Preacher is a story about a man searching for God. Not figuratively or metaphorically but literally. Jesse Custer had an experience in which a powerful entity housed itself inside of him and gives him the ability to command people at will. He literally has the voice of God. This set-up has very little backstory to it – what exists isn’t really necessary to know but it does make the story more interesting as it reveals itself.

Preacher is based on a comic book by Garth Ennis and ran for a long time. It is available in graphic novel form which consists of 10 books last I checked (comic book novelizations often get changed in format so that number could change at any time). The story moves around the entire country of mainland USA but features primarily in New York City, New Orleans and a few places in the midwest. Because the show has already diverged from the comic, its too early to tell much more about the story – we’ll have to see how things go. Suffice it to say there’s definitely a vampire, an evil family of fundamentalists, a global messianic conspiracy group, a gun-packing badass woman, two goofy angels, a ninja angel and an undead sniper on the warpath. Oh and there’s also a kid whose face looks like an anus. This is pretty typical Garth Ennis fare, to be honest. Jesse Custer has teh voice of god, travels with a badass woman and a wise-cracking vampire and is looking for god so he can chew him out for being an asshole.

That’s what Preacher is about.