee-deep into the black jetsam of someone else's supernatural power trip, and once again he's obliged to clean up the mess...

More worrying than this occult thuggery, however, is the disappearance of his niece Gemma Masters, who's turning out to be a bit too much like her Uncle John for anyone's good. She's not the first northern girl to follow the siren call of the Smoke, but she is the only one in recent memory with Constantine blood - and that's just what London's predators have scented. Blinded by her own eagerness, Gemma has made herself into a lever to be used against her uncle - and she's a tool which the seekers of the Red Sepulchre are only too willing to break.

I know I've moaned about it before, but thanks to the new Constantine movie all Hellblazer books are now unhelpfully being retitled with the prefix John Constantine. So where should comic fans look for their fix of Hellblazer now? Under "H" for Hellblazer? "C" for Constantine? Or "J" for John? More importantly, where will our lovely reviews editor stick this on the graphic novel archive list of reviews?

Red Sepulchre is an entertaining collection which will not disappoint Hellblazer, Constantine or John fans. The art work is impressive (but then I am a huge Steve Dillon fan) and the writing keeps this tale rolling along at a decent enough pace.

Nick Smithson

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