Preacher Book One by Garth Ennis
Available for the first time in hardcover, preacher Jesse Custer begins his dark journey to find God, in this volume collecting PREACHER #1-12, plus pinups from PREACHER #50 and #66.
After merging with a bizarre spiritual force called Genesis, Texan preacher Jesse Custer has become completely disillusioned with the beliefs to which he had dedicated his entire life. Now possessing the power of "the word," an ability to make people do whatever he utters, Custer begins a violent and riotous journey across the country. Joined by his gun-toting girlfriend Tulip and the hard-drinking Irish vampire Cassidy, Custer loses faith in both God and man as he witnesses dark atrocities and improbable calamities during his exploration of America.
This new collected edition features an all-new introduction by series writer Garth Ennis.
Preacher Book One
Having read Garth's wildly enjoyable revenge and on the run drama series of Jennifer Blood, I have been scouring his books and read other outputs with similarly high expectations. I first landed heavily back on earth with the super hero tale The Pro which was wild but somewhat of a letdown.
Preacher is a blasphemous tale which has some great artwork going for it but the story was a major letdown. The characters are single dimensional and seem to have been derived from a common pool with most of them following stereotypes, Irish this and Irish that, lost his faith preacher, bureaucratic angels, tempting demons, etc.
I was expecting the story to tread the path of blasphemy and was fine with the preacher who's lost his faith but with repeated pummeling from the myriad of characters all routinely expected and predictable made me lose the faith.
The TV series based on these novels is a dark comedy with compelling characters. The character here in this graphic novel are also dark and in various shades of black, each darker than before but what did not work for me was the comedy which should have given intermittent relief falls flat almost on rote.
The artistic content sticks with the reader much after completing the book and is what has prompted me to go for Book Two which I have started reading.
The preacher Jesse's ex-gf Tulip as a gun toting femme fatale is a character but there is too much compulsive with her attitude towards gun and the way she reverts to it. She is one of the high points of the book. God bringing back Tulip from the dead and Jesse's back story improve the story and explain the principal character strong moral values which stay intact in the face of overawing debasements and excesses.
The story starts of with Jesse trying to explain Tulip and the Irish about an entity that bonded with him during service and left him unscathed amidst his church and his entire congregation going off in flames. The entity Genesis is a lovechild between an angel and a demon and God has gone AWOL heaven after its birth. Angels have panicked and brought in a assassin, a supernatural one to do away with Genesis and the book is set for a clash of epic proportions with the Preacher's trio looking to whup God's unmentionables and the Assassin.
The mission to find God gets underway with every type of monstrosity that one can dream with their Machiavellian tendencies.
This outrageous book then does the unthinkable which actually propels it beyond the limit of sanity into blasphemous territory. When I started reading this it reminded me much about the Hellblazer books but this book has a strong moral compass and this underlying morality of its dynamic trio forces the ultimate question of God and his relationship with his creations.
I have been on tenterhooks while reviewing this book as it is very difficult to be saddled with a story which is so bad that it is good only to find it is so good that it is bad.
Confused. So am I but what has come out very clearly for me in this graphic novel is that goodness or greatness has no limits and when commenting on morality, should God and his angels be any less accountable for their actions or inactions. Is the Devil the only repository of evil or does everyone including Him have some shades of grey that manifest's itself as the Devil. This is a very deep moral question.
Creation does not complete the responsibility of the creator.
This holds true for everyone whether it is a parent, a teacher, mentor, guide, advisor, inventor, writer or artist. Outputs and reactions to ones creation whether it is bouquet's or brickbats has to be laid at the doors of the creator.
Difficult conundrum.
Coming back to the book, it evoked multitude of reactions from me but at the end of the book, I did not feel wholly satiated. I can absorb high levels of violence, profanity, gore, blasphemy, basically any limits of negativity in a book without triggering my outrage but here this book felt like it had a lot more missing.
3 stars for this book, neither here nor there and mostly for the art. Reading the follow-up to see if my opinion improves.
Will recommend this book to discerning readers who can avoid being scandalized with this story.
Please do not forget to post your comments. I am an equal opportunity person so would love to hear your love or your hate for the review or book in any order. Please write what you did not like or whether the book was an absolute disaster for you and why.
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https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4707309382
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