Dylan Dog

Dylan Dog is a fictional character, star of the horror comic Dylan Dog, published by Sergio Bonelli Editore and created by Tiziano Sclavi. Dylan is a private investigator that specializes in the undead arts, he protects the monsters that are good - and kills the ones that are evil.
== Origin ==
According to him, the detection method in his profession of nightmare investigator is from normal or rational hypothesis, but more often than what is facing is the nightmare. Dylan is in fact a skillful detective, trained in Scotland Yard Inspector Bloch's orders, and does not believe in coincidences.
Dylan Dog is a teetotaler after having had a past as an alcoholic, even as early as the second register is seen in a beer bottle (which in Granderistampa has been "transformed" in orange). Many books, moreover, defines, or is defined by Groucho, "a teetotaler who often forget to sober." In addition, Dylan does not smoke and is a vegetarian for ethical reasons.
== Creation ==
His name was taken from the poet Dylan Thomas, and was the name Tiziano Sclavi temporarily gave each character before choosing a real name for him. In this case, however, that the name stuck. The graphic characterization of Dylan Dog (produced by Claudio Villa and implemented for the first time by Angelo Stano) is inspired by the actor Rupert Everett, and the atmosphere is typical of London, where the protagonist lives the number 7 Craven Road. The street name was chosen in honor of Wes Craven, writer and director of the popular series of films focusing on the character of Freddy Krueger. In reality, in London there are several streets with this name, but there is only one "Craven Road in the city center in Westminster (the others are relatively remote), and the number 7 is an Italian restaurant called Bruno's Snack Bar", in which is currently selling a sandwich named 'Dylan Dog'. As stated by him on page 71 of the register number 250, Dylan is 185 cm tall and 33 years.
== History ==
The life of Dylan Dog was partially revealed in the following regular issues: 1 (L'alba dei morti viventi), 7 (La zona del crepuscolo), 25 (Morgana), 43 (Storia di Nessuno), 74 (Il lungo addio), 100 (La storia di Dylan Dog), 121 (Finchè morte non vi separi), 151 (Il lago nel cielo), 200 (Il numero duecento), 241 (Xabaras!), 242 (Nel nome del padre), The majority of them were written by Dylan Dog creator Tiziano Sclavi and penciled by Angelo Stano.
Sergio Bonelli Editore announced further revelations about the character's past in issue 300, which is slated for release in late August of 2011.
In 1686 (three hundred years before the first issue) the scientist and alchemist Dylan Dog Senior, with his wife Morgana and young son Dylan Junior (just three years), is in command of a galleon in search of the last component that will allow him to create an immortality serum. The sea voyage has paid off: The last ingredient seems to have been found in the body of an unknown marine mollusk. Dylan Sr. gets so to complete the serum and decides to experiment it on himself and Morgana.
In the meantime, however, an uprising of the crew unleashed: the sailors decide to rebel against the master, and one of them shot him just after he had injected the serum. The effect is devastating: Dylan senior dies and slaughters the entire crew (except his wife and Dylan), but the stranger turns out to be a clam demon who decides to punish the ambitions of immortality of the scientist.
Dylan Senior doubles: the good part is sentenced to live for 666 years in exile on an asteroid on the edge of the universe, while his bad side, which will be called Xabaras (an anagram of Abraxas, one of the names of the devil) remains on Earth, condemned to be feared and hated by all. Xabaras can fight the insurgency on the galleon and bring him back to London, where he sinks in the basement of the city. You decide to get rid of the little Dylan and Morgana. The woman, who also became immortal, is drugged and locked in a glass coffin inside the galleon, while the smallest is assigned to an orphanage. The purpose of Xabaras is to continue his research on immortality undisturbed.
During the first night in the orphanage, the little Dylan, however, receives the visit of the demon that had doubled the Marine father (which is nothing but the magic cat Cagliostro), which catapulted him forward in time by nearly three centuries. So it happens that Xabaras, repenting of having abandoned her son when he went back to retrieve it turns out that the orphanage has mysteriously disappeared. These are the desire and the need to find him, which is also carried by the demon in the London of the twentieth century.
