"The Time of the Preacher"

Just finished Preacher. Now I own all nine anthologies! It only took six months to get through all of them. At first I read them one at a time, but after the fourth issue, I was compelled to buy multiple issues at once. It's turned into an expensive little habit, but I suppose it's probably about equal to what I used to spend at the bar, which I don't miss.

Preacher turned out to be just as fantastic as I'd been told it would be. It's great and surprising when you find things like this in sources that you wouldn't expect it from. I don't know how I managed to not turn into a comic book geek when I was a kid, lack of access is probably the best answer. Growing up in suburban florida was such a cultural letdown when compared to what's here, or how things could have been different. The grass is always greener, or something.

But back to Preacher. There were definitely some lulls in each volume of the series, but that's really unavoidable when you consider its original issue based format. While most issues flow together seamlessly with periodic punctuations of backstory, there are usually one or two issues in each volume that are, say, more forgettable than the rest. The sum does end up being the whole of its parts, etc, and the less adventurous episodes contribute to the novel-like feel of the series as a whole. Garth Ennis really gets into his characters, and by the end of the series you know an awful lot about everyone, which is a difficult thing to do.

Looking back at the series as a whole, the writing just stands out as being so tight and ultimately conservative but at the same time retaining a vast amount of character density and intertextuality. Hitting on a broad range of topics from Irish history to 90s grunge rock parody, Preacher masterfully Garth Ennis' prowess as writer.

Tonally, Preacher proudly stands on the broad shoulders of John Wayne. A fantastically modern take on the difficult questions the duke managed to answer without ever having to say too much, Preacher applies the allegory of westerns to the "comic book" universe. (Granted, Jesse Custer isn't by any means a superhero, but its use of the fantastic elements grounds it secondly as genre-piece. The question of comic books being there own genre is a difficult one, and something to be approached with trepidation. Comic book fans are nothing if not thorough and loyal to the extreme, so marginalizing "comic books" into a single genre term is unfair. The myriad examples of comics that don't rely on what I would call "comic book" conventions stand as a direct rebuttal of the term previously used. But as a casual fan of comics and a scholar of literary criticism, the distinction must be elucidated.) The level of textual maturity is matched by that of the tone. I really wanted to avoid the "comics aren't just for kids anymore cliché," but Preacher is not for children. God only knows how cool I would have thought this was when I was 13, but any younger than that and it probably would have been a bit scarring.

Its funny to read other bloggers opinions of the series too, because its now being called a classic. I guess I don't really realize how fast the comic book cycle moves--the last issue of the series is less than ten years old!

Now here comes the inevitable comparison to Watchmen: Preacher ultimately accomplishes more than Watchmen because of how much longer it is. Watchmen is great because you can read it in nearly a sitting. Preacher is great because you can't. Watchmen will make a great movie; Preacher a great series. Why the comparison to Watchmen? I don't know, chalk it up to inevitability: it seems to me that Watchmen has come to symbolize everything positive in the realm of modern comics, and its becoming one of the most widely read comic by non-comic readers. I've seen more issues of Watchmen crop up in more and more unexpected places recently, and the buzz for the movie is really starting to intensify.

Even if you've never been interested in comic books, Preacher exists as an interesting and great piece of literature, and a great starting point for a comic collection.