Even before I’d read a single issue of Hellblazer itself, I think I’d have described John Constantine as my favourite comics character. He’s just the most wonderfully complex and contradictory individual out there: easy to love – or at least admire – one moment and feel contempt for the next, someone who wins even as he’s losing and loses even as he’s winning, and who’d sacrifice his friends and family to get his way yet just as soon sacrifice himself for their sakes. He appears in others’ comics as the arch-manipulator, with as many plans as Batman, appearing suddenly in the corner (usually sparking a Silk Cut) and announcing his arrival with an “Alright, squire?”; and yet in his own series, he seems to be on a personal quest to discover just how far it’s possible for one man to fall and suffer, and how many times. He’s the best and worst of humanity all at once, wrapped up in a sarcastic, chain-smoking, trenchcoated Scouser-turned-Londoner. Is it any wonder I spent much of my late teens wanting a tan trenchcoat of my own?

I later discovered the Garth Ennis run – although mostly in the wrong order, starting with a cheaply-acquired copy of the Tainted Love trade before then catching up with Dangerous Habits and finally the other volumes – and I still think it’s by far the best take on the character overall. Jamie Delano’s run had some good stuff, and was of course key in shaping the character (indeed, the Constantine we know nowadays is far more Delano’s than Alan Moore’s – I think by rights, Jamie should have a co-creator credit of some kind), but I think Ennis was equally instrumental in developing not only John himself, but the world around him (perhaps it’s just the length of time he was on the series, but I think he probably created far more characters/elements that have endured since than any other writer who’s worked on the book). Dangerous Habits is perhaps the most astounding instance of a writer taking over an existing character that comics have ever seen, and it sets the tone for a breakneck run filled with ups and downs (but mostly downs), gruesome tragedy, heartbreak, and bitter twist after bitter twist – before the almost unbearably bleak (yet damned near perfect) closing arc, Rake at the Gates of Hell. It’s easily the best work of Ennis’ career in my book (even though Hitman and Preacher both, in their own ways, run it close), and frankly, as much as I’ve enjoyed the work of others on it, I’d even be happy if Hellblazer as a series began and ended with it.

That is, with perhaps one particular exception. Because although Ennis’ run on the title is my favourite, I think the best single Constantine story came from the pen of somebody else – Neil Gaiman. In fact, it had been Gaiman who’d introduced me to the excellence of the character in the first place, courtesy of appearances in Sandman and, especially, a star turn in issue #2 of The Books of Magic. He also wrote a solitary issue of Hellblazer as well, though – issue #27, with a story illustrated by Dave McKean called “Hold Me”. It’s actually a difficult story to talk about in too much detail – it’s one of those where saying too much about the plot spoils the potential reading experience. But it’s an extremely touching and deeply layered story about the lonely and the homeless, and is exactly the sort of blend of the supernatural and true-to-life (a certain part of the story was actually based on a real experience of Gaiman’s) that Hellblazer at its best has always been capable of.

It’s a beautiful comic, too – it couldn’t be anything else, being as how it’s drawn by Dave McKean – and features a distinctive, muted colouring style in which characters blend into the murky background of a grey, grey London in a perfect silent metaphor for the character. In fact, perhaps “beautiful” doesn’t quite sum it up – “ugly, but in a beautiful way” is more accurate. The cover is a work of art, too – completely different from the rest of the series’ covers at the time (even down to the layout, and even though McKean was the regular cover artist) it marks out the issue as something special and unique. Furthermore, and just to emphasise that it’s a great comic about the character, too, the issue contains possibly my favourite line of Constantine dialogue ever – sick of the racist droning of a cab driver, Constantine hops out, hurriedly pays the exact change, and is asked by the driver whether he gets a tip. “Sure,” says John. “It’s this: get a new mind. The one you’ve got now is narrow and full of crap.”

“Hold Me” has always been a particularly sought-after issue of Hellblazer – even before Gaiman’s explosion into superstar status was it thus, courtesy of a particularly low print-run. I first encountered it in the collection of DC-published Gaiman miscellany Midnight Days, where Gaiman even discusses this rarity. Remembering and discussing it now, however, has reawakened my interest in getting hold of a copy one of these days (despite already having it in a trade, it’s something I feel I have to own in its original form, and whenever I see a back issue rack I flick to the “H” section in the hope that someone will have put it out, unaware of its market value) – and I’m pleased to discover that, presumably due to it becoming more widely available thanks to a Hellblazer short story TPB from around the time of the Constantine film, list prices seem to have gone down somewhat and you can get it for well under a tenner. It might still seem overpriced for a single issue, but it’s still absolutely worth owning, and holding on to.