The story DC Comics refused to publish

[superboyprime]

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.

Comments

[stolisomancer]

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.

[starwolf_oakley]

Depressed ten-year-olds, I can imagine. So nihilistic/autistic/bored their survival instincts are shut off? Well, this is a HELLBLAZER story.