amc_preacher_jesse_posterIt’s the end of the week of May 25th, 2016: the Wednesday the Big Two drooled on themselves, shrieked “Excelsior!” into the Black Void, and keeled over. At least if you believe the Internet comments.

But before we talk about that, there was one major positive for comics fans this week: AMC debuted the pilot episode of their adaptation of Garth Ennis’s and Steve Dillon’s Preacher this past Sunday. We’re big fans of the comic, which really meant something to us… back when we were in our twenties, same as the characters back in the original 1990s comic. Both we and the comic are older now, with different lifestyles and priorities, so the question is not only whether or not Preacher is a worthy adaptation of the classic Vertigo comic, but can it have the same effect as it did when we were in our twenties?

That’s the good news. The bad news is that we also discuss:

  • Steve Rogers: Captain America #1, written by Nick Spencer with art by Jesus Saiz, and:
  • DC Universe: Rebirth #1, written by Geoff Johns with art by, well, many, many people!

And, as always, the disclaimers:

  • This show contains spoilers. So be aware: if you haven’t been spoiled on the events of either Steve Rogers: Captain America #1 or DC Universe: Rebirth #1, then you clearly haven’t had any access to the Internet and therefore can’t read this warning anyway. But rest assured: we’ll be spoiling them.
  • This show contains adult, profane language, and is therefore not safe for work. We recite Preacher’s recipe for making a homemade bazooka in this episode. You don’t want your boss to hear that any more than we want this episode entered into evidence in a Felony Menacing trial. So get some headphones.

Thanks for listening, suckers!

tmp_preacher_1_cover1587983506Several months ago, in a halcyon time when Boston wasn’t buried under a foot and a half of wet snow and Parker the Kitten was gleeful to get dry cat food as opposed to crawling on the kitchen table trying to gobble my damn risotto, we reported that AMC, the network that brought you The Walking Dead and The Killing (which, ironically, stumbled around after it should have been dead long after any of Robert Kirkman’s walkers), had bought the rights to develop a television series out of Garth Ennis’s and Steve Dillon’s Preacher. This was good news, while the fact that the project was to be developed by Seth Rogen was, well, weird news.

Of course, a development deal is a long haul away from an actual greenlight – just ask any 80s stand-up comic who got a five-figure check from a TV network, only to discover that it was worth relative pocket change to NBC to make sure that they wouldn’t complete with Leno, just before having to head back home to Podunk to catch a straight job on the swing shift packing bananas – and even though the rumor was that AMC paid beaucoup delores for the rights to the comic, that doesn’t mean that they would be willing to chuck the bucks behind a story that requires producing sets of not only a massive compound in the Middle East, but of a massive gun and tank battle in the desert, not to mention fucking Heaven itself.

Well, it looks like AMC thinks a little more of Preacher and the production abilities of Seth Rogan and Evan Goldberg, because after years of various movie, TV and HBO rumors, Preacher has been greenlit for development.

tmp_preacher_1_cover1587983506Editor’s Note: Regarding our “Strange Visitor” from yesterday, the vet said that he’s only a five or six month old kitten who, based on his weight and claw length, has probably lived most of his life on the street. So while we have reported the guy to our local Animal Control Department, it looks like he’s staying. His name is now Parker, after Richard Stark’s thief. Because he snuck in, he got food from us… and today when I locked him in the carrier box? He did his time like a motherfucking pro.

And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.

It has been 13 and a half years since Preacher published its last issue under the Vertigo Comics imprint, and in that time, there have been rumors that it was gonna be adapted to some medium or another. For a while it was gonna be a movie, and then HBO had the rights for a while, and then, for a while, nothing. It is, after all, a hell of a property to try to adapt – an epic story covering decades, not to mention most of America, heaven and hell.

It takes someone with balls of stone and real vision for genre entertainment to tackle a property like Preacher. Which is why we can all thank God that apparently we have new involvement in the project by Seth Rogen.

You know, the guy who did The Green Hornet movie.