Customer Reviews
Another bumper filled book of swearing, with no apparent storyline or point - By: Matt Share, 01 Sep 2010 
The Preacher series get rave reviews all over Amazon. As a big fan of comics I decided to give them a try based on these recommendations, but was really disappointed by what i found. First complaint is the language. Page after page of unnecessary & repetitive swearing; i am no prude & appreciate the use of profanity to a fairly high tolerance, but the repeated & often pointless use of itin this book was actually distracting. I swiftly became inured to it, &in fact started to tune out to what was going on. There are frequent hyper violent sequences (i have never seen so many people shotin the headin a comic series) that are merely held together with profanity. If this was an infrequent structure it would be more bearable, but it is far from that. Much of the story follows this pattern.
There are some good charactersin this tale, but their development remains strangely stunted & one dimensional; characters like Cass & the Allfather D'Aronique are drawn larger than life & have potential to be fascinating but this potential is rarely fulfilled, & fairly ludicrous characters like Jesse (a man whose voice is literally the Word of God but who chooses to usually use his fists - & always wins despite the odds) & Herr Starr fill the storylines with a blandness & lack of believability that strains the readers credulity.
The storylines are the biggest problem however; what starts off as a grand & ambitious story arc (the abdication from heaven of Godin the face of a new creation spawned of Angel & Demon) seems to zigzag wildly, with hugely important events & themes coveredin such a cursory & unengaging way that the overall story meanders horribly. After a while i found i was just reading fairly mundane events from Jesse & Tulips life that seemed punctuated with significant moments that went nowhere. Ennis's previous work has been mediocrein my opinion & this was no different - well before the conclusion of the story he appears to have lost interest & the resulting conclusion to the book is almost an afterthought, & highly unsatisfying. Even the scarcely credible strands of plot could have worked with a bit more thought & effort but as they are, they just stink.
Some of the artwork is great however, & Glenn Fabry's cover art is fantastic throughout.
Soin conclusion i thought Preacher was a really poor example of a comic. They rely throughout on Ennis's ability to shock the reader with violence & profanity, & this wears off really quickly, revealing a disjointed & underwhelming story with badly realised characters punching their way through a tiresome storyline. Some good potential with story & characters is wastedin favour of yet more sex & violence. If you are a 14 yr old boy who thinks Natural Born Killers was the best film ever made then this is probably for you. If you like something a bit more cerebral with a plot & proper characters, go & buy something by Alan Moore or Frank Miller, or any of the other great writers out there.
Hmmmmm - By: , 08 Jul 2001 
In all honesty I must firstly say that this isn't exactly the best Preacher TPB of the series. The story takes itself a teensy bit TOO serious here, with TOO much pointless graphic violence, & the bizar humor is also on low-profile for the time being (which is not a good thing here). Cassidy has some good oneliners but that's pretty much it for the humorous bitin this trade. The first two issuesin here are about Jesse having to face Tulip again after what he did to herin France (see "Proud Americans" for that). Tulip handles itin her own manner & then wents out to get a drinkin the bar, where she gets to hear a disturbing confession from Cassidy. After that she meets an old friend & the rest of these issues is filled with them talking & reflecting on their lives & relationships these last couple of years. In the rest of the issues (#29-33) Jesse thinks of (and tries) a way to try & getin contact with the Genesis entityin his head (an idea he had because of what the angelin the previous volume said). When he goes to meet the person who can possibly help him with this it turns out that Cassidy & this person have a (negative) history together, & if that isn't enough there's also a group of wannabe vampires called 'Les enfants du sang' who know Cassidy from the past & need him to do something for them now (a past that is cleared upin the Preacher Special "Cassidy: Blood & Whiskey" which is also collectedin this trade). One of the positive notes that I need to share here is the return of Arsefacein this trade. His goal is to avenge his father but he turns out to have another carreer-perspective ahead of him (a hysterically funny one I might add), which DOES really come to the good of the moodin this trade. Also, the included Preacher Special about Cassidy is also good reading. Not that important for the general story, but very nice. In here the humor IS at level.
The storyin this TPB seems nothing more than a filler, which wouldn't even need to have been so bad if the humor had been at level. But that, like I said, isn't really the case. Overall pointless violence has the upper hand without the sub-plot adding anything to Jesse's quest. Now I don't wanna make it sound like it's an awful book because it IS pretty nice reading, but for Preacher standards I consider this one of the lesser volumes.
A little off the wall - By: , 10 Mar 2001 
Personally, I like the pseudo-vampire wannabiesin this volume, (Especially Lilly) as well as the Cassidy backstory. This is the first real glimpse we get that Cass isn't the good time guy with a nasty side that we thought he was, but something far darker. The echoes of Xavier's previous friendship with Cassidy resound throughout the rest of the series. This one is a little short of the mark next to the rest of Preacher, but 5 stars anyway
Preacher, you know em you love em so why not read some more - By: , 19 Sep 2000 I first started reading preacherin Judge Dredd megazine, when i realised i was on;ly buying it for preacher i decided it was time to buy the books.
Dixie fried is yet another excellent installment of the preacher series. As with most of the preacher books, it keeps you hanging on with twists, action & excellent artwork.
be prepared to see charactersin a whole new light & see Jesse Custer confront genesis to find out the truth about the saint of killers.
all round, an excellent buy.
