So, AMC’s Preacher
show premieres tomorrow. It’s a
pretty big deal, the first major comic adaptation by AMC after their
phenomenally successful adaptation of Walking
Dead. Additionally, it
represents the first time Seth Rogen has thrown his considerable weight behind
a television series, no less an adaptation of one of the goriest and edgiest
comic books to come out of DC Comics mature reader’s imprint Vertigo.
Finally, this is the 2nd time someone has
attempted to adapt a Verigo Comic to the small screen after the abysmal failure
of last year’s Constantine, making
this a second shot at success for the vast amount of properties at
Vertigo. Given all that, and that
it’s another comic book show for me to leach hash tags off of, of course I’m
going to celebrate it and what better to do that then with a look at the comics
the show is based on. So, let’s
dive into the shallow end and get the cover story on Preacher’s 12 best covers.
12.
If you don’t know anything about Preacher this cover is a pretty good introduction on what to
expect. The character at hand is
Cassidy, an Irish vampire and the comic’s breakout favorite character. That weird bend of ultra-violent gore
with playfully gleeful irreverence is core to the enjoyment of Preacher. The series is a lot like Deadpool
in that regard only without the cartoony, tongue-in-cheek satirical elements
that make Deadpool so joyous.
Preacher
has its funnier moments but it always come with a glint of insanity and a hard
edge of cynicism. They’re both key
comics for representing the male adolescent psyche, both thoroughly aware that
the entire world is a massive joke that’s being played on you, it’s just that Deadpool is willing to laugh along with
everyone else while Preacher is just
pissed off.
Aside from embodying that aspect of the comic so well, this
cover is just beautifully rendered.
Trying for this realistic style can be very hit or miss but the
realization here is flawless. The
cover artist for all of these is Glenn Fabry and he absolutely owns the realism
of this style. There’s so much
attention to detail in this cover it’s incredible. The lines and cracks on Cassidy’s face and hands, the
shading n the many folds of his jacket, even the way the blood splatters across
his chest creates a real, convincing, photorealistic tint.
11.
One of the interesting elements of covers as art is that
they manage to incorporate the title of the work directly into it, as is the
case with this incredible cover.
Titles of work can easily be used to add greater meaning and depth and
this cover is a superb example of that, taking what could be a bizarre and
comedic image and elevating it with the simple application of the word
“Crusaders.”
If you don’t know
anything about Preacher, it’s a book
steeped in religious iconography, symbolism, and critique and that very much
extends to the Vatican and the Catholic Church. So, dropping a bomb like ‘Crusaders’ into the middle of all
that is a great way to raise the stakes and signal to the reader how much
nothing is off limits to this comic.
There’s also that hint of comedic farce about the cover as
well, which is also accomplished through the juxtaposition of the title. The term “Crusaders” conjures up a lot
of images but they tend to be epic in nature but not here. These Crusaders all wear ridiculously
goofy berets complete with feather horns and a nice dumb medallion. Like I mentioned in the previous entry,
that blend of genuine disdain with comedic dressing down is core to Preacher’s appeal. Even though Preacher doesn’t really hold up reading it with mature eyes 20
years after initial publication there’s a genuine anger and a fire within the
book that’s impossible to ignore.
10.
Remember when I said this comic had a lot in common with Deadpool? Well, I wasn’t kidding, as this cover hopefully
indicates. As also mentioned, this
character, Cassidy, is a vampire, which means that there’s only one to kill him
and that’s sunlight. As a result, Preacher always took full advantage of
the fact that Cassidy could undergo the most heinous physical injury and
goriest wounds well still recovering.
This is part of what I meant with the Deadpool comparison, who in turn
draws some of his inspiration back to the original Mask comics.
The whole
thing is essentially a gory approach to the cartoon set-up of characters being
able to shrug off extreme injury, which is itself a pretty subversive
self-critique. The idea of making
one of the central jokes of your gritty, mature readers comic essentially on
the same level as your average episode of Looney Tunes only with buckets of
blood is a damn clever way to show how self-aware you are of your own nature as
a piece of art.
Speaking of art, this is another cover where the level of
detail Fabry is will to put into every piece he makes shines through. The individual floor tile colors and
the multitude of bullet holes covering Cassidy are a great example of just how
in depth a visual we’re getting. I
especially like the bullet through Cassidy’s eye and the way his one leg is all
twisted and broken. It’s more
gruesome than truly gory, which in turn makes it more impactful and the whole
thing is smeared in a really great layer of grime.
9.
Even without any of the in-comic context for this image it’s
an amazing cover, smothered in layers and layers of brilliant symbolism and the
trademark detail we’ve come to expect from Fabry. Just the rendering of the clouds alone in this image is
incredible; the color gradient across the skyline to the cloudly ground is
beautifully rendered and exudes a Renaissance quality that’s incredibly unique
and evocative.
Then there’s the
actual content, with the mysterious cowboy preparing to draw his six-shooter on
an advancing horde of angels.
Again, for those who haven’t read the comic, the figure at hand (pun
intended) is the Saint of Killers, an unstoppable embodiment of death capable
of killing anyone or anything. If
murder is an art, the Saint of Killers is its master; he’s also a cowboy buried
under boot hill for generally unaccountable reason.
