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Preacher

 
  

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weepy_minotaur
16:37 / 09.07.03
is no one here talking about this book? i don't know if it exists in england, but it's probably the second-best comic book series i've ever read. now is the time for preacher fans on barbelith to unite! i don't really have a topic in mind other than preacher, how cool it is, philosophical questions it raises, etc. and if you haven't read it, feel free to ask questions. After all it's "a tale out of Ireland, dragged through Texas with a bloody hard on, wrapped in barb wire and rose thorns.
And it's out to get you"*
quote from Joe R. Landsdale's intro to the first TPB
 
 
Mr Tricks
16:43 / 09.07.03
Preacher was a great read for it's time...
Having just reread the whole series about 6 months ago parts of it are still just as strong, other parts haven't quite aged as well...

Seems pretty sad that the Ennis/Dillan team haven't gotten anywhere near this level of work since...
 
 
PatrickMM
18:01 / 09.07.03
I read the series through last year, and while reading it, I was really into it, and thought it was one of the best comics of all time. However, in retrospect, it was good, but filled with a lot of throwaway material.

Preacher seems to be geared toward reading through quickly and getting hooked on the characters, so you let some story inconsistencies go. That's not to say that it wasn't great, because all of books 2 and 3, particularly the "Grandma" storyline. I loved War in the Sun also, but stuff like Salvation felt like Ennis was just trying to drag out revelations as long as possible, to keep suspense up.

Preacher was basically a soap opera, but a really well done one, and any series with Herr Starr and Arseface has to be read at least once.
 
 
The Natural Way
19:08 / 09.07.03
Um, minotaur, err, we receive our comics the day after they appear on american shelves. I'm a bit worried about yr perception of the rest of the world, here...

And Garth Ennis hails from these shores (alright, well, technically he's from Ireland, but close enough...).

There's prolly a Preacher thread somewhere if you want to to try out the 'search' option.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
21:43 / 09.07.03
Try the link above, Runce.

A Northern Irish friend of mine observes that one of the good things about Preacher is that for a Northern Irish audience, it is full of happy little references and speech patterns...

It still dragged rather for the casual observer, and Jesse Custer turning out to be a bit of a simpleton didn't help...
 
 
J. White
23:39 / 09.07.03
Preacher was the first comic I read since I was a kid. I'm only missing some odd issues here and there but for the most part it's one of the most creative, well-written, and still contriversial comic I've read. I think the first half is the best, everything after Salvation seemed to fall short of expectations.
 
 
weepy_minotaur
03:55 / 10.07.03
i'm still trying to figure out how the rest of the world works. apologies for coming across as a dumbass.
 
 
PunkLantern
09:51 / 10.07.03
The basic message about religion holds impact regardless of time. God acts as a virus that feeds on love, that's what guilt is for. I realize how simplified an explanation this is, and I'm open for corrections.
 
 
The Natural Way
11:44 / 10.07.03
Actually the message was: God died and left a random fucker with a penchant for stray bulletry on the throne.

I think that's more like it.
 
 
diz
12:05 / 10.07.03
Actually the message was: God died and left a random fucker with a penchant for stray bulletry on the throne.

i thought the SoK died at the end, basically sitting down on the throne and pulling his hat down over his eyes and going to rest.
 
 
The Natural Way
17:07 / 10.07.03
Did he?

I can't remember, TBH.

Oh, well, my metaphor was neater.
 
 
Gary Lactus
19:10 / 10.07.03
Ennis RUUUUUUUULLLLLLEEEEESSSSSSS
Anyone here reed Punisher??!!?!?!?! It RRRRRRROOOOOOOCCCCCCKKKKKSSSS)
 
 
Gary Lactus
19:24 / 10.07.03
That's pretty much what I got out of Preacher. I cared just enough about the characters to keep me reading in between the sick funny stuff. The comic rarely moved me to anithing more than laughter which, of course, is no bad thing. I loved Dillon's almost iconic work on the series. I don't think there was a single fill in artist during the run. This gave the whole piece a consistancy that allowed the reader to become immersed without the distraction of having to switch art styles.

Yeah... I might go back and read some soon.
 
 
weepy_minotaur
19:56 / 10.07.03
I never read Ennis' Punisher stuff. Synopsis anyone?
 
 
Mr Tricks
20:00 / 10.07.03
Punisher:

Organized Crimes tries and fails to organize a means of stopping the Punisher from Shooting,Stabbing,blowing-up,throwing-off-a-building,etc... criminals.
 
 
Warewullf
21:41 / 10.07.03
Preacher was mean, sadistic shite. Like all of Ennis' work, as far as I can see. I never liked it.

Did get a grin from that Cassidy-meets-the-pompus-vampire story, though.

"Show us yer tits" indeed.
 