In its new era little Dylan is taken into custody by a young couple. His adoptive father, curiously, is also called Dylan, and so is Grandpa. Because of this, little Dylan, without knowing it, it keeps the same name it had in the seventeenth century: it is the same child and tell his adoptive parents name was Dylan, and this fact, taken as a sign of fate, convinced them to ask for custody, without knowing anything about the origin of the baby.
However, just maintaining the original name helps desperate for Xabaras, which, at first lost in a time not his own, can quickly identify the adoptive grandfather of Dylan. However, the latter manages to trick him into thinking that you are solely Dylan Dog in London and had never taken children for adoption, and hiding instead of having a son, also named Dylan, who lives in Crossgate and has taken in adopting the child.
In this way the little Dylan, hidden in Crossgate, is able to live a quiet childhood, unaware of the existence of Xabaras, his real father (or rather the bad half of his real father) who is looking for.
The period of Dylan's life from childhood to the twenty years that it is currently almost entirely unknown. It is known that only about sixteen years he spent his first vacation alone in Moonlight, where he lives a difficult love affair with her friend, Marina Kimball. On that occasion, found the gun model Bode 1889 that became his inseparable weapon. More information on the childhood of Dylan will likely be revealed in issue 300 of the monthly series.
His adoptive father puts him in any case aware of the existence of Dr. Xabaras, which for them is only a mad scientist in his insanity believed to be the real father of Dylan. Probably at some time is also some conflict between the adoptive father of Dylan and Xabaras, for example at a time when the latter led his studies at Inverary, the village fell into the "twilight zone".
Towards the twenty years Dylan moved to London and became agent at Scotland Yard, under the orders of the inspector Bloch. He has a personal story rather sad widower, he had to grow up alone the frail son Virgil, but never give him the affection that a child deserves. Bloch sees Dylan in all the qualities he wanted in his son and takes him particularly concerned. This arouses the jealousy of Virgil, exacerbating the gap with his father.
Meanwhile, London is suffering from the attacks of the IRA. During this difficult period, the official Dog meets for the first time the bizarre and especially Groucho falls in love with Lillie Connolly, a Catholic IRA. The love between a British and an Irish is impossible in this context: the girl, already the author of other attacks, is arrested after a failed attack on the headquarters at Scotland Yard. The rest is held, how many episodes in the life of Dylan, in a dream-like atmosphere: Although the death penalty had been abolished in England, Lillie is sentenced to death, and Dylan gets to marry her, before she is executed. In a sign of mourning Dylan will look like its full official who wore during her affair with the beautiful Irish black jacket, red shirt, jeans and shoes Clark's (complete, however, already worn in the past, for example at the time of its history with Marina, or in 1978 at the time of first encounter with the impossible detective Martin Mystère).
The death of Lillie Dylan throws into turmoil. The kid starts drinking and ends up leaving Scotland Yard (while retaining his card expired illegally, that will be useful in many future investigations). Bloch seeks to help detoxify alcohol, but can not do much, since it is dealing with the troubles of his son Virgil, who has since heroin.
Dylan still manages to get by Bloch and private investigator's license, rented an apartment at 7 Craven Road, begins his new profession of nightmare investigator. During his first investigation finds Groucho and takes him as his assistant. In reality it is the latter, a former movie actor who fell into disgrace, to impose its presence in Dylan and care for him, helping him give up the habit of alcohol. With the help of her eccentric assistant, Dylan also manages to break into his new profession. To resolve the first case received as payment, the Volkswagen Beetle. Groucho himself, using the mysterious shop Safari, the investigator completes the nightmare, buying the clarinet, the diary with a quill pen, the bell "screaming." At the same shop (which is actually a gap between parallel dimensions open enigmatic Hamlin) during an auction Dylan had already purchased the model of a galleon.
Meanwhile, the drama is consumed by Virgil Bloch: the son of the inspector pursues a robbery in a jewelry store and try to kill Dylan, but it does kill before his father, after publicly expressing his love for his father and jealousy in the fed against Dylan. The episode ends up reinforcing the fatherly love of Bloch against Dylan, Dylan definitely helping to liberate from the bondage of alcohol.
