The darkest corners of the DC Universe may fear the man called Constantine, but the famous magical superhero is being given a different case--and a different age-- in his newest outing. Aimed at younger readers, The Mystery of the Meanest Teacher: A Johnny Constantine Graphic Novel is beyond belief.
The new adventure for Constantine comes as the latest in DC's slate of middle grade stories starring their biggest names. For some, that means all new young reader versions of Green Lantern, or a new Arrow-esque graphic novel for Oliver Queen. But in the case of DC's master of the occult, the sardonic sorcerer at the heart of Justice League Dark, things are going a little differently. Thanks to writer Ryan North (Unbeatable Squirrel Girl) and artist Derek Charm (Star Wars Adventures), the debut of 'Kid Constantine' in the new Johnny Constantine Graphic Novel is taking the Hellblazer back to school. Literally.
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The decision to reimagine John Constantine as a teenage student abroad in America is as big a swing as a DC graphic novel could take, and the results are guaranteed to surprise even the most skeptical. With his attitude unchanged, and his oldest (and closest) ally at his side, North and Charm may have done the impossible--create a Constantine adventure that is actually suitable for children. Screen Rant got the chance to speak with the team, and readers can find our fill interview and preview of The Mystery of the Meanest Teacher below.
Screen Rant: What was your personal connection with the DC heroes of the Justice League Dark variety, and John Constantine in particular, when you were beginning this project?
Ryan North: I felt like my initial knowledge of Justice League came from the Bruce Timm animated series, where he didn't have a huge appearance a lot of the time. I guess this makes me sound super nerdy, but through the process of just reading about comic characters in my free time when I was a kid, I became very acquainted with the whole universe, and Constantine in particular.
Derek Charm: Yeah, same. I've always known about Constantine and Hellblazer the comic, but it was always kind of scary to me as a kid. So, it wasn't till I was much older that I actually went back and read Swamp Thing, and all that stuff that he first appears in. And ever since, he's just been someone I was aware of until recently.
SR: If you asked comic book fans who are the least kid-friendly DC heroes to work with, I think Constantine would be on that list. But with this book existing, that didn't turn out to be the case.
Ryan North: Yeah. The original idea for a kid Constantine book came from my editor. When she just said the phrase, "Kid Constantine," I laughed. "That's incredible. That should be impossible. I wonder if you can do it."
Derek Charm: Yeah, Ryan sent me a text being like, "Do you want to work on a kid Constantine comic?" while we were still doing Squirrel Girl. I think it was just ending. And I just wrote back, "Yes," period, because it was the craziest thing. I had to try it.
SR: Is that how you take your comic jobs and assignments in this industry? "This is a crazy idea."
Derek Charm: Usually with Ryan, that's how it works out.
Ryan North: Yeah. No, I feel like the attraction to it for me was that it did sound like such a wild idea. It's like, how do you do this? Can you actually turn this most adults of the DC characters into a middle grade hero and still have it be Constantine? Not have it be this watered down, shave-off-the-rough-edges, but have be this young, abrasive, maybe dangerous to know, kind of guy.
Have him be a 12 year old who's got a Hellblazer T-shirt and a lollipop hanging out of his mouth instead of a cigarette. Those things to transform him into this middle grade version of himself. It was a lot of fun to imagine what that could be like.
SR: Do you start by trying to take Constantine and de-age him? Or is it a case of starting with a mindset of a younger reader, and then bring in parts of Constantine?
Ryan North: Well, that's interesting. I think for me, the approach was, "Let's imagine what Constantine would look like if you were making him a middle grade hero." So, I guess it's more towards the the de-aging thing.
But this book is outside of the normal DC continuity, so it didn't have to be tied to what had been established as bad stuff that had happened to him when he was a kid. Which is nice, because some of that stuff was darker than where we wanted to go.
It was sort of taking the core of him, and what would he look like in this scenario. Derek, you did different sketches for what he could look like as a kid, right? Or did you just nail it right off the bat?
Derek Charm: I did a few, but it was like you were saying. It's Constantine if he was a kid, not when he was a kid. So, you figure out way to have the overcoat and the suit that's not a suit - it's just a T-shirt with a suit printed on it. Just ways to make it look natural for a kid to be wearing, but still call back to the original design of the character.
SR: Derek, is it a matter of taking a Constantine story and making it seem kid-friendly just by the art style applied to it? Have a foot totally in the realm of Constantine, but also keeping it safe for kids who are skittish or scare-averse?
