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John Constantine sightings

Started by JayzusB.Christ, 22 April, 2019, 12:11:34 PM

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JayzusB.Christ

While it's a criminal waste that a decent Hellblazer adaptation has yet to be made (and that he's been reduced to a bland DCU part-player), I'm interested that a number of his creators claim to have spotted him in real life.

Now, the reasons for this aren't entirely inexplicable to me- Constantine doesn't have a particularly unusual appearance, and if you spend weeks focussing on a character you'll unconsciously pick out a lookalike straightaway.

I'm familiar with the Alan Moore story, but does anyone know of the others?
"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest"

IAMTHESYSTEM

I guess there must be many men who look remarkably similar to John Constantine but to see your fictional character in real life must be freaky. I believe a Bootlegger known to F Scott Fitzgerald named Max Gerlach was the inspiration behind The Great Gatsby, but that's a real character transferred to a book, not the other way around. I must admit I've never read or heard of any Author seeing their creation in the flesh as it is undoubtedly a troubling experience. Creators stalked by their creations is the stuff of many a pulp storyline but to have it happen in reality must be genuinely frightening. I wonder if some 'fan' was playing a joke on Alan Moore if he saw Constantine, bedraggled coat cigarette and all.
"You may live to see man-made horrors beyond your comprehension."

http://artriad.deviantart.com/
― Nikola Tesla

Frank

Quote from: JayzusB.Christ on 22 April, 2019, 12:11:34 PM
... if you spend weeks focussing on a character you'll unconsciously pick out a lookalike straightaway.

That seems about the size of it, to me. Plus a disposition towards magical thinking, whimsy, and a more fun way of engaging with the world than us working slobs generally muster:



Superman isn't Constantine and Morrison didn't create him, of course. Morrison created King Mob then ended up staring at him in the mirror every morning*, but that's getting even further away from your original question.

Can't remember if it's in Supergods, but G-Mo claimed he wrote Ragged Robin as the kind of girl he wanted to meet in real life, then ended up in a relationship with her. But Morrison says lots of Noel Edmonds stuff like that in (very entertaining) interviews.


* And wrote a story where King Mob was tortured to within an inch of his life, then almost died from a viral infection. Typing that, those two things don't seem to have anything to do with each other at all, but I defy anyone to listen to Zenith's dad tell that story and respond with anything other than a sincere Keanu Reeves WHOAH!

M.I.K.

#3
Encounters with John Constantine are listed on the wikipedia page... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Constantine#In_real_life

Don't know of many other fictional characters popping up in real life, but do know of loads of instances of unlikely fictional events subsequently coming true. I've even had that happen to me a few times, (could totally be explained away as coincidence, of course).

I do know of a rather freaky example that happened to Doug Moench, though. Excerpt from "Mutants and Mystics" by Jeffrey Kripal...

QuoteMoench had just finished writing a scene for a Planet of the Apes comic book about a black-hooded gorilla named Brutus. The scene involved Brutus invading a human hero's home, where he grabbed the man's mate by the neck and held a gun to her head in order to manipulate the hero. Just as Doug finished this scene, he heard his wife call for him in an odd sort of way from the living room across the house. He got up, walked the length of the house, and entered the living room only to encounter a man in a black hood with one arm around his wife's neck and the other holding a gun to her head.

"It was exactly what I had written...it was so, so immediate in relation to the writing and such an exact duplicate of what I had written, that it became an instant altered state. The air in the room congealed, became almost like fog, and yet, paradoxically, I could see with greater clarity. I could see the individual threads of his black hood".

Doug's emotional response to this series of events was a very understandable and natural one. He became obsessed with the black-hooded intruder for months, then years. More immediately, he found it very difficult to write, so terrified was he of that eerie connection between what he might write and what might happen: "It really does make you wonder. Are you seeing the future? Are you creating a reality? Should you give up writing forever after something like that happens? I don't know."


Funt Solo

In 1996, I accidentally teleported famous actor Dominic West (The Wire). 

I was explaining to someone the coincidence that I'd watched someone (Mr. West) film a scene outside my place of work and then bumped into them on holiday 800 miles away.  As I was explaining it I gestured with my hands and said "And he just appeared in front of me", at which point he just appeared in front of me (600 miles from the second location).