In 1986, exactly three hundred years since the beginning of everything, Dylan Dog is definitely dedicated to his profession of nightmare investigator. At the time Dylan has about thirty years (the same age who was then Tiziano Sclavi). The years continue to pass but his age will remain essentially the same (probably thanks to Cagliostro). In 1986 he personally confronted for the first time with Xabaras.
In 2006, twenty years later, is the final confrontation between Dylan and Dr. Xabaras. The nightmare investigator finally discovered to have in front of her biological father (but remains oblivious to the fact that in reality the doctor it is only half dark) and discovers that he was born in the seventeenth century. Meanwhile Xabaras seems to have finally perfected an immortality serum, and experiments on himself, convinced Dylan to leave his job to live with him and share his immortality. Once again, however, the serum is not perfect: he gives so immortality, but eternal life is empty, devoid of feelings and sensations. Xabaras, realizing that this is the ultimate failure of his research, he takes his life in the only way possible, by shooting himself in the head.
To restore order in the life of Dylan thinks Cagliostro, the cat wizard already starred in his other adventures once again the memory of Dylan is emptied of what happened. Dylan returns to his profession as a nightmare investigator, while the body of Xabaras is transferred into another dimension, from which it will return only when it is time to reconnect with his good half. So the doctor finally disappears from the life of Dylan.
The last act of his career has already been told the investigator of the nightmare, even if it happens in an unspecified future. After the 666 years of exile, the good part of the father of Dylan will return to Earth. At the same time Dylan will end his model of a galleon, and it's back to mind all the past events. The appointment for the reunification of the family dog is in the basement of London, on the galleon. Here you will meet not only the good half of Dylan and his father, but also Xabaras and Morgan, Dylan's mother, awakened from their long slumber in his glass coffin. The two halves of the father of Dylan will merge again, and our hero will finally see live together, his real father and his real mother. Following Dylan finally abandon the profession of nightmare investigator and his apartment in Craven Road, to live, perhaps together with Groucho, a new life, free from the mystery of his parents.
== Garb and Mannerisms ==
Clothing is one of Dylan Dog's characteristic features: always dressed the same way, red shirt (except in a few covers and designed by Villa in the sky "Tenants arcane" color stories out of series with texts and drawings of Sclavi Corrado Roi, when wearing a white shirt), black jacket, blue jeans and shoes. Even during the bad weather Dylan never wears a coat or uses an umbrella, because the coat "would ruin his look" and finding the umbrella a "useless invention. Especially when it rains."
The real reason for his repetitive clothing scheme is that Dylan has bought 12 outfits all the same in memory of his love Lillie. "The work of mourning is something personal, that is for everyone. Even for me." In the story, in fact, which reflects left open on the very special number 121 in the series, Dylan is in love with Lillie, an Irish IRA militant who is arrested and died in inhumane conditions in the prison of Dartmoor prison. It will be the memory of his beloved to inspire Dylan over the years for what would become his "uniform", in memory of the clothes she wore during her last meeting with Lillie. It is also worth noting that not all the accounts given by the authors in the years of Dylan Dog converge on this point (see the special Dylan Dog, Martin Mystere).
Suffers from various phobias, sometimes an obstacle to his work. In addition to being claustrophobic and afraid of heights, it is extremely aerophobia, in the few "travel" abroad, always uses his car, or to the ocean, take a ship (though suffering from sea sickness). The requirement to the customer is always, "no planes".
Dylan eats little interest in the many aspects of modern life. He does not like mobile phones and, to keep his journal, relies on a quill pen and inkwell. Loves reading, especially poetry, music, whose interests range from classical to heavy metal, and horror films. Despite being perpetually in the bill, it is particularly interested to money. Its rate of private investigator was originally £ 50 per day plus expenses, but increased to 100 from 145 from the register number of the monthly series (October 1998, exactly 12 years after "activity"). For many customers noticed in his study over the years, the first advice I usually give is to consult a psychologist or psychiatrist. Very often, when customers are women, Dylan Dog falls in love, and often has a relationship with them, however there are occasions when "goes blank".
