On this day in 1985,a man walked into a bar. It was a punk bar; this was 1985 in comedian-book London, after all. The man was named John Constantine, and he was there looking for a friend who had information about the close of the world. It all happened in the pages of Swamp Thing #37,written by Alan Moore with art by Rick Veitch and John Totleben; the "American Gothic" storyline was beginning in earnest, and Moore's legendary hasten was kicking into high gear.
According to Moore, and the character of Constantine owes his debut to the fact that Swamp Thing's regular artists,Totleben and Stephen R. Bissette, were big fans of the band The Police, and they wanted to draw a character who looked like the lead singer,Sting. Even though it ended up being Veitch on the pencils for Constantine's first appearance, he is unmistakably a dead ringer for the British musician.
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Source: comicsalliance.com