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A guy sticking a bayonet in his own throat. Women getting punched in the face. Villians sodomizing a petting zoo.
Twisted? Unsettling? Sure, Preacher gets right in your face. It doesn't hold back on the profanity or graphic violence. But for all this Vertigo title's graphic nature, its creators say the book's fundamental goal is to examine themes such as loyalty, responsibility and the obligations of the immortal Creator.
"I want Preacher to be fast-moving, funny, fairily irreverent and very violent," says writer Garth Ennis, who created the book with artist Steve Dillon, his long-time friend and partner on Vertigo's Hellblazer for over two years. "I originally thought that Preacher could encompass every kind of story I'd ever want to do. But as it came together over a year or so. I realized I wanted it to develop specific themes I've been thinking about."
The book focusses on Jesse Custer, a former minister in Annville, Texas. He finds himself melded with a combined angelic/demonic force called Genesis when it escapes from heaven; in doing so, Jesse unfortunately obliterates the 200 people in his congregation during mid-sermon. This newfound power gives Jesse the ability to make anyone do anything he asks. Enter one angel who reveals that the Lord has forsaken his creations and Jesse takes off to find God -- literally.
"The major theme is the mortal confrontation of the immortal," Ennis explains. "Jesse aims to face down God and make him take responsibility, Jesse wants to tell him that if you're going to land us with life on Earth, you damn well better not run out on us halfway through." Indeed, he promises, "the Lord will be popping up every so often."
Joining Custer are an Irish vampire named Cassidy and Tulip, a novice freelance assassin who is also Custer's former girlfriend. He is also aided by the spirit of actor John Wayne, who materializes to offer occassional advice. And Custer's trailed by the Saint of Killers, the patron saint of murderers, who's been sent to retrieve Genesis by any means necessary. Obviously, this is not your typical "quest" scenario.
"Garth and I both love the Clint Eastwood westerns and the Dirty Harry movies," says Dillon. "Preacher was born out of that. It's chock full of violence and machismo, but it had to be a laugh as well." In fact, he adds, the Saint of Killers' image is a combination of Ennis' pick of Eastwood and Dillon's choice of actor Lee Marvin, "the meanest-looking son of a bitch who ever lived."
Custer's journey through America stands at the center of the book. "He's very committed," Ennis says. "He had to have a sense of honor and morality, but I didn't want to make him a humorless git. He's a very complex character. There's a lot of stuff I want to talk about, and it will come through Jesse."
Dillon created Custer's look with one key goal: make him different from the blonde-haired Hellblazer star, John Constantine, who is said to be modelled after rock star Sting. "I wanted to make Jesse dark, almost Latin-looking," the artist says. "He's a different kind of handsome than Constantine, with bigger, wider eyes -- except I sometimes forget to draw them that way."
Ennis in fact, stresses that there's no connection between the two famous protagonists. "I keep telling people, but I can't get them to believe it," he says. "I guarantee that Jesse's initials have nothing to do with Constantine or Jesus Christ, although people in the book bight think that at some point." In fact, he assures readers, neither Constantine nor any other Vertigo stars will be showing up. "It's a very self-contained universe."
Custer and Cassidy are polar opposites -- even if they share the same sense of humour, Ennis says. "Cassidy's the ultimate yabbo." As a member of the undead, Cassidy can take any poison or drug he wants and he uses that to full advantage. He can even stick a bayonet in his throat to get himself out of tight spots, as he did in issue #7. "That was quite popular with readers," Ennis says. Finding himself surrounded by police in a serial killer's apartment in daylight (Remember, he's a vampire...), Cassidy stabs himself in the throat so he appears dead. Police assume he's a victim, zip him into a body bag and take him to the morgue. Once it gets dark, he walks out, scaring the hell out of the morgue attendant.
"Cassidy is more of a one-note character, the classic lovable rogue taken to extremes," Ennis adds. "But he has a past of his own, and at one point he took life far more seriously. You'll see that when I get into his origin. they all have these incredibly fouled-up origins that I'll get to in time. And I'd like to do Cassidy's origin soon."
The vampire's look began as an homage to Shane MacGowan, leader of the Irish rock band The Pogues, Dillon notes. "That's where we started, but it's moved away from that in later issues," he says.
Ennis' image for the tall, skinny Tulip came from Anne Parillaud, star of the movie "La Femme Nikita," except he envisioned her as a red-head and Dillon made her a blonde. "She's a constant between Cassidy and Jesse," Ennis says. "But she has a past of her own. She's very serious now, but she has a lighter side we'll be seeing once she and Jesse work everything out [in issue #12]."
Although Preacher is a male-oriented book, he adds, "In a way, Tulip is probably the most important character to the themes of loyalty and friendship. She's the one that everything will happen around."
Those themes of loyalty and friendship, especially as they relate to the three main characters, will recur throughout the run, which Ennis says he has worked out roughly for about 60 issues. Responsibility shows up in many ways, such as in how Custer uses his powers. In issue #5, for instance, he explains to Cassidy why he doesn't use his powers for wealth and sex. "You got the power, you got to use it right," Custer says. Especially, he notes, if you're looking for the Creator so you can make him face up to his own responsibilities.
Ennis has no plans for a treatise, however. After all, how could he with such scenes as a man's face being peeled away and nailed back onto his head upside down, and a huge serrated hunter's knife gettting rammed through Tulip's hand -- not to mention that bayonet that Cassidy sticks in his own neck? (The sodomy in the petting zoo is on the way -- see the sidebar above.)
But Ennis admits he doesn't want to numb readers with shock value at the flip of a page. "I have to be careful of doing things like sticking the knife in Tulip's hand when the reader turns the page," he says. "It can get worn out. But it's a tool we have in comics that no other medium has."
With so much violence and religious irreverence, is the Preacher team braced for full-scale controversy? "I touch on stuff that would cause trouble if it got into the right hands," Ennis admits. "People won't believe this, but I don't actually set out to shock or cause controversy. I write it because I enjoy it. I get a kick out of writing this really sick stuff, but I also do it because I think it's funny and it'll make me and Steve laugh."
The book, in fact, receives an enormous volume of mail, says Editor Stuart Moore, and almost all of it is positive. "It's not a book for everyone, but I think those who don't like it realize that quickly and leave it alone," he says. "What I like is that it attracts people beyond the usual Vertigo fans, and it's happening without Garth and Steve doing a superhero book."
Turning Ennis' strange characters and violent scenes into visuals takes something extra, Dillon admits. "I drag it up from the deep blackness of my soul," he laughs. "It's all well and good for Garth to write this stuff -- he can knock out a script in about a week -- but I have to spend my month living with it. And drawing some of it [such as the full-page Gran'ma panel at the end of issue #8] makes me feel pretty sick."
Ennis hopes the macabre ambiance the two create doesn't become a focus. "A lot of people will pick up on the violent and controversial aspects," he admits. "But at its heart, Preacher is rather a moral book. Good and evil are fairly clearly defined, and good does tend to triumph one way or another. It just has to learn to fight dirtier than evil."
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