"You Gotta Be One Of The Good Guys....

...because there's way too many of the bad." - John Custer, Preacher

I may have to start getting HBO... one of the absolute best pieces of writing in the past twenty years is having a series made about it for HBO: Garth Ennis's Preacher.

"Now hold on, Jamie," I can imagine you saying. "Isn't that just some comic book?" Boy, if that's your attitude, you obviously haven't read anything from the Vertigo line of titles by DC Comics. Vertigo is the adult-oriented line of books with mature themes and adult stories (and not adult in the same way as you see adult bookstores along the highway with trucks pulled up next to them at odd hours). These books are serious literature, and Preacher rises above even those.

It's the story of Jesse Custer, a fallen preacher who has just quit his job when he is suddenly enveloped by Genesis, the offspring of an angel and a demon, and suddenly gains the power of suggestion. But the book isn't just a superhero story, rather it's the story of a modern Texan gentleman experiencing the hypocrisy of the world head-on and dealing with it in a way that he sees as honorable and just. It's got great characters coming out of the woodwork: Tulip, the drop-dead gorgeous tomboy who just happens to be a dead-eye with a pistol and has an attitude to match; Cassidy, the Irish Vampire who'd rather swill Guinness and eat bangers and mash than do the Anne Rice thing; Arseface... who I can't even describe. You just have to see him.

The series ran for 70 issues and ended with a big bang, and along the way Jesse and the gang saw the good and bad in just about everything. It's a serious commentary on hypocrisy and humanity that I can read over and over. And I'm very heartened by reading this particular news on the link I've provided:

"I gave [HBO] the comics, and I said, 'Every issue is an hour,'" [Director Mark Steven] Johnson said at a preview of his upcoming film Ghost Rider in Hollywood, Calif., on Nov. 30. "And it's exactly the book. ... I had my meeting yesterday, and [Preacher creator] Garth Ennis is on the phone, and we're all in the room, and Garth is like, 'You don't have to be so beholden to the comic.' And I'm like, 'No, no, no. It's got to be like the comic.' So that's what's so brilliant about it. It's just like, HBO, who else would do it but them? Nobody. ... HBO is just like, 'Bring it on.'"

Comic book fans so rarely hear stuff like this - you get things like Batman's parents being killed by the Joker, or that horrible Fantastic Four movie that fortunately never made it to release (not the recent one, thank goodness). So when someone loves a work you love as much as this and wants to make it even bigger... oh yeah. Gotta start looking at how much HBO costs.