It’s nice
to know that even I can still be surprised when it comes
to comic book content, and while you read that line, you
should imagine that I’m actually a grizzled old veteran
reader of the silver-age, rather than the plucky college-aged
comic book reader that I am. It helps the ambience of the
article.
I’ve
heard plenty of hype about Garth Ennis’ Preacher:
people say that it’s one of the best comic books ever
written, that it broke all kinds of ground for adult oriented
comics, even among the already mature readers of the Vertigo
imprint. Oddly enough, I’d never added it to my backlog
of “Comics to expend mass quantities of money better
used for food” list.
And
then, fancy struck one day and I picked up the first of
many volumes of Ennis’ tale of grotesque religious
violence.
Rev. Jesse Custer
is a preacher in a small Texan town with spotty past. And
one day, as he sits in judgment of his very sinful congregation,
a heavenly/abyssal entity known as Genesis enters his body,
and turns that small church into a big hole full of molten
parishioners. As it turns out, Genesis is an escapee from
a divine prison, and Heaven’s DOC are so frightened
at this occurrence that they’ve dispatched the patron
Saint of Killers to find Custer and kill the Genesis entity.
Now Custer, along with an ex-girlfriend and a hard drinking
Irish vampire, are on the run, trying to discover the nature
of Genesis and why heaven wants it dead so very badly. Also,
they’d like to not be shot to death.
One
thing that jumps out right away about Preacher,
which is what actually caused me to be surprised: it was
the casual use of the most horrendous violence I’ve
ever encountered in comics. Don’t misunderstand; I’m
all for the graphic depictions of violence in adult oriented
comics. Vertigo has a history of using a tasteful amount
of bloodshed in their books, as well other companies and
imprints like Humanoids (which recently became another DC
imprint). Wildstorm has never shied away from violence,
at least not since The Authority and Warren Ellis
made it seem refreshingly new. Even Marvel seems willing
to gore it up with The Ultimates.
But
here, the violence is so frequent, usually over-the-top,
and just plain grotesque enough that it really distracts
one from the story. Whenever scenes involving angels, the
hierarchy and bureaucracy of the Kingdom of Heaven, and
the repercussions of what exactly Genesis is were featured,
I was thoroughly intrigued. Ennis crafts a believably strange
and corrupt heavenly host and understanding the way the
world, Heaven, and Hell all work is something he makes the
reader ponder, which makes the read more enjoyable. The
problem is, that after one of these scenes, someone will
inevitably get his or her face shot off, neck torn open,
or genitalia removed not a few pages thereafter. It’s
distracting and at times, it seems pointless, especially
in the random scenes involving Cassidy and Custer, who seem
to simply provoke and get into fights in bars and pool halls.
Ennis also gives
little to no background for the characters in his story,
which makes them feel somewhat one-note. Tulip, Custer’s
ex-girlfriend, has some vague history of being an assassin,
but mostly she’s just Custer’s ex-girlfriend,
continuously having a fight with him about the reason he
left her, which is never even close to explained. The Saint
of Killers is pretty much a walking juggernaut of old-cowboy-looking
death and not much else. Cassidy seems to be the most fleshed
out of the supporting cast, as Ennis really finds a way
to mesh vampirism with an Irish personality. He’s
a liquored up lover of life who prefers the weird and wacky
to any trappings of traditional fictional vampires: meaning
he sleeps under a tarp during the day doesn’t appear
to have fangs.
Custer
may be more contradictory than any character I’ve
read, and I once read a story about a man called Captain
Contradiction. On the one hand, Custer claims to not want
to lord his powers over anyone, seeing it as hypocritical,
yet Ennis writes him as a man who loves to lord his righteousness
over others when he’s a simple small town preacher.
And for a man that seems to talk a whole bunch about responsibility
when it comes to his (and God’s as a matter of fact)
power, he misuses it several times and with no visible regret,
killing some people and dismembering others. It doesn’t
help that this man of God spends half the book trying to
have sex with his ex-girlfriend. I’m not one to respect
organized religion of any type, but don’t use the
supposed sanctity of the office of Preacher simply to contrast
the vagary of the character wearing the collar and not have
it mean something to the character. That’s just sloppy.
The artwork is
actually very good, especially when the skin, viscera, and
blood start to fly. Steve Dillon’s pencil and ink
work are what almost drove me to throw up (in a respectful
kind of way) because he has a great eye for biological detail.
When several men actually get their faces shot off, you
can see the skin tearing away from the faces, the muscles
under showing and flexing…ooooh so very creepy and
disturbing. Dillon also has some interesting designs for
some of the characters especially the properly named Arseface.
Cassidy also looks like the most toned-down vampire I’ve
ever laid eyes: faded jeans and gray skin, with some sunglasses.
No poofy shirts for this bloodsucker. The mottled and subtle
coloring by Matt Hollingsworth also helps project that ominous
and vaguely disturbing feeling that Preacher fosters so
well.
It’s
not a terrible book as it features loads of interesting
ideas and I’m sure that some of the problems I mentioned
having with the story are addressed in later volumes, but
I can’t recommend a book that seems to have relied
too heavily on its shock value artwork to get it through
the first seven issues, while ignoring the story. Even with
the Joe Lansdale introduction and the various covers by
Glen Fabry for $14.95, I still don’t recommend it.
It seems Preacher was either over-hyped, or I set the bar
too high, but ultimately it has too many problems to be
a good graphic novel.