Seriously, I’m not sure why the Saint of Killers is a cowboy
(it’s been awhile since I last read these) but whatever the reason it makes for
a great juxtaposition of American mythology and classical Judeo-Christian
iconography. The cowboy is one of
the purest American archetypes, a perfect visual shorthand for the endemic
violence that informed the slow American crawl towards full colonization of a
continent. They’re one of the core
masculine idealizations of a generation, bringing civilization to the wilderness
at the point of a gun. Here, that
image is reimagined to be bringing judgment against the natural world of
heaven, their own creation finally turned loose upon them in righteous fury.
8.
Going back to that whole point about American symbolism,
here’s an image that’s steeped in visual metaphor just on the surface level but
has an added layer of meaning through the thoroughly American diction of Preacher’s visual lexicon.
Obviously snakes hold a serious
significance in the Judeo-Christian canon, often the form of Satan and
associated with evil, here perched against the titular Preacher as he leans
against a cross of skulls. All of
that is absolutely phenomenal stuff, a super creepy visual with a great bend on
religious symbolism that literalizes the Preacher’s own identity as the product
of a union between a demon and angel.
However, there’s additional meaning to be found in the rural
American practice of snake handling.
This ties into how much Preacher
was a product of the brief fascination with America’s South West (hence all the
cowboy iconography) but in the American rural areas there’s a religious
practice where preachers and their congregation will handle live venomous
snakes.
The thinking is that if
the handler is truly virtuous God will keep the snakes from biting them. It’s a screwy tradition but this image
is definitely capitalizing on it.
The way the Preacher is adorned in snakes, not making any more to stop
them, seemingly out of his body, it all speaks to the purity test.
7.
This is probably the densest image I’ve yet showcased in
this cover story, mainly thanks to the whole gaggle of on-lookers in the
background there. There’s just a
lot more going on in this cover that requires Fabry’s exquisite approach to
detail, especially with how prominent the three central figures are to the
goings on.
The flow of humanity
here is very well rendered, especially in terms of the coloration on Preacher’s
normal skin, Cassidy’s pale vampiric pallor, and then the reddish purple of the
poor dope he’s strangling. I also
especially love the look of the background guy at the far right, complete with
stupid hat and smiley face shirt.
Dude looks like he has no idea what’s happening right now and, in
fairness, he probably doesn’t.
Anyway, no real religious or symbolic reason why this cover
made the list I just think it’s damn funny. Amid all the Christian iconography, mythological creatures,
and gritty human ugliness it’s easy to forget that Preacher is, in no small way, a comedy. It’s a black comedy to be sure, very much informed by
satirical dressing down of taboo subjects and a slapstick approach to violent
ugliness, but we are still meant to laugh at parts of it. Actually, maybe laugh is the wrong
word, I think Preacher is more
shooting for a sly, knowing smirk from the audience, which this achieves very
well I’d say.
6.
Fun fact: this is Preacher’s
fist cover, and what a cover it is.
We jump right back to the religious symbolism with this, with the
titular Preacher framed in looming, ominous joy looking down on a burning
church. In many ways, this cover
speaks to the entire premise of the comic and its core set-up, focusing on the
righteous, destructive, all-consuming anger of a follower of a belief that’s
proven so bafflingly backwards and wrong within the context of the comic. That’s part of what I mean when I say Preacher is a quintessentially
adolescent text as its core storytelling status quo is informed by a point of
view very similar to that of adolescents, especially adolescent boys.
There’s a stage that all boys reach around 13-15 where you
become aware of cruelty, corruption, laziness, and backwards thinking in the
structures that govern our world and the standard response to this fact is to
get so angry you assume the entire world must be the same and should probably
just be burned down for something better.
Ideally people grow out of this phase, though not always, but Preacher captures that moment perfectly
and transposes the experience to be more legitimate. It makes the entire book into a bizarre adolescent fantasy
but by the same token comic books have always lived by fantasy and there’s no
reason adolescent don’t deserve their own wish-fulfillment story about being
totally right about how broken everything is and also being able to do
something about it.
5.
We now switch from religious symbolism to American
iconography. One of the weirder
aspects of Preacher is that the main
character has a quasi-imaginary friend who speaks with him in the form of John
Wayne. It’s unclear if John Wayne
is just a product of Preacher’s subconscious or some form of entity that’s
latched unto him but he’s a fun part of the story, a great bit of American
identity, and makes a dynamite cover here.
If you can’t tell what’s going on behind John here, it’s
that someone’s coffin has been sunk to the bottom of the ocean and he’s sitting
atop the coffin, perhaps riding it down to the seabed. That idea of the cowboy riding
something down a drop is pretty iconic in its own right, going back to Stanley
Kubrik’s Dr. Strangelove and the
visual of Slim Pickens Major Kong riding the atomic bomb down to end the
world.
However, this cover is most making use of John Wayne’s
position in the comic as an ambiguous creature in Preacher’s mind. His presence here speaks to isolation
in the depths, being cut off from all help other than that from within. It’s an interesting visual shorthand,
drawing on the comic’s own lore and mythology rather than the exterior meaning
of John Wayne and the cowboy as figures of American myth.