Derek Charm: For those scenes that are in essentially Hell, where he's hanging out with the demons, you try to keep it this cartoony version of that. And the demons aren't scary, they're kind of funny-looking. I definitely thought about that, and how this could get really dark or too scary - but you just think about not taking it to that level. You know what I mean?
It kind of just worked out. I get a sense also from Ryan's writing, just the vibe we're going for in whatever project we're working on together. So, it didn't really take a lot of second guessing, because the jokes and the way it's written dictate the way it looks a little bit.
Ryan North: I will say, when I saw your demon designs, I was like, "Man, I wish we had these people in the book more now." Because they're so fun and funny. Funny demons are great, but they're just the beginning.
SR: The tone of the writing comes across immediately, and you use a few different devices to lighten it. But even if this isn't Constantine in the adult way that readers are used to, it's still outside of the normal convention. Was that part of the process of unlocking what this actually looks like?
Ryan North: Yeah. One of the big parts for me in writing it was the idea of, "Let's take him outside of his comfort zone," which is the demons in the old world, and bring him to North America where most of his spells don't work properly.
He's on the wrong foot, and he's having to compensate with overconfidence for what he's used to feeling. Which felt both very true to Constantine, but also very true to the experience of that age. You're not really sure what's going on, but you figure you can probably bluff your way through if you play it properly. And for me, that felt very Constantine-esque. As soon as things are going poorly for him and he's having to scramble, you've got Constantine.
SR: The solution to that is the other protagonist of this story, Anna, who I know that fans of Constantine and Justice League Dark will see as another treat. How did you go about adapting the girl every fan wants to see at his side?
Ryan North : For me, she felt easier to figure out as a child. For as much as Constantine is faking and scrambling, Anna strikes me as someone who is sincerely confident. She's done the homework, and she knows her stuff in a way that Constantine doesn't. Which made them fun to play off each other, but also very natural friends.
And I was impressed by the way that Derek drew her, because it felt like - I guess I should say spoilers. Spoiler: She is obviously based on Zatanna, and her costume as an adult is very distinctive and not something you put a child in. But Derek made a look for her that I felt captured the essence of the character without being literally that character's look. That was really neat.
Derek Charm: Yeah, I did a lot of designs for her. Because, yeah, that was the hardest character to adapt out of all of the existing characters that we were using. Just because it's such a performative outfit she normally wears, and a kid wouldn't wear anything like that. So, it was just making her a little goth-esque, and bringing in purple and other subtle ways to hint at her adult costume.
SR: Obviously, when Ryan pitched this, you said yes. What was it like envisioning an American boarding school with demon monsters and a teacher suspected of being a witch?
Derek Charm: We've worked together before, so I know that Ryan puts things in that are fun to draw. But once Ryan sent over the outline of the story and everything, I saw that - another spoiler - Etrigan then demon is in it, and all these characters that I love and that would be so fun to draw. I got really excited about it. I think I designed some before I even had to start working on these.
SR: This obviously takes place out of the DC Universe, but is there a challenge in making it cohesive as the school spooks spin out?
Derek Charm: Not really, because I feel like once I had Constantine and Anna down, that was the basis for everything else. Anything else that got really crazy and weird would still be within that style that was established by those two characters.
Ryan North: You took those two characters, and you were like, "Now I know how to draw a portal to an overcrowded demon world?"
Derek Charm: It would never stray stylistically too far from those two, even if there were monsters and demons and these horrible things. It would never look like they wouldn't belong in this universe.
SR: Where there any personal demons being exercised in this 'Meanest Teacher,' as the title refers to? The title suggests one heck of a character, and the artwork and characterization certainly delivers.
Ryan North: Thank you. I had teachers that, as a kid, I was like, "This is the meanest teacher in the world. She's so mean that she should go to jail." And then as an adult, I'm like, "She was actually an efficient teacher, she just wouldn't let me goof around in class." She was doing her job well, and I learned more because of it.
It was fun to explore this idea of having a meanest teacher as an adult and seeing both sides of it. But then there's a reason why she's so mean, and there's a reason why she's behaving the way she does. So, I don't think it was exorcising demons so much as it was getting to be that kid again, and remembering what it felt like to have missed a day and not know what's going on anyone.