== Places, Objects and Supporting Characters ==
* Groucho is the assistant to Dylan. The character, which even Dylan knows the true name, is the comedian Groucho Marx look-alike (which is why Dylan chose to call his Groucho, from their second meeting), after which numerous jokes. Although often treated badly by Dylan (many times threatened to fire him) has boundless affection for him and basically treats it as a kind of brother.
* Bloch (whose physical appearance is a reference to actor Robert Morley yellow and whose last name is probably a tribute to the writer Robert Bloch) is a Scotland Yard inspector and Dylan was in his youth one of his best agents. The relationship between the two is very close to that between father and son that led to the latter's real son, Virgil, to take the road of addiction. Virgil died during a robbery in a jewelry store because of a bullet fired by mistake in the history of the number two hundred. In the special entitled The Choice is seen what would have happened if Virgil had been alive.
* Jenkins is an agent of Scotland Yard an airhead who often lose patience to Bloch, it does not cover the "black humor" of Bloch. Naive and "easygoing" is repeatedly sent by the inspector to direct the traffic.
* Lord H. G. Wells, that of England and namesake of the author of The War of the Worlds, is an eccentric inventor who often helps Dylan in its investigations. His physical appearance is a reference to the actor David Niven. Groucho can not stand because it is treated by him like a butler and often, when Dylan goes to see him, you see it in the company of a prostitute of high rim that justifies the nobleman as a girl who gives private tuition matter of some physical or medical field.
* Death, as an actual physical presence in the flesh, or rather more bones than flesh (as it wants the classic iconography). In most episodes interacts directly with Dylan as the number 88 which makes a pact with her to save Bree Daniels [1]. He is often portrayed in an almost ironic, as a mere employee of the underworld who does his job. The number 123 said they can not drive the trucks with only the B license, the same register also says that his favorite music is Jazz. .
* Lord Chester is a guest of the Harlech Asylum , in which Dylan is frequent visitor when the "monsters" who is looking for are former patients of that institution or to get information from several sources. Peerage of England, too, has a somewhat 'special salute Dylan: Whenever he sees, leaps at him with intent to strangle him. In early Dylan was frightened by this behavior, then he got used to it.
* Madame Trelkovski is a psychic, whose name refers to the surname of the protagonist of The Tenant by Roman Polanski. Dylan often help in its investigation.
* Professor Adam is a skeptical scientist. His physical appearance is a reference to actor Sean Connery. The character is inspired by the figure of scientists skeptical about paranormal phenomena, which are recognized in Italy in the Italian Committee for the Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CICAP), of which he is a member Tiziano Sclavi.
* Geoffrey M. Gideon is a professor of geometry neighbor Dylan (live at 5 Craven Road). Appearing for the first time in the history of the same name published in Dylandogone 4, 1995, indirectly shared the adventures and misadventures of Dylan, who were for him because of various troubles that have led to an enormous hatred for the Investigator of. He built a homemade bomb, which he always pointed at Dylan's house, office and in pieces ready to fire if Dylan does not do sleep.
* The car is a beetle cabriolet white (which often has mechanical problems, but Dylan does not want to change) weblog DYD 666. The number in the 'two-hundred (n.200) is revealed how the nightmare investigator came into possession of his immortal and noisy vehicle. After having solved his first case (a doormat haunted haunted house owners), Dylan was offered in place of the lot, the car, which, already old and noisy, it created only inconvenience to its owners. Although in some stories ends up completely destroyed, he returns later in the adventure in their entirety.
* The store dimensional Safarà (Arabic word which means to discover or explore) is often found in books, and is run by a sinister and not very common name Hamlin. Although recourse in many comics, Dylan does not recall there ever entered, on the other hand you bought several rare items.
* The clarinet is the instrument with which Dylan can play only the chirp of the devil, the famous Sonata in G minor by Tartini, however, somewhat annoying especially to the ears of his assistant Groucho. In the first episode seems to be detonated, Groucho will give a new Dylan in the next. Morgana (which, even if not stated directly, claims to have been present at Undead, the adventure recounted in the 'No. 1) gives him the number 25. Dylan should in fact have two clarinets, though never appear together.
