Hellblazer Poll Results

I guess, given a recent slight bump upward in my overall pageviews and the efforts I made to promote this poll, that I was expecting a somewhat higher turnout than I got.  I suppose the results prove, if nothing else, that the majority of Gutter Talk readers didn't read Hellblazer, and/or that not a lot of Hellblazer readers also read Gutter Talk. They may, of course, prove nothing of the sort, or, in fact nothing very much at all.  Nonetheless, the end results of my favorite Hellblazer writer poll, meager though they may be, were pretty much what one would have expected at the outset.

The final issue of Ennis' run

In the category of regular writer, Garth Ennis walked away with the majority of votes.  The remainder were split between initial writer Jamie Delano, Brian Azzarello, and Mike Carey.  

That Ennis won is not surprising, given that Hellblazer probably reached its peak of popularity during his run, and the series helped launch him into comics super-stardom.  My own vote went to Ennis, and Hellblazer remains my favorite work by him.

There was, briefly, one vote for Paul Jenkins, but it didn't show up in the final tally.  I guess someone must have changed their mind.  That's too bad, because what I've read of Jenkins' run was pretty good.  Also, from meeting him briefly at cons, he seems like a really nice guy and he's a fine musician.  Several years ago at Mid-Ohio Con I bought from him a CD by a band called Grave Goods, of which he was a member.

I suppose I might be a little surprised to see that Peter Milligan got no votes.  He's been a popular writer, especially with the Vertigo crowd, for a couple of decades now.  Furthermore, taking into account his fifty-one issues and one Annual of Hellblazer, and the eight issues of Justice League Dark  in which he essentially created the New 52 version of John Constantine, not to mention the three part story in Shade--The Changing Man in which Constantine appeared, Milligan has written more appearances of the character than any other writer.

Given that little fact, it occurs to me to wonder why he wasn't tapped to write the new Constantine title debuting next week.  Of course, I may have answered my own question.  Perhaps after writing the character for over four years, he needed a break from John Constantine.

Oops! Forgot this one--#32 by Dick Foreman

The guest writer category was flawed from the outset, as, despite my efforts to include everyone who had ever written the title in my survey, I left a couple of names off the list.  A comment on the initial post announcing this poll pointed out that I had omitted Dick Foreman, who apparently wrote issue #32, and Eddie Campbell's four issue storyline just prior to Jenkins taking over the reigns of the title also slipped my mind.  The omission of Foreman is excusable, I suppose, as I haven't read that issue and overlooked it in my research on the Comic Book Database.  However, given that I actually own copies of the issues containing Campbell's contribution, that omission is just plain stupid. 

Still, despite the omissions, the contest in this category could have been expected to come down to a race between super-stars Neil Gaiman and Grant Morrison.  That's pretty much just what happened, with Morrison winning out for his two parter in issues #25 and #26.

So, that closes the books on yet another Gutter Talk  poll.