Or was it merely a coincidence?  Or was he following me? I wondered about this as I took another drag on the spliff.

Having vaguely straightened up since then and listened to healthy doses of logic from the likes of Hitchens and Dawkins, I realize it was coincidence.  Also, I've been trying every five minutes for the past 30 years to teleport him back to me - and it never works.  Even when I'm right outside his house.
++ A-Z ++  coma ++

Goosegash

Quote from: Frank on 22 April, 2019, 05:21:48 PM
Quote from: JayzusB.Christ on 22 April, 2019, 12:11:34 PM
... if you spend weeks focussing on a character you'll unconsciously pick out a lookalike straightaway.

That seems about the size of it, to me. Plus a disposition towards magical thinking, whimsy, and a more fun way of engaging with the world than us working slobs generally muster:



Superman isn't Constantine and Morrison didn't create him, of course. Morrison created King Mob then ended up staring at him in the mirror every morning*, but that's getting even further away from your original question.

Can't remember if it's in Supergods, but G-Mo claimed he wrote Ragged Robin as the kind of girl he wanted to meet in real life, then ended up in a relationship with her. But Morrison says lots of Noel Edmonds stuff like that in (very entertaining) interviews.


* And wrote a story where King Mob was tortured to within an inch of his life, then almost died from a viral infection. Typing that, those two things don't seem to have anything to do with each other at all, but I defy anyone to listen to Zenith's dad tell that story and respond with anything other than a sincere Keanu Reeves WHOAH!

I like how Morrison describes the process of writing himself into his stories as putting on a "fiction suit". Although now having read a good portion of the comics he talks extremely fervently about, I am pretty sure Supergods is about 75% bullshit. But it is an incredibly entertaining read.

It reminded me strongly of another book by an equally notorious Scot, Bill Drummond's "45". Drummond is a born storyteller and share's Morrison's interest in magical thinking but I suspect most of his tales are probably a touch exaggerated, shall we say.

Dandontdare

I saw a Constantine-a-like in a pub once and I'm sure he was doing it deliberately, rather than just being a bloke in a raincoat - I pointed him out but unfortunately none of the people I was with knew who I was talking about so couldn't confirm the accuracy.

Greg M.

King Mob did walk past me once - under the Hielanman's Umbrella in Glasgow - but I'm fairly sure it was indeed just Grant Morrison.

JayzusB.Christ

Thanks, all, they're the Constantine stories I was looking for.

I remember the Morrison Superman encounter from his book, and his conjuring up of Red Robin from an interview.   He's highly entertaining alright, though one sometimes suspects he's embellishing a tad.  He did, after all, claim that he'd never written a rape scene - tell that to Dan Dare and Britney freaking Spears.
"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest"

JayzusB.Christ

Speaking of Constantine leaking out into reality,  here's Mucous Membrane.  TBH it doesn't really work for me; I'd expected something faster and more aggressive like Sham 69 or summat.  The accent is spot on,  but this is more rock than 70s punk.

https://youtu.be/lV6Sl_u1s3M
"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest"

Trout

I killed Burgess Meredith.

One day, a friend and I were discussing him and I said: "I thought he was dead."

BURGESS MEREDITH DIED THE NEXT DAY.

Funt Solo

Quote from: Trout on 24 May, 2019, 01:19:44 PM
I killed Burgess Meredith.

One day, a friend and I were discussing him and I said: "I thought he was dead."

BURGESS MEREDITH DIED THE NEXT DAY.

Could you have a conversation about how rich you think I am?
++ A-Z ++  coma ++

Trout


karlos

Watched Lonlieness of the Long Distant Runner, starring Tom Courtenay, as a teen on VHS, one afternoon in the 90s.

Just after it finshed, I saw a car pull up, my mother got out, waved as the car drove off and walked into the house.

"I've just got a lift off Tom Courtenay", she said.

Proudhuff

Quote from: Trout on 24 May, 2019, 01:19:44 PM
I killed Burgess Meredith.

One day, a friend and I were discussing him and I said: "I thought he was dead."

BURGESS MEREDITH DIED THE NEXT DAY.

I did that with Elvis and Groucho in 1977 when I was in Canada, the man I'd discussed these stars with decided to talk about Nixon for the next wo days to no avail...
DDT did a job on me