* The model of a galleon (which will never be finished, and which binds many stories about the past of the character) was acquired after the death of Lillie Connolly shop in Safari. Number 100 was completed in the series set off a series of events that will lead our hero to meet his parents. To tell the truth in the story out of the series "Black Horror" (where the character appears Francesco Dellamorte, then played by Rupert Everett in the film Dellamorte Dellamore) galleon is the end of Joey, a boy friend of Dylan, but then nothing happens most likely because the investigator makes you immediately remove and Dylan because it's just to have a connection to the galleon.
* The house in London, at 7 Craven Road (the name is inspired by Wes Craven, one of the greatest horror, author of, among other things, Nightmare - Out of the night and Scream) has a doorbell that screams instead to play and a singular dark furniture, made life-size models of monsters. The screaming bell is a quote from the movie Invitation to Murder by Death (Murder By Death, 1976, directed by R. Moore). Also, in London there is a really Craven Road, and at 7 there was a bar, "Bruno's Snack Bar" (also mentioned in the special Where is Dylan Dog?, Even if it changes its name from "Bruno's" in "Brutus's" ), now known as EF's Cafe & Sandwich Bar
* The gun, found in a cave in Moonlight (English seaside village) when Dylan was still a kid, and yet does not carry with it almost never is often done by Groucho, who has the task of throwing it at each time Dylan need it. Bode is a model gun.
* Discs that listens to Dylan after playing the clarinet and having worked a bit 'to the galleon, are often of heavy metal music (this is also gradually disappearing, often replaced by blues and classic rock).
* The posture in which he sits down to listen, interested and skeptical, the cases which are entrusted is intricate. Normally Dylan is sitting on a chair with armrests, and holds one leg resting on an armrest, with hands clasped at his face and elbows resting on one arm and one on the knee of the leg. It seems to be a quote, or rather a parody of the posture taken by Sherlock Holmes.
* What Dylan describes his fifth sense and a half, that is the feeling that something does not come back, that there is something to discover that feels at each new event appears in many of his adventures.
* On a wall in his studio there hangs a poster of Rocky Horror Picture Show (especially in episodes designed by Montanari & Grassani).
* Hatches a stray dog, an Afghan hound Dylan saves a dog catcher. Then the dog saved the life of him, and these favors will exchange each other several times.
* The exclamation Dylan "Judas Dancer", this from the first book and never lost over the years has been an urban legend is very common among fans, who wants to cry that has been used for the first time in the ' crossover Dylan Dog, Martin Mystere - Last stop: the nightmare, when in front of the two protagonists opened a chasm beyond which saw the Inferno. This is, in truth, only to smash the "Devils of Hell" (recurring phrase of GOUM), so much so that Dylan uses the term "Judas Dancer" in a flashback on his adolescence, number 74 . The same Sclavi reveals that the exclamation belonged to one of his longtime friend, journalist Gianluigi Gonano, who used it as a translation of the Anglo-Saxon Jumpin 'Jehoshaphat (in Italian: "Jehoshaphat Hopping", a typical expression of Daryl Zed - alter ego for Dylan Dog in the 'witch-hunt)
* In every issue of the suspect are each present dozens of examples more or less obvious, the result of a careful choice of Sclavi, fond of quotes. The most common are those 70-80 years of horror films, both Italians and Americans, and the thrill of the famous novelist Stephen King. The game usually is to write an original story or at least intriguing from a famous place or situation. A striking example is the book number 3, the nights of full moon, in which setting and some characters are mentioned by Dario Argento's Suspiria, while giving rise to a different story. Dario Argento, in fact, is one of the most popular and often very subtle: the killers in the number 5 is being pulled to the front of the crowd of men, in number 26, after midnight, a punk move to a can of Coca-Dylan Cola full of snorting cocaine from a straw, just as they did the punk demons. A film, however, has been honored more in the series is Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, which were devoted two episodes: the number 20, of the depths, and, years later, number 243, The murderess is among us, where in the latter was made a "male version" of the famous scene of the murder in the shower. Two explicit references appear in the number 33 (Jekyll!): the novel The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and the poem The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe that are sources of inspiration for a new adventure of Dylan, a journey through the maze of the mind. In the registers 64 and 65 are the quotes from the famous TV series Twin Peaks. There are references to Fabrizio De André. In particular, the number 270 the king of flies, there is a clear citation of the song A chemical Genoese singer-songwriter, while the number 250 Elevator to Hell is cited Dream number 2. Another quote we see the number 19 Memories from the invisible as an old dwarf ended his sentence with the last words of a judge.