 
NezZ the 2nd
22:22 / 10.07.03
Fraely Boyce wrote

"The comic rarely moved me to anithing more than laughter"

i disagree, when tulip gets shot, when u see how preachers mum gets dealt with, these are parts of a series which was excellent. it told a story and had a satisfying conclusion with great art, characters and of course laughter.
 
 
The Return Of Rothkoid
23:54 / 10.07.03
Spoiler warnings, eh? Hm.

I've got two TPBs to go on Preacher. Have had for about a year and a bit. I don't know what it is, but I can't get myself over the hump to do it - I mean, I'd like to, but I'm feeling especially stingy when it comes to the series' TPBs. I think it's because though it's a lot of fun in fart-joke territory - let's face it, it's sort of like ultra-violent Benny Hill vampirism at times - that's what weighs it down and stops me from taking it that bit more seriously. That and the fact that there seems to be a serious problem with the concept of people fucking each other in the arse, and with women as a whole, really. Huh. Huh. Beavis. Huh.

Ahem. I digress. Some good stuff in places, but eventually I think the relentless gagging and posing sorta wore me down.
 
 
The Falcon
01:32 / 11.07.03
There's a pair of nice, dirty sexual detectives; still very much the Other to the title character, but I don't detect a particular problem here.

Apart from the anal rape - which is a quite different thing to consensual homosexual sex, I'd argue.

I dunno - it's a very masculine comic. I think it's very funny.
 
 
Dave Philpott
02:00 / 11.07.03
I bought all of the TPB's at once and read the story straight through. It's a great pop comic; sometimes it's relaxing to read a comic book without having to reference the internet, the encyclopedia, a companion manual, or what-have-you. Preacher is user-friendly.

And the single best character in the book, hands-down, is Herr Starr. He's like Buford T. Justice's squad car in "Smokey and the Bandit."

When he's on, Ennis is one of my favorite writers. He's not flashy, and he never forces the reader out of the narrative flow with clever technique (meaning anything after "Watchmen", see GM's first four ish's of Animal Man, for example); he's just a good, solid story-teller with a remarkable gift for dialogue and characterization.

And I'm done kissing ass now. Wub.
 
 
rizla mission
11:25 / 11.07.03
(!spoilers here I think!)

I still think Preacher up to and including 'War in the Sun' is a great read. It was just such a fucking shame that after that it just.. turned to shit really. The conclusion was just taking the piss - it was like an insult to everyone who'd spent god knows how much money following this story for years.. I mean, what? this is the end? Cassady spends about eighteen pages going through some kind of farcical moral crisis (the fact that he hit a woman forty years ago apparently instantly turns him from being a nice guy to being akin to the devil, despite the fact that, as a vampire, he's required to kill somebody every single day! Except of course they "deserve it", so they don't count. That whole plot line rang completely untrue, as well as revealing Ennis as a total reactionary weirdo - see below..) and then the whole business of the fate of God and the future of the world was wrapped up in a couple of pages.. it was like Ennis gave up on the whole supernatural element of the comic halfway through and couldn't be bothered to do anything with it..

There was always an element of macho reactionary conservatism in Preacher, but for the first half of the comic's run it was sort of confined to the background behind clever plot twists and decent characterisation and smart dialogue - so I was assuming that, as this seemed a fairly thoughtful Vertigo type comic, Jesse Custer would have his "don't mess with Texas" philosophies challenged somewhere along the line. But instead things just got increasingly dull and stupid and the sadism and ass-fucking jokes and unquestioned violence against perverts, frenchmen, goths and other such people who "deserve it" became more prominent - the process was like discovering that the idiot savant is actually just an idiot..

..and I'm not even going to start on all that endless "my daddy was in Vietnam!" bollocks..

Which is all a crying shame, cos as I say again, a lot of the earlier Preacher stuff is absolutely great. It just seems like Ennis got lobotomised somewhere along the line.
 
 
Sunny
16:04 / 12.07.03
cool, I thought I was the only one that thought the ending was shit.
 
 
weepy_minotaur
04:48 / 13.07.03
the ending could have been better done. it's certainly not the worst ending i've seen to a series,but it could have been better done.
 
 
electric monk
15:10 / 15.07.03
Go Rizla! Go Rizla! You are far from alone, Method Man, far far from alone.

2 friends and myself worked our way thru Preacher as it came out, and none of us were very happy with it. Cool at the beginning, okay in the middle, and crap at the end. I don't want to say we were owed more, but dammit, I will say Ennis let the material down. This may also be a case of my having definite ideas about where the story would end, but I think Rizla said it best "... it was like Ennis gave up on the whole supernatural element of the comic halfway through and couldn't be bothered to do anything with it..." That hits the nail right on the head for me.
 
