Title:- PreacherIn a nutshell:- A relapsed preacher housing the offspring of a demon and an angel, his assassin ex-girlfriend and an Irish vampire go on a mission to track down God. Actually. In person. And have stern words with him.
The Basics:- Writer Garth Ennis and artist Steve Dillon's work on Hellblazer was something that I loved so when I heard they were working on a new comic, I had to check it out. And I loved this one even more right from issue 1. It's an insane mix of fantasy, religion, Western, horror, romance buddy movie and the blackest of black over-the-top humour. It's a self-contained story told over 75 issues so you know going in that's it's going to end somewhere.
Why's It So Good?:- Because there quite simply hadn't been anything quite like it in comics before and there's been little that's matched it since in terms of sheer daring. It really pushed the boundaries of what you could get away with taste-wise. However, that's not the key thing. The key thing is that it's not so different from all the best comics at heart in that it's a compelling story with characters you care about (who definitely go through the wringer) and it's told well.
Surely Some Of It Must Be Rubbish?:- Well, the Salvation storyline feels a little bit like padding things out - a writer unwilling to move things along because, once he does, he'll be getting to the end with these characters (and I'm not a big fan of amnesia storylines - just find them tiresome and cliched) but even that is redeemed by the presence of Odin "The Meat Man" Quincannon.
So We Should Seek Out This Thing Of Which You Speak?:- If you like your humour dark and your Western-style violence on the Sam Peckinpah side then yes, definitely seek it out. It's all one storyline so start at the beginning and don't look back...
Tomorrow's title:- Transmetropolitan
2 comments:
Preacher really is the dog's bollocks. It pushes pretty much every boundary that could be pushed, and it's so uniquely American in that way that makes you remember America is actually a pretty cool place.
Exactly - and how can you not love a comic which has a charcter called Arseface?
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