40in40 – Preacher, vol 1

24Jun10

Tom An

I’m excited to have this chance to talk with you about this graphic novel.  Your writing has always been full of intrigue and wit and I’m sure Preacher could only have piqued both of those qualities.

Let’s get right into it… I wanted to get your opinion on the subtle heroism displayed in this story.  True or False: when an individual is granted awesome power, he or she will take up the responsibility and use it right, as the Preacher says we should.  Do we really have a responsibility to our fellow brethren?  I guess those are two separate questions, would we and should we.  I’ve got my own thoughts, but I’ll hear yours first.

Daniel Oh

The word “protagonist” should be taken in the most purest sense of the word; it is simply the character that presents the main force of the novel. The antagonist is the element, be it a character or otherwise, that provides resistance against that main force.

Through conflict, we get the development, and we get the context necessary to draw out the themes.

It must also be said that the protagonist does not necessarily have to appeal to our sympathies, or even pull them out forcibly. Our ability to connect with the protagonist is irrelevant to the intentions of the writer; sure, it might allow us to more efficiently drink in the deeper meanings within the text, but to be honest, the main focus is on that conflict. We don’t need to sympathize with the protagonist, but we do need to understand his motives and his trajectory before we can draw our own interpretations within the words.

That being said, here is what separates the heroes from the fallen.

They say that absolute power corrupts absolutely, and the only ones untouched are the vanguard of heroes and anti-heroes that push through their own personal demons to try and liberate mankind from its baser elements. This graphic novel really seeks to explore the deep chasms of human potential, and to really prove man is truly capable of committing demonic acts without demonic influences. Heroes all have a reason to fight, whether it’s a sense of justice, or obligation, or whatever. One of the things that tethers our preacher from reaching absolute corruption is a simple desire to hold our God accountable for his children. The heavens and the earth differ only in the types of images we were created in, the corruption, the greed, the resentment, the loathing, the discrimination, every dark force within our psyche is translatable in both Angelic and English.

I don’t know if our reverend seeks to restore the lofty ideal that God cares, and indeed does have a master plan for all creation. I can’t even discern whether or not these motivations are solely from his soul, or from the sentient influences of Genesis, but there is one thing I can draw within this cesspool of bullets, repressed sexuality, and face pulling. We as a people should be held accountable for our actions, and the greater our power, the greater our responsibility. It’s sad that we have to label those who properly use their powers for the betterment of men as heroes, because I see some non-heroic shit coming from our world leaders and corporate cabals every day.

Are we bound to help our fellow man? No, with our free will, there really is nothing physically binding us from exploiting everyone we meet. Should we help our fellow man? The novel tells us yes, and it even tells us that we don’t have to be Superman. We don’t have to bind ourselves in complex moral codes that may even inhibit our abilities to bring about true change. Our reverend doesn’t give a damn about traditional dogma and doctrine when it comes to his mission; all he cares about is holding God up to his responsibilities as the master creator. In the process, he holds everyone around him accountable for their actions as well. A serial killer is unmasked and finally brought to justice. A homophobic detective finds his true desires immersed in a marsh of bigotry. A vampire is given the room to show his own sense of honor and loyalty.

In a world where lofty ideals like justice, truth, and God don’t always hold water, this book tells us how to address that. Don’t fall, but be a hero. The fallible nature of our reverend makes him an everyman, and as every man has the potential to leave his mark on the world, every man also has an implicit obligation to bring about justice, truth, and God. If you don’t, you just might find your own penis in your colon when you wake up from a trance, where the only words you hear are “Go fuck yourself.”

So to answer your question in not so many words, are we bound to be heroes? No. The fact that cigarette companies still exist is evidence against that. We’re not bound to shit. Should we be heroes? Yes. Karma does exist, and whether or not it’s based on the celestial powers or as an entrenched tapestry of satisfying grudges and debts, it will find its way to boomerang back to you. At least in Texas anyway.

Tan

Talk about responsibility is so depressing.  Is that what life is about?  Doing good because you want Karma to come back?  Avoiding bad simply out of obligation?  Action -> Reaction.  Crime -> Punishment.  That’s so Old Testament.  So fatalist.

