I t feels strange to call a book with page after page of gleeful death and dismemberment "beloved," but in the case of Garth Ennis' Preacher, it's probably accurate.
"Garth has a great understanding of the human condition," observes Vertigo founding editor Karen Berger. "He's obviously very irreverent and shocking, but there's a real humanity to his stuff and he's got a great ear for dialogue." With a mini-boom in great big bibliophile-friendly editions of series like Vertigo's own The Sandman and Dark Horse's Hellboy, it was only a matter of time before the 66-issue series (75, if you count the specials and miniseries) was reprinted.
To take a cue from Johnny Cash (as Ennis does throughout the series), the year of '09 is the time of the Preacher. Reprinted on the same heavy glossy paper that Vertigo used for the first trade paperback (newsprint was used for some of the later volumes), the series is being reorganized into thick hardback volumes, the first one clocking in at a hefty 352 pages and reprinting issues 1-12, with a street date of June 24 and a pricetag of $39.99. The first volume will also reprint the pinups drawn by the series' admirers—artists like Dave Gibbons, JG Jones, and Tim Bradstreet—for Preacher nos. 50 and 66.
Berger found Ennis the same way she found Alan Moore: reading UK comics. The Irish storyteller, originally from Holywood, near Belfast, had written three serials for Fleetway's short-lived biweekly anthology title Crisis. The first two, Troubled Souls and its sequel, For a Few Troubles More , dealt with life in a Northern Ireland that had been ravaged by religious and political violence since the 1960's. With the young writer living in the midst of all that needless bloodshed (Ennis was 18 when he wrote Troubled Souls), it was almost a foregone conclusion that his work would reflect a less than charitable attitude toward Christianity.
That was the subject of the other Crisis story, True Faith (also in a reprint edition from Vertigo). It was True Faith that got Berger's attention, and his first job with Vertigo—a lengthy run on Hellblazer that earned the book more fans and gave Ennis a platform to sound off about everything from the Troubles to the immaculate conception. "Garth always struck me as a writer who had a lot to say," she observes, perhaps understating the case. Ennis was nothing if not prolific, writing a half-dozen miniseries for various publishers and The Demon and then Hitman for DC proper, fashioning the latter as a humor book that mocked everything from Batman to crossover stories (in which Ennis grudgingly and hilariously participated). And always, there was religion and its adherents, providing Ennis with plenty of cannon fodder.
If Preacher had simply been the embodiment of that attitude, it's not likely that readers would have enjoyed it as much as they did. Instead, Ennis used his disdain for Christianity as a jumping-off point to write a sprawling, character-rich Western story that starred a hellraising minister named Jesse Custer (note the initials) blessed, or maybe cursed, with the power to make anyone who hears him do as he commands.
Like any good man of the cloth, Jesse was looking for God, but he was hoping to give the Lord a good talking-to at the end of his quest. While the hero's literal search for the Almighty was the hook, the series' most impressive chapters looked at Jesse's relationships with his friend Cassidy (a fun-loving Irish vampire), his girlfriend Tulip, and the ghost of John Wayne.
"Preacher didn't really begin as a Western," Ennis explains. "It was a jumble of ideas and characters that I slowly turned into a coherent whole, more by instinct than anything else. It was comparatively late in the game when I realized it was going to have a contemporary Western feel. Once I saw just how American the story would be, that seemed like the obvious way to go."
The series was illustrated by venerable Brit artist Steve Dillon, whose pencils gave the wild story a down-to-earth feel, as opposed to amping up the mayhem a la Hitman penciler John McCrea. "I look at Steve's work from 20 years ago and I look at Steve's work today, and I honestly think he's as good and professional at any stage of his career," says Berger. "Steve really helped realize the expressions and the emotions—he was dealing with a cast of characters that really allowed him to go that route."
Of course, Clint Eastwood never had to deal with P.I./prostitute duo The Sex Detectives—an unlikely duo sent to track down Jesse and whose name indicates the manner in which they work. Nor did John Wayne ever have cheerful, disfigured sidekick with a face that bore a remarkable resemblance to a, um, butthole. Frequently, DC rolled with the punches, but every now and then the publisher had to draw the line. "Mostly a word here, a word there," Ennis recalls. "Arseface ended up having to tell the Pope to kiss his ass rather than suck his cock, for instance. Sometimes it'd be more extensive, as when Starr ran afoul of the Sex Detectives—originally Fellatio Freddie got him, not Buggery Bob, although the revised version ended up being much funnier and led to all sorts of malarkey. And any time something like Columbine happened there'd be a general panic, with art being changed across the board and Vertigo suffering more than most."
Still, Ennis says he'd love to do a Sex Detectives Special one day, and Berger says she'd love to work with him and Dillon again. As for the reprints, Ennis says he likes the way the series came out, but suggests one more change: "I feel very strongly that they should double the royalties this time around."