=== Dylan Dog's Women ===
Dylan has a lot of success with women in the early days, almost every story ended up in bed with a client, always claimed to be in love and eventually the client died or left him. Some of the many fellow Dylan Dog have remained in the imagination of fans of the nightmare the investigator for the stories they have been involved or their characterization. Particular and explicit is the Oedipus complex of the protagonist pursues a number of women in their own image of his mother Morgana and clashes dramatically with the shadow of the father of Dylan-Xabaras, split into two halves that seem to allude to the ambivalence of the father figure and Dylan's feelings for the parent].
Morgana rarely occurs. It is absolutely unattainable, suspended between life and dream (or nightmare), and Dylan seems that every time the wheels of the many women in his life (although this is controversial). The first official appearance of Morgan goes back to number 25, just named Morgana, but even if you do not recognize the woman appears in a number of zombies Xabaras victim. Morgana is identifiable as the real girlfriend of Dylan to the number 100, in which he discovers, after the return of his father, as she really is his mother. From 1, its representation has always been the work of pencils Angelo Stano.
Lillie Connolly: The wife of Dylan Dog, or rather the woman who was married to Dylan. It was a terrorist IRA, which has become guilty of attacks (one in particular against the headquarters at Scotland Yard in London) is sentenced to death. The story of the decade of the head (number 121: Till death do you part), which tells of the sad love affair between Dylan and Lillie fabled: the death penalty had been abolished, the "time of the events," the marriage is celebrated on a 'fantastic island.
Bree Daniels: prostitute who is always calling his name to Dylan cripple "Dailan. Very independent and enterprising woman refuses the marriage proposal of "Dailan" remains a prisoner of his own world. When will reappear for the second time it is discovered that is sick with AIDS, and nothing is a deal with the death of Dylan to save it. The numbers that are shown Bree Memories from the invisible [6] and Beyond death [1] and the special The Choice [7].
Marina Kimball is a teenage love of Dylan. The on a journey where they remember their teenage years in understanding the past. At the end of the journey, the sweet and sad long goodbye: Dylan must abandon it because it is already dead. The story is told in the number 74 [4]. Dylan's first love reappears in a few flashbacks in the '261 "Greetings from Moonlight", but does not continue the story of the register 74.
Kim is the Witch of the West (as in The Wizard of Oz) and lives in New York with the cat Cagliostro, even though he moved to England for a short period. Appears in a couple of stories very surreal and grotesque. Killed by the Antichrist is brought to life, no more witch, love for Dylan. Its features are based on those of Kim Novak, American actress protagonist of The Woman Who Lived Twice (which also mentioned by way of Dylan albums.) Cagliostro in the 'also appears in a Cary Grant double quote, also from Arsenic and Old Lace, Frank Capra's celebrated black comedy. The affectionate Cagliostro should leave because it can only belong to a witch. He died of old age in the number 242 due to a spell by the Board of witches. Both Kim and the cat are funny quote from a comedy of the fifties, a witch in paradise.
Anna Never : her first appearance is in The Ghost of Anna Never (No. 4, January 1987).
=== Other Media ===
In 2011 Dylan Dog: Dead of Night was made starring Brandon Routh of Superman Returns as the titular character. In the film Dylan Dog is pulled from retirement to investigate a werewolf attack that leads to a much greater threat. The film was made on a 20million dollar budget, but only grossed about 4million worldwide.