Where’s the breathing room?  What about freedom of choice?  How does innovation and creativity fit in?  See, those are the things that keep the world turning.  Order and law might keep the world from blowing up, but the stuff that moves us is desire and emotion.  The non-extremes.  The grey stuff in the middle.

This book is extreme, for sure.  It’s a straight line from judgment to execution.  But there’s a ton of grey stuff too.  You might read the book and see our possessed preacher as being on a mission to set things right.  That’s simple.  Very black and white.  When I read this book, I see a dude still searching for meaning and purpose.  Well, perhaps both of those exist.  Perhaps every man has that dichotomy about him: one part power/responsibility and one part I-don’t-know-what-the-fuck-to-do-with-this.

Where does all your talk about accountability fit when people are still trying to figure themselves out?  How do we be heroes when we don’t know how to be human?  It sounds like you’re saying that we should all be held accountable for our own actions, but doesn’t God forgive us for being inept?  Like that one church song, “Come as you are, as you were… as a friend, as an old enemy.”  Wait, that’s a Nirvana song?  Huh, the leader singer OD’ed on drugs and alcohol?  Whatever, it’s still a good message.

By the way, I like your explanation about conflict in a story.  It’s true, an audience is mainly focused on that conflict and not on the characters around it.  For several months now I was conflicted as to why I enjoyed 500 Days of Summer when a) I think Zooey Deschanel is a bright-eyed idiot and b) I really disagree with a lot of the “lessons” in the movie.  Was it my man-crush on Joseph Cobra-Levitt?  I don’t think that’s big enough to sway my opinion of a movie.  I realize now, after your comment, that I liked that movie because it had a fantastic grey area.  The conflict was all about discernment and raw maturation.  Nothing was extreme in that movie, except for Zooey’s inability to act.

Doh

I actually liked Zooey Deschanel’s performance.

Of course life is not about extremes. Life is way too complex to box into simple fortune cookie one-liners. The gray areas is where we show our true nature in full. When a decision isn’t so clear-cut, we have a tendency to show what we’re really made of when we finally decide.

Responsibility is depressing, but really, I don’t find it to be that burdensome. We all have a responsibility to our fellow man, to our families, to our friends, our God. It’s our choice to follow these responsibilities or cut our own path. Life isn’t defined by this responsibility, it’s defined by the decisions we make. It’s just that these responsibilities, more often than not, are called that because if we do not fulfill them, we usually run into consequences.

But does that make life defined by our avoidance of consequence? No. It’s human to avoid pain, but sometimes, we make decisions to further ourselves in spite of whatever problems that may follow after.

And as always, it’s not so clear cut on how we should live, or what decisions we should make to define ourselves. I totally agree with you, definite statements such as “you should do this” and “you should do that” limit the scope of life tremendously. We run into gray areas all the time. Every day we’re faced with a decision that may not be so clear-cut, and ones where we have to truly dig into our souls in order to find the answer. “Should I eat a burrito or a falafel?”

Throughout the book, the characters develop themselves by being thrown into action. Decisions are made, and the reader finds what type of character they are. It’s parallel to life. We never stop learning about ourselves. There will be times when we do things that we never thought we had the capacity for. This is the essence of heroism, and as always, heroism is a decision.

God forgives all our transgressions. At least, the God we know. The Machiavellian and apathetic God of The Preacher does not, so speaking in terms of the novel, there’s nothing holding us accountable but ourselves. But in the end, shouldn’t that be the ONLY person that matters? No matter what we do, if we are repentant and truly willing to accept God’s forgiveness, all of our sins are washed away. God is the constant, it is us that is the variable. Sometimes we’ll run from our responsibilities and our accountabilities, but in order to achieve true and complete reconciliation, we must come to terms with the consequences of our actions.

Because if we forgive ourselves, God will already forgive us. But forgiveness is never achieved if we never feel repentant about it. It’s the catch that prevents us from being so flippant about our actions. “Eh. I fucked that bitch. I don’t really care. God will forgive me.” He won’t, because you still haven’t forgiven yourself. A crucial ingredient in reconciliation is remorse. Without remorse, there is no reconciliation.

It doesn’t matter what we do or don’t know about ourselves. We will never know what we’re truly made of until we make those decisions. Even if we never knew the consequences of them. We make them, and then we must live with them. That’s what I mean about accountability.