I missed a day for where we did multiplication in school, and I was so shy that I couldn't asked what I had missed. So, I had to invent multiplication from first principles, knowing what the result was and working backwards. And I think I got most of it. I'm pretty sure I know how multiplication works now. But I would rather invent math from scratch than stand out in class, which is who I was at that age.
SR: This book is recommended for readers 8 to 12, and I have blocked all memory of those years in school. That's when kids find out what being hurt is, I think, or having your feelings hurt.
Ryan North: When you're feeling this stuff at that age, a lot of it you're feeling for the first time. It's so much more intense, and everything feels life or death. When you have a fight with a friend, that's it, this friendship is 100% over because they're the worst person in the world. And how could they betrayed me this way? It's so intense.
You don't know that it can get better and that you can patch things up, because you've never done it before. It worked both for making these relationship between the characters feel real, because I remember what that felt like. But also it works great for a story because you are in this heightened space where you can be best friends with someone on Monday and hate their guts on Tuesday, and then maybe patch things up a few days later.
You're in this heightened almost soap opera world, but it's real life at that age, because you don't know how to handle your feelings. Everything's on 11. It reminded me of when I was watching my nephew, who's 7. I watched him be told he can't have something he wanted, and he fell to his knees and pounded the ground. I was like, "Wow. If I did that, it would have to be a performance". But this is what he was feeling; he had to fall to his knees and pound the ground in frustration. That was really impressive, I think, and evocative.
Derek Charm: Visualizing these moments, it's all in Ryan's writing. You can also feel it, like he was saying, because we still go through these embarrassing moments or these fights with friends or whatever as adults. But you just dial it up so much higher when you're a kid, because the stakes seem higher and your world is smaller.
SR: In the page where Anna first realizes that she's not the only weird kid, there was so much conveyed without the writing necessarily.
Ryan North: 100%, there's that sense of, "I thought I was alone. And here's someone like me." It's crazy when you write the comic, and you're like, "I understand this book." And then you get Derek's art back, and it's like, "Oh, wow. I'm reading this, and I'm feeling emotions. I was not expecting to feel," because the artist captured it so well. Which is the highest compliment I can give. All this to say I'm very happy that we work together so well.
SR: If 7 to 10 years from now, you hear someone say they met John Constantine and Zatanna and Etrigan through Kid Constantine, how would you feel?
Ryan North: Oh, you mean figuratively? I thought you were talking literally, because there's this whole story about people who have written John Constantine and then have met John Constantine. It is the greatest compliment when you get to be someone's introduction to the character, or get to be someone's introduction to the medium even. I feel like that's a huge privilege. And I would hope that someone who first encounters Constantine and Zatanna and Etrigan and all these other characters in this book will find them waiting in a slightly different but still fully recognizable way 10 years down the road, when they're reading a whole world of Constantine comics that are different but similar to what they've seen.
Derek Charm: Yeah, totally. I discovered these characters when I was a little kid through the DC Superhero Dictionary, and I had no idea who any of these characters were. And then you find out there's this whole world of comics, and suddenly you recognize them from these books you had as a kid. So, that's amazing if that would be case.
SR: You dedicate this book to 'all the kid Constantines out there.' A chilling thought.
Both: [Laugh]
SR: Who are those young readers, in your minds?
Ryan North: For me, they're the kids who feel like they don't fit where they are, and maybe the world isn't built for them. "I don't have a place in this. I'm always the outsider." I felt like that for a very long time. I say it's universal, but it's universal to me. And I'm hoping that a book like this helps them feel a little less alone. There's people like me out there, you just haven't met them yet. Which is a hopeful thought.
Derek Charm: Yeah, that's how I interpreted it too. I wanted to say we dedicated it to all the little demons out there, but Ryan's got got it across much better.
SR: While a 'Johnny Constantine' mystery admittedly felt to me like it could be a stretch, within the first couple of pages I just thought, "Oh no, this is perfect."
Ryan North: I hope that's universal. The reason I laughed when I heard the phrase "kid Constantine" is I thought, "Okay, that's amazing. How do we make that work?" It sounds like it's got to be a bad idea. How can we make this into a good idea?
Which I think is a lot of the joy of comics. If you describe Batman as a guy who dresses up like a flying mammal to punch criminals until they stopped doing crime, that sounds like a bad idea. But Batman's amazing.
The Mystery of The Meanest Teacher: A Johnny Constantine Graphic Novel is available now wherever books are sold.