Preacher: Dixie Fried

Garth Ennis

After I finished Gone to Texas, I checked with the library immediately to get my hands on Pracher: Until the End of the World. But they didn't have it. In fact, I had to go all the way up to book five before I found another one at my local bibliophilic haunt. I resolved not to read it until I could read books two through four, so I'd keep going in sequence. I've forgotten a whole lot about the adventures of Jesse and co. over the intervening years.

That resolve lasted all of three hours. I cracked the cover on Preacher: Dixie Fried the next evening, and like Gone to Texas, it took two sittings to get though (one sometimes has to stop for The Shield's season finale).

Not much has changed in Preacher's world. Jesse is still looking for God. Tulip is still trying to figure out why. Cassidy is, well, still Cassidy. The book opens with a quick look back at the time just before Cassidy met Tulip, and through her Jesse, then comes back to present day, where Jesse has decided to avail a voodoo shaman, one of Cassidy's friends from the bad old days, of an offer to put him into a trace to see if he can get closer to figuring out what it is Genesis wants from him. Then, of course, you can add in old enemies, new enemies, and the usual bag of tricks thrown in their way.

Dixie Fried, like Gone to Texas, is simply superlative. The artwork and story are both fantastic, the characters are three-dimensional creatures with real lives and emotions, and everything is so well-presented that it demands to be read in one sitting-- unless he Shield's season finale comes along before you can finish.