4.
Here’s another great example of American mythology and the
incredibly detailed work of Glenn Fabry.
Before I dive into symbolism of the content let’s just talk about how
beautifully rendered the central hand on this cover is. This honestly looks like a photograph
it’s that well realized. The veins
and wrinkles of the hand are beautifully shaded and incredibly persuasive, and
the reflection in the lighter’s bronze is wonderfully rendered as well.
The color work on the whole is just
superb, creating this overarching sepia tone that exudes the sense of age and
old photographs from times long past.
It’s a beautiful work of colored cohesion to exude a central mood and
identity to the photo, one that’s bolstered by the split between background and
foreground, with the hand and lighter adding a temporal split to the dynamic of
the visual.
If you aren’t familiar with American myth and history, what
we’re seeing here is linked backed to Vietnam, as indicated most by the
presence of military helicopters and the time scale of the comic. Even though Preacher came out in the ‘90s the entire idea of Vietnam still
lingered in the generation of comic creators that author Garth Ennis emerged
out of in the form of it being “dad’s war,” and a bad war at that. Combining that visual shorthand with
the lighter and the Preacher’s reflection, and the cover creates a beautiful
story of what fathers bring back from war and pass on to their sons without
using a single word.
3.
Now we’re getting edgy. Like I mentioned earlier, Preacher is, in no small way, a comedy comic and this is a great
example of the kind of comedy it liked to pitch. It’s not a “ha ha” funny but rather a smug, mocking dressing
down of the many archaic institutions that prey upon society through ignorance
and tradition and the KKK may be one of the best examples of that out
there. What’s so impressive about
this cover, and why I love it to the point it’s honestly my favorite Preacher cover, is what a complete
“screw you” it is to the “supremacy” part of “white supremacy.”
That’s the joke of the actual issue as well but it’s
perfectly summarized here in how the various members of the Klan and white
supremacy are always the least impressive, most petty and physical incapable
examples of humanity you can fid.
These guys aren’t superior to anyone, they’re little nebbishes and fat
jerks looking to feel better about how terrible and pathetic they are by
hurting everyone else.
Yeah, it’s
a pretty basic joke and I’m sure others have made it too but this cover sums it
up in such a perfect single image it’d be wrong not to include it. As I said, Preacher is black comedy with a cynical edge but this is one of its
best punch lines aimed squarely at people who deserve to be punching bags.
2.
Well this image certainly a got a lot creepier in
hindsight. Actually, this image
may well have been every bit as creepy today as it was back in the mid ‘90s
given how soon after the Rodney King riots these issues were coming out (3
years.) In any event, after nearly
3 years of what feels like non-stop stories of police brutality and criminal
activity, it’s hard not to look at this image in a harsh new light. This is part of how Preacher’s cynical edge makes it more
than just smug detachment and actually elevates the work to a level that
remains relevant.
Given the oeuvre
of the era it would’ve been easy for Preacher
to simply wallow in the dregs of “whatever” detachment from social issues,
aware enough to realize things are bad but also unwilling to actually invest
enough to seem to care about it. Preacher takes the opposite approach,
always cranking its anger up to 11 and coming off incredibly angry about how
bad things are because it’s aware things are probably even worse than we
realize. This cover’s a great
visualization of that anger and willingness to strike at targets without
hesitation or consideration for whether or not it’d be cool.
1.
Okay, not only is this the best Preacher cover, if someone asked me to sum up the entire Preacher comic series in one image it
would have to be this image.
Again, for those who don’t know the comic, the character face we’re
seeing melded with the surface of the Earth in this image is known as Ass-face,
hey that adolescent identity doesn’t just cover gore, it extends to profanity
as well.
Anyway, Ass-Face was a
stupid teen who was so much of a Kurt Cobain fan that, trigger warning, when
Cobain killed himself he attempted to follow through but botched the job so
badly he ended up horribly disfigured to the point his face looked like a part
of the human anatomy. The whole
thing came early in Preacher’s
storyline and boy does it show, though at the same time the whole concept is a
pretty great satire of the trend of “be cool by not caring about anything” I
was just talking.
The reason I think this image sums up all of Preacher so perfectly comes down, as it
always does, to metaphor and cynicism directed at the entire world and sweetened
by a dash of comedy. The visual of
Ass-Face Planet is legitimately hilarious, even we are laughing at his
deformity that’s essentially the whole point of the character, though not in
the way you’d think.
Ass-Face isn’t
meant as a “ha, ha, he’s ugly, everyone laugh!” type character, but rather an
excuse to mercilessly skewer and mock the sense that coolness comes from
emulation and detachment. That’s a
pretty worthwhile subject for mockery but it’s turned up to 11 here, suggesting
that maybe Ass-Face isn’t all that rare.
Maybe we live on a whole planet of sheeple so dedicated to the cult of
celebrity that they’d be willing to shoot themselves in the face just because
their idols did the same, because that’s the only way to be cool, and if that
is the case then the only thing to do is laugh.
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