Preacher

Preacher is an American comic book series created by writer Garth Ennis and artist Steve Dillon, published in DC Comic's Vertigo Imprint.

Plot
After being possessed by Genesis, a being of both pure goodness and evil, reverend Jesse Custer sets out to find God, who's quit his job as the king of Heaven and put both worlds in peril.

Why It Rocks

 * 1) Plenty of Garth Ennis' trademarks make their debut in this series, plenty of coarse language, graphic violence, and black comedy throughout.
 * 2) A pretty interesting and creative concept about the war between heaven and earth, good and evil, and all those in between. It also presents a hypocritical version of all sides, where Angels have become apathetic and demons may actually be decent.
 * 3) An interesting art style that both matches the time and looks pretty modern with plenty of detail in it's panels.
 * 4) Insanely detailed and beautiful cover artworks in each issue.
 * 5) Likeable characters who often contribute to the humor but still feel like real people.
 * 6) Jesse possesses a moral compass, and tries to use his newfound powers for good. However, his definition of good also includes harsh punishment for those who are bad. He also has an infatuation with John Wayne and the ability to read people like an open book even without Genesis's powers (controlling people's actions).
 * 7) Cassidy is a vampire who's incredibly sarcastic, like how he consults "doctor Cassidy" and literally talks to himself aloud.
 * 8) Tulip is a very interesting strong female character, who was raised as a boy and has conflicting feelings about guns and violence even when necessary.
 * 9) The Saint of Killers is an antiheroic angel of death, but ironically has a stronger moral compass than most of the others and only kills those who are "rotten".
 * 10) Arseface, a severely disfigured survivor of a suicide attempt, is a wonderfully inept and naive character with a good heart who contributes to a lot of the humor in the series.
 * 11) Plenty of graphic and gory violence, though it's quite a bit more restrained by comparison to Ennis's other works, but still will satisfy gorehounds.
 * 12) A lot of different styles are put into the tone of the comic, making it like a western film, a dark fantasy story, modern western, road movie, and so on that make it very intruguing to find how all those go together.
 * 13) Lots of funny and clever yet realistic dialogue throughout that's interesting to read even if it sometimes goes on a while.
 * 14) A lot of funny moments throughout that are just about the darkest black comedy but still managing to make it's audience laugh a lot. There's also lots of social commentary throughout, showing hypocrisy in those who perform their responsibilities apathetically (like many of the angels and how they're unable to get along), corrupt church organizations, violent and reckless police, the KKK and so on.
 * 15) Though it kind of has a negative depiction of religion, it's very tongue-in-cheek about it all, basically outright telling it's audience that said depiction is just a joke and not meant to be taken seriously.
 * 16) A very interesting plot twist where it's revealed that Jesse's grandmother, Marie L'angelle, is an evangelical zealot who believes endtimes are coming and only she and her followers are pure, having put Jesse and his family through a traumatic religious upbringing in hopes of making Jesse the next Messiah.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) Some very unlikeable characters, especially Arseface's dad, Hugo Root, who abuses him and treats him poorly despite his unconditional love for him. Luckily, he's punished severely early on.
 * 2) TC is also an extremely unlikeable character, managing to be even more so than L'angelle and Jody because he has sex with just about everything (nearly doing the same with Jesse's deceased mom), killing Jesse's best friend for no reason, and getting Jesse locked in the coffin repeatedly often for months at a time.
 * 3) Some of the humor can feel mean-spirited at times.
 * 4) The series is slow-paced at first, and there's often a lot of story in each issue, which could be difficult to keep track of.
 * 5) The artstyle of the main series might not be to everyone's taste as it's often simplified in terms of the detail and colors.

Reception
Preacher has received highly positive reviews from many comic book publications and a dedicated fanbase. It is often praised for it's graphic violence and disturbing content as well as it's darkly comical atmosphere, characters, and storyline. It has also been referenced in many other comic books, such as the "Fuck Communism" lighter Jesse Custer owns being used in Y: The Last Man as well. Many of the characters have also been popular, such as Jesse Custer being ranked at the 11th best comic book character by Empire Magazine and the Saint of Killers being a popular and highly ranked Anti-Hero. The series has been considered DC Vertigo's third best series behind Saga of the Swamp Thing and The Sandman.

Trivia
Stephen King has cited this series as inspiration for his own comic book series, The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born.