Tan

“life is way too complex to box into simple fortune cookie one-liners.”
Not that that line needs any more counterpoints than the line itself, I’m gonna find some great one-liners in your response and rebut with my best attempts at fortune cookie wisdom.

“The gray areas is where we show our true nature in full.”
- Be comfortable with the gray, because life is too vivid for it to be stuck in black and too eventful for it to remain white.

“We all have a responsibility to our fellow man, to our families, to our friends, our God.”
- No man is an island. But if he was, he might be like a piece of Pangea, where eventually several more islands form and he is no longer just his own island.

“It’s human to avoid pain.”
Actually…
- It’s human to chase pleasure. It’s natural to avoid pain. It’s stupid to think one comes without the other.

“We never stop learning about ourselves.”
- The more we learn about others, the more learn about ourselves.

“Heroism is a decision.”
- Love is a decision. Heroism is a byproduct.

“God is the constant, it is us that is the variable.”
No one-liner. I like this line. More people need to realize this truth and take ownership of the good and the bad in this world.

I think we both agree here. Bottom line: people need to understand the weight of their actions. Not only how it affects others, but even the simple fact that it has an effect at all.  Whoever doesn’t know this is either taking advantage of their “denial” or is just plain stupid. That lack of accountability is detrimental to our progress as a civilization.

Doh

“Not that that line needs any more counterpoints than the line itself, I’m gonna find some great one-liners in your response and parry with my best attempts at fortune cookie wisdom.”
I like “Man who wears cologne ends up smelling himself for the rest of his life.”

“Be comfortable with the gray, because life is too vivid for it to be stuck in black and too eventful for it to remain white.”
So you’re saying it’s a mixture of vivid eventfulness? I’m inclined to agree though. Without a level of understanding about the gray, you become blind to the subtleties of life. And as Zombieland pointed out, it’s all about the little things in life.

“No man is an island. But if he was, he might be like a piece of Pangea, where eventually several more islands form and he is no longer just his own island.”
No man is always a gentleman. But if he was, he’d drink Dos Equis.

It’s also good to point out that the world was the result of the disintegration of one united land mass. So that’s what social interaction is. The disintegration of self to allow others into your view as well. Community, or at least a large element of it, is about the degrading of the ego and the strengthening of empathy. Strangely, that’s similar to the formula for loving someone, but I digress.

“It’s human to chase pleasure. It’s natural to avoid pain. It’s stupid to think one comes without the other.”
Well noted. It’s also a social instinct to limit pleasure. It’s why we label sex as an addiction.

Just kidding. I know that too much sex can hurt you and others. Especially if your partner isn’t faithful to you, or you aren’t faithful to your partner.

“The more we learn about others, the more learn about ourselves.”
Indeed. Nothing is more affirming than meeting a loser. It lets me know that I am doing ok with my life.

Again. Kidding. But while it’s always good to learn about humanity and yourself, through other people, is it always good to define ourselves in relation to other people? Shouldn’t we, at some point, take other people out of the equation and define ourselves according to our self-calculation?

“Love is a decision. Heroism is a byproduct.”
Nice edit.

We could write a series of novels on what people should do. What people should feel. Why they do this. Why they do that. But would we be any different than any other self-help hack that swears they’ve found the answer to life? The answers to life are all in front of us, we just need to interpret them in ways that fit. Note the danger in doing so.

People should realize the weight of their actions. That is a lesson most everyone will learn after fucking up repeatedly and in patterns.

But how will we ever know the fullest consequences of our actions? How was I supposed to know that by littering on the freeway, the plastic wrapper got caught on a tire, causing the car to lose traction, and creating a 54 car pileup on 280 North with fatalities and injuries? How can we comprehend the butterfly effect of everything we do?

We can’t. It’s mentally impossible to calculate every possible outcome of each action we undertake. Only God and really really really really advanced supercomputers can do that.

So I guess what people should learn is the intention behind their actions, hope that they can accurately predict the weight of their actions. Be good, and good will come to you.

But then again I hate telling people what they should know. They can read what I say, learn something from it, but in the end, they learn best from their own experience, and not mine.

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