Yohan "John" Constantine, Hellblazer if John was a British Indian immigrant. Redraw of Yasmine Putri's Hellblazer Rebirth cover!
Homework time! Here's all the research that went into this re-draw.
I love how Yasmine Putri incorporates Christian iconography into her Hellblazer covers, so I wanted to use that as a basis for commentary on British colonialism.
The "saintly John" cover has a great ironic cheeky energy to it. From what I found through research, the two hand gestures John is doing represent blessing and devotion. Having the "blessing" hand be the one to hold a cigarette just makes it so perfect. This man is a curse :3c
[Got these from a reddit post because we can now access reddit in Indonesia.]
Following this, I repurposed the "devotion" hand to represent something from Hinduism instead. I wanted something that still echoed the action of a hand on a heart/chest.
SO THAT'S WHERE MY BOY HANUMAN COMES IN! Actor Dev Patel likens Hanuman-opening-his-chest-to-reveal-Rama-Sita inside as Hanuman's "Superman ripping his shirt open moment". Much like with the Christian iconography's hand-on-chest symbolism, this moment for Hanuman represents his devotion to serve Rama and Sita.
I wanted this new hand gesture to still have a Christian kind of vibe to it, so I looked at "The Incredulity of Saint Thomas" by Caravaggio. Known popularly to the internet as "Jesus showing off his top surgery scars" mostly because it's another instance of a "hole in the chest being touched".
Combining these two paintings, I mixed the soft hand gestures and generally shape of the scar (along with how the skin folds from being pulled) of Caravaggio's painting, with the gory bleeding reveal of another entity and the spiky halo from the Hanuman painting. And to tie all the hand gestures stuff together with the theme of cultural assimilation, I wanted both these hands to be proudly marked with henna.
To replace Rama and Sita, the inside of Yohan Constantine's chest is now a nod to Hellblazer iconography.
Which means bringing back the Golden Boy and the Dead Boy's Heart! I'll always mourn how these two things weren't canonically linked together to represent twin grief, so I'm doing that here. It's really hard to represent the Dead Boy's Heart out of context to make it recognizable though, so I gave it my own flair and put little stiches on it.
I tried to link the golden glow of the Golden Boy to Yohan's halo to lightly call to the idea of one dying for the others' sins. A self sacrifice of love between the two that keeps them eternally devoted and tied to each other. Yohan is a chimera twin, meaning his dead twin's soul and body is embedded within him.
Up next, the sari! I know it's supposed to mimic the robes of Jesus and saints, but honestly when I looked at the original Hellblazer cover Putri drew- I thought "oh my god John's wearing his coat like a sari". So that meant I could enter the wonderful world of sari for men! Recently Indian men have been reclaiming the gender fluidity of the sari, so there's a queer connotation to it as well.
We went with a combination of these looks in terms of pattern, color, and weight of the fabric. There needed to be an echo for the color of John's coat, and the weight of its folds on his shoulder in the cover. I thought it would be fun to make the sari bigger and all encompassing.
While drawing my initial ideas for Yohan Constantine, I was listening to Dev Patel interviews to get myself excited about this idea. In this Tonight Show interview with Jimmy Falon, Patel talks lovingly about his childhood connection to Hanuman. He says he noticed his dad wearing a chain necklace with a Hanuman pendant, and his dad told him that his grandfather will tell the story of Hanuman- a hero of devotion but also one who went through doubt.
As a Hanuman enjoyer myself (us Indonesians regardless of religion are massive fans of Hindu mythology) I couldn't resist adding a Hanuman necklace onto Yohan. I like to think Yohan's mother inherited the necklace from her father (Yohan's grandad), waiting to pass it on to a son. Cheryl is given the necklace before passing it to Yohan after their mom dies from giving birth to Yohan. Depending on the personal belief- women aren't allowed to interact with the idol of Hanuman (or touch his feet) because Hanuman is so devoted to Lord Rama, you guys. You can't distract him with your womanly ways. He's too passionate about this man. Queer reading ensue. Regardless of where Yohan is at on his journey to cultural acceptance in a country that villainizes it, he will always wear this necklace.
So there it is! All the cultural influences that went into this cover remix! As a final touch, I noticed Putri's composition demonstrates "heavy patterned detail on top half, simple on the bottom half". But since I've migrated all the heavy pattern and motif work down to Yohan himself in my version of the cover, I thought it would balance it out to keep the top half of my version simple.