 
Our Lady of The Two Towers
16:17 / 15.07.03
Pretty much everything from 'Salvation' onwards was a steeming pile of shit. You remember that Simpsons episode where Lisa goes "well this is a rather dull episode" and Bart goes "don't worry, they're building to something" but it turns out they aren't? That's what I felt like reading to the end of the series. I was sure that Garth was going to pull the rug out on Jesse, show that actually, he's a big tosser with a moral code that just doesn't work and is no-one to admire, except that at the end he seemed to be saying the opposite, the world's great if you just do whatever you want and anything is permissable if someone tries to stop you doing what you want. If your punishment involves a hilarious rectal injury of some kind, so much the better!

I especially disliked the way the Cassidy/Tulip relationship was ripped apart after issue 50. She turns to Cassidy for support, he does the best he can, although he makes bad decisions, by supplying her as she goes through a drink and drugs binge and at the end of it, he's the fucking villain. Not to mention the whole thing that what really tears Jesse apart more than the fact Cass is a vampire, is the fact that at some times in his life he's been nasty to women.

I know it's a mistake to assume that the writer is the work, we have to remember that Warren Ellis is not a sleek bald writer who takes ridiculous drugs and has the right put down for every occasion. But I would really like to hear Garth Ennis justify both the Preacher run and especially the last half of it, why it turned out like it did, what his message was, what his viewpoint was, because it's always left a bitter taste in mouth with regard to his motives in writing it.
 
 
Mistoffelees
20:32 / 29.11.06
I have a bad feeling about this: link

HBO has seen the light and is bringing "Preacher" to the small screen.

The pay cable network is developing a one-hour series based on the popular 1990s Vertigo comics series. Mark Steven Johnson, the writer-director behind comic adaptations "Daredevil" and the upcoming "Ghost Rider," is writing the pilot, while Howard Deutch is attached to direct. Johnson and Deutch will executive produce along with Michael De Luca, George Agusto, Chris Bender and JC Spink.

"Preacher," which ran from 1995-2000, told the story of a down-and-out Texas preacher possessed by Genesis, a supernatural entity conceived by the unnatural coupling of an angel and a demon. Given immense powers, the preacher teamed with an old girlfriend and a hard-drinking Irish vampire and set out on a journey across America to find God -- who apparently had abandoned his duties in heaven -- and hold him accountable for his negligence.

The series was created by Irish-born writer Garth Ennis and British artist Steve Dillon, who will serve as co-executive producers. Ken F. Levin, who reps the duo, also will serve as co-exec producer.

The series -- which developed a rabid fan base -- was known for tackling religious and political issues, its dark and violent sense of humor and its observations of American culture. It also was one of the series that helped define Vertigo, the adult-oriented line of comics from DC Comics.

There have been several attempts to bring the comic to the screen, whether big or small, but nothing stuck. A movie version, to have been produced by Kevin Smith's View Askew, among others, got to the casting stage, with James Marsden attached for the title role and a reported budget of $25 million. (...)


There is no way this will catch the gist of the comic. A catholic sociopath with a tap instead of a penis, God as a cowardly asshole, people eating guns, etc. will never get on tv.
 
 
some guy
22:27 / 29.11.06
"It's not TV. It's HBO."
 
 
PatrickMM
00:15 / 30.11.06
Yeah, if anyone can do the series justice, it'd be HBO. I believe they actually mandate that each episode has nudity or violence, it's all about doing stuff you can't do on broadcast TV. I'm not sure about the writing team, but I'm a lot more excited to see this happening than I would be to see a single film happening.
 
 
matthew.
00:26 / 30.11.06
"It's not talent. It's Mark Steven Johnson."
 
 
Baz Auckland
02:29 / 30.11.06
As long as they stuck to the story from the first four issues, it could be pretty good... like X-Men, half the fun would be seeing the characters on screen I think.
 
 
Jared Louderback
05:37 / 30.11.06
"Mark Steven Johnson, the writer-director behind comic adaptations "Daredevil" and the upcoming 'Ghost Rider,'"

There is no way, NO WAY, in any crazy what-if universe even, that this will be a good movie.
 
 
Evil Scientist
07:22 / 30.11.06
Reminds me of the time I saw Ennis and Dillon in Brighton at a Preacher signing Q&A and someone asked them about the possibility of a Preacher movie. Essentially their answer was along the lines of "We'll wait until we've finished the series then take the money and run."

Which is, if nothing else, honest.
 
 
lord nuneaton savage
08:20 / 30.11.06
I reckon HBO could make a pretty good fist of it.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
13:45 / 30.11.06
They may well improve on the dialogue.

And I say this as someone who really liked Preacher. Other than not liking Ennis's dialogue in general.

Sure, it had some missteps, but I enjoyed it right to the end. Some of the humour and homophobia (as has been discussed at length elsewhere on the 'lith) left quite a nasty taste in the mouth, and I could have really done without it, but as a story I loved it.
 
 
bj
15:48 / 30.11.06
I donno. Ghost Rider and Daredevil blow.. i know there are large movie companies behind both of these that probably led the way to crappiness.

That being said .. Who would be a good Preacher? Tulip?
 
  

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