scans_daily: The story DC Comics refused to publish

superboyprime (

superboyprime) wrote in

scans_daily,
@ 2010-10-22 03:30 pm UTC

Entry tags:

char: john constantine, creator: warren ellis, publisher: vertigo, title: hellblazer

The story DC Comics refused to publish

Towards the end of the 20th century, Ellis wrote a John Constantine story called "Shoot," which DC canned. As Ellis explains it: "Years ago, I wrote a brief run on the DC Vertigo horror comic JOHN CONSTANTINE: HELLBLAZER. Brief, because I wrote a horror story therein called SHOOT. SHOOT was about schoolyard slayings in the United States. It was completed before Columbine happened, but scheduled to appear not long after. The regime at DC Comics at the time decided that it could not be released in its completed form. I refused to go along with the changes they wanted to make. They decided not to publish the book at all. I quit."

This week, DC finally published the story, as the lead in VERTIGO RESURRECTED, a 100-page anthology of rare Vertigo stories.

So we're clear, it's one of those stories where the title and credits don't appear until the final page. That's the final page, not the beginning of the story.

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deepspaceartist
2010-10-23 03:39 am UTC (link)

I wasn't talking about the shooter so much as the victim. Can you imagine any of the victims at Westside standing still for the shooter, much less encouraging them to fire? Heck, even Constantine states that he's talking about not the shooter but the intended victims as the hopeless nihlistic one who just accept that they're going to die. And they're ten year old kids. Have you ever met a classful of depressed, nihlistic sixth graders?

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stolisomancer
2010-10-23 03:58 am UTC (link)

I've never met a depressed ten-year-old, no. That doesn't mean I don't believe they exist.

The CDC's studies of the period indicate that the suicide rate among ten to fourteen-year-olds in the United States in 1998 was approximately 2.34 per 100,000. In 2000, it was 1.5 per 100,000, or approximately 300 out of a little under twenty million.

It's rare, yes, but the idea of a suicidal ten-year-old who, when looking down the barrel of a classmate's revolver, just doesn't care enough to try to stop him? It isn't that far-fetched an idea.

Also, you know, Constantine's involved.

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	no subject starwolf_oakley 2010-10-23 05:50 am UTC (link)
	Depressed ten-year-olds, I can imagine. So nihilistic/autistic/bored their survival instincts are shut off? Well, this is a HELLBLAZER story. (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

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destroyed
2010-10-23 07:30 am UTC (link)

As a teacher, I can tell you - depressed, nihilistic sixth graders TOTALLY exist. They're only guaranteed to retain that spark of childhood up through about age 7 or 8. 9 and up is pretty much fair game for them to start being shitheads by choice.

That's actually a pretty big problem with today's kids - many of them take themselves too seriously due to parental over-grooming. The age of "everyone's a winner!" has a fucked up a generation or two, BIG TIME.

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	no subject stig 2010-11-13 09:58 pm UTC (link)
	And of course, it's still fucking them up because there's so many ways to simulate being a 'winner' in modern culture - the internet has just poured salt onto the wound. (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

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