Stitched & Smudged

"Just a bloke documenting the chaotic history of John Constantine. From 'apocryphal' cameos to his Vertigo glory days—tracing the art, the cynical attitude, and every single cigarette in between."

[constantinegrayson]

04/1986 🍃 Swamp Thing #47 — “The Parliament of Trees”

Artist: Stan Woch

👀 WTH is on his head, and where the hell is the trenchcoat? Well… we’re in the Chilean rainforest in April, and John has swapped his usual London uniform for a look that screams accidental occult tourist dressed in mustard yellow safari gear.

🔸—Cargo shirt and trousers: full monochrome mustard yellow. Perfect for blending in… absolutely nowhere. The shirt’s just an extended Silk Cut storage system at this point — who even needs a survival kit? John certainly doesn’t.

🟤—Terrain boots: the only sensible choice; regular shoes wouldn’t survive ten minutes in ancient swamp mud.

🟥—Red headband: full hippie energy. Looks like he’s been smoking with shamans for three days straight, convinced he’s reached enlightenment (or just severely sleep-deprived and mildly dehydrated). Also: he’s been there like 20 minutes.

Here, Constantine looks almost too clean—like a pre-phase version of the trench coat becoming a cursed artifact soaked in nicotine, bad decisions, and dried blood.

“Good thing I’m on the case, with a team of experts… Frank, Ben, Anne-Marie… same team we had in Newcastle…uh… not that that’s a particularly good example.”

[constantinegrayson]

03/1986 — Swamp Thing #46: “Revelations”

Artist: Stephen R. Bissette | Inker: John Totleben

“Th-th-th-that’s all, folks!”— Benjamin opens, and the party kicks off with a Looney Tunes gag.

Johnny takes Swamp T. to the Monitor’s satellite: this isn't the end of the world, it’s the end of all worlds. The solution: scrape together what’s left and pray it works. Welcome to the costume “party” where heroes try to save us all. The Stranger, as usual, looks at Constantine as if he shouldn't exist… but he does. John reduces Newcastle to: “a dead girl and a few days in the loony bin”—a real success story...

🔴(They mention this happened the previous winter in 1985; but Newcastle was in 1978 according to later chronologies, a minor error we’ll forgive).

Constantine and Alexander Luthor, lays out the situation for Swamp Thing: la Brujería wants to take advantage of the physical chaos to unleash an unknown entity and, if there’s time, destroy Heaven. American Gothic, it seems, was just basic training for our plant friend.

💎 Earring in his left ear, insomnia, and a foul mood ever since Newcastle and the Emma incident—whom the imbunche already killed back in #37 and now finishes off with Anne Marie, because being close to John Constantine is, statistically speaking, a bad idea.

To wrap things up—because if the multiverse is going to die, it might as well end with a field trip—we point Swamp toward the Parliament of Trees, near the source of the Tefé River; it seems the name struck a chord with him.

[constantinegrayson]

🚬💙 02/1986 Swamp Thing #45

Artist: Stan Woch______Inker: Alfredo Alcala

Back to the typical blue suit

Swamp… a Lovecraftian monster? Poor little thing

'See, as it happens, I’ve got a couple of front row tickets for the end of the universe. I thought it’d be best to use them now. I mean, you never know... There may not be a second performance.’

Benjamin Cox and Frank North (they are still alive and… important fact, we see them as ghosts of “Christmas past” quite often in Hellblazer)

[constantinegrayson]

01/1986 🦇🥃 Swamp Thing #44

Artists: Stephen Bissette, Ron Randall, and John Totleben.

Crisis on Infinite Earths According to Constantine

The sky is red, apocalyptic lightning is striking, and humanity is going extinct. John's reaction? Lighting up a cigarette and telling his hysterical friend Dayton to relax, because the worst is yet to come. (And yes, he is a fan of 2001: A Space Odyssey).

Batman at Mento's wedding? Small world for these billionaire superheroes. The Bat flees with his cape, and Constantine is that friend who drops the classic line: "That's the thing about nights like this. You never know who you're going to run into..."

[constantinegrayson]

💛🖤 07/1986: The New Teen Titans Vol 2 #22 Part Three "Friends and Foes"

Artist: Tom Mandrake

“Hey, Mate, Sorry T’Keep You Waiting”

Steve Dayton (Mento), Beast Boy's stepfather, spends the comic bored out of his mind waiting for John

After losing control of his helmet and attacking Changeling and Cyborg, Constantine appears at the very last moment (on the final page), and Mento is formally recruited by him. This scene connects directly to the magical events of Swamp Thing #50.

[constantinegrayson]

💥 July 1985 – Crisis on Infinite Earths #4

Artist: George Pérez

💚While reality crumbles, John Constantine makes a historic cameo sporting a neon green suit, proving you can still have style even when the sky is falling to pieces.

"...So self-assured are you that you cannot see the very world crumbling around you."

[constantinegrayson]

🎨🖌️#38 to #42: Various glimpses of his aesthetic in these issues.

Lead Artist: Stephen R. Bissette

It is the beginning of John's era as Swamp Thing's mentor. In "American Gothic."

Here he was with Emma, and half of his friends hadn't died yet 😅; he spends his time leading Swamp Thing across America, claiming it's to teach him what the Elemental is capable of.

Of course, Abby is not pleased that John is involving Swampy.

[constantinegrayson]

🪄Now, for the first real appearance of John Constantine in Swamp Thing #37 in June 1985.

Artist: Rick Veitch.

🧥 Burberry Trench Coat

He looks like Sting in Quadrophenia, but that battered brown trench coat was actually Alan Moore’s try-hard nod to Sam Spade from The Maltese Falcon—a pretentious attempt to blend 1930s noir with modern "street mysticism."

Oh, and this is the only time you'll see him in white gloves. The artist thought they looked stylish, but Moore axed them immediately, reminding him that the guy is supposed to be a trashy street magician with a punk past, not a magician at a kid's birthday party.

(Chronology of John Constantine's Artists and Appearances… or at least I'll try)