Preacher Vol 01: Gone to Texas

You find yourself at a loss words when trying to find, erhm, nouns to describe preacher. Well, that's not true either, you find words but not nice ones. In the the more original sense of what we have come to expect of the word, it's definitely not a comic book, I wouldn't call this the work of a “preacher” man either. Yet, here it is featuring the dynamic duo who brought punisher back to life and a feature movie( ennis and dillon). Yet and still the main character is of the reverend sort. So what is it you can call preacher to describe him to someone who's never read a word of it. Hmmm, Id say things like, rude, distasteful, violent, racist, gross, sickening, uncouth and completely AMERICAN. But again Im at a complete loss of nice words when I read PREACHER. I become so flustered and utterly disgusted that I HAVE to keep turning every page deliberately so. The main story thickens quick enough, reverend jesse custer's whole flock of sheep followers are blown to kingdom come and only ashes and bleached bones survive the explosion. In a manhunt to find the reverend Garth Ennis pens the reader through an adrenaline filled story, while illustrator Steve Dillon paints the blurred lines. Met with challenges only the mind of ennis could create come see what is in store for PREACHER: GONE TO TEXAS

I had a friend who had told me for years that I had to read Preacher, because it was one of the best comics he had ever read. I always just shrugged and said "Yeah, someday I will." So I finally got around to buying a copy of 'Gone to Texas' and I was simply blown away. I've always considered my self to be a comic book fan, not a hardcore collector of any sort, but a fan. When I began reading Preacher I could not bring myself to stop. So day after day I went to the local comic shop, picked up the next volume, and read it cover to cover. It is simply the best comic I have ever had the pleasure of reading. I wish I could forget all of it, just to read it and experience it all again. When I got to the last page, I felt a sense of completion but more of sadness, because I'd finished it. Immediately I began searching for more of Ennis and Dillon's work, and I've never, ever, done that before. I couldn't even name more than a handful of other comic book writers, but these two guys know how to do what everyone else in the business strives to do everyday: Get an idea across and get you to love it. But enough of my ranting, if you've read all the way through this review, then you're obviously interested, so do yourself a favor and get a copy of 'Gone to Texas', you won't regret it.

Garth Ennis, Preacher: Gone to Texas (DC Comics, 1996) I wonder if the person who put this in the "youth services" section of my local library ever got fired? After all, right on the back, it says "suggested for mature readers." Someone must have missed a memo about what "mature" means. Gone to Texas is the beginning of the Preacher saga, which involves the title character, whose church went up in flames while the whole town was inside; his ex-girlfriend Tulip, whom he ran out on five years ago for reasons we don't know; and Cassidy, a drifter who rescued Tulip from a bad situation. The plot twists come fast and thick, so it's pretty much impossible to tell you what goes on, but the basis of the story (or the framework from which Ennis created this delightfully twisted tale) is that Jesse, the preacher, is suffering a major crisis of faith, and needs to find his way back to God. Over the course of the story, however, Jesse realizes that his crisis of faith isn't all internal, and that finding his way back to God may take a little more doing than he originally thought it would. Oh, and did I mention he's being stalked by a killer not of this earth, and talks to John Wayne? Didn't think so. Even if the artwork wasn't top-notch, the simple weirdness of the story, and the way Ennis twists it, would make reading this like staring at a particularly gruesome car accident (and the quote is especially appropriate here; Ennis' way of bending cliches and Biblical references to make completely new things out of them should be putting the reader very much in mind of Clive Barker's early short stories). But the artwork is top-notch, indeed, and the two combine to make for a particularly compelling read. You will find yourself wanting to read this in one sitting. And take my advice-- that's not something you want to do if your library system doesn't happen to have the next book in the series. Now I have to wait for it to show up in my mailbox... **** ½

The entire Preacher saga, in my opinion, is simply one of the greatest stories ever told. It is so much more than what you think it is when you start reading it. It's not so much a story of religion and one man's literal search for God as it is a story of honor and friendship. About being a real man and admitting your mistakes and shortcomings. About respect for women. About treating your lady as a lady should be treated, but not being so macho as to not let her back you up when you're in trouble. But most importantly, this story is about the redemption of the characters involved. As they searched for God, their redemption was found in each other rather than a blessing from a deity.

This is it-- the grittiest, nastiest, darkest comic book ever to be mainstreamed. This book is not for anyone who is still impressionable enough to let a book drive them to suicide. If you read this, and make it through the second book in the series, you will basically be smearing filthy engine oil onto your soul. And what a trip. This first book isn't AS intense as the rest of the series, but it is only a matter of degrees.Fortunately, there are few purile satisfactions. You won't read this book and find titilating sexual imagery, or satisfying violence, etc. You'll find disturbing sexual imagery, and violence that just leaves you feeling ragged and ill. These aren't the kind of quirky-fun horrors you'll get from Neil Gaiman's Sandman series or a Stephen King novel... these are the kind of images that will really bother you, disturb you, sicken you.Now that I've said all of these negative things, I need to say that this series is boundlessly creative, well written, and maybe, just maybe, there is a hint of moral philosophy between the pages. It is perhaps forgivable to show us horrors if you show us the human soul at the same time.I haven't made up my mind. Garbage in, garbage out, after all. But this isn't garbage... it's simply a discussion OF garbage. And not the garbage out in the world, but the garbage inside yourself as you find yourself reading "Preacher" with delight. You can see the garbage inside you as you flip the pages. And now you have to decide what to do with it.

This is an extremely difficult review for me to write. I'm an evangelical Christian, and, hard to believe as I'm sure it seems to a lot of people, I still think it's the best (and only) way. Preacher was going to be the enemy for a long time - that strange, pretentious book about a man of the cloth taking on God. And then I read Gone to Texas. And the next day, I read Until the End of the World. And the next day, I read Proud Americans. In case the pattern had escaped you, I had a very hard time putting these down. More to the point, I did not put them down, and have just finished Alamo. Did the book shake my faith? No. It made me think a great deal, and a great deal harder about things that had not previouly occurred to me. Was I offended by it? Sure. Find me someone who wasn't. Did I love every single page? You bet. The book has so much going for it that I probably won't be able to fit it in here - Ennis and Dillon did every single issue - that's NEVER been done before, as far as I know. You can start with Gone to Texas, and finish up at Alamo with a clear understanding of how each of them became better at what they do. It was smart without being pretentious, which put it head and shoulders above most of DC's Vertigo line - anyone can read it, anyone can understand it. Most importantly to me, though, the characters were as real as you or me. Ennis peppers the story with horrific violence and some incredibly disturbed images, but I wouldn't have batted an eyelash if I hadn't known that it was Tulip at gunpoint, or Jesse hanging out of the plane. No matter what the characters go through or do to each other, you still love them - Cassidy is one of the most well-written and complex characters to ever grace the pages of a comic book, and Jesse, in the midst of all the incredibly debauchery, is one of the most moral. For those reasons, I enjoyed the slower stories more; Salvation is at the top of my list, followed closely by All Hell's A-Comin. And let's not forget the humor - there were times when I was laughing so hard I couldn't turn the page. Give it a shot. It's new, it's innovative, and someone thought about it. That alone should be worth the prive of admission. You'll like it, and if you don't like it, you'll read it anyway.