Before there was The Boys, creator Garth Ennis broke new ground with its predecessor series, Preacher. In fact, the genesis of The Boys was Ennis’ desire to “out-Preacher Preacher.” To make a series that was even more iconoclastic and sacrilegious, even gorier and more outrageously profane. Now, fans of The Boys who aren’t familiar with its spiritual “prequel” have a new opportunity to experience the series that made it all possible.
There are 75 total issues of Preacher, published between 1995 and 2000. Those individual issues have been collected in a number of different volumes over the years, and now the series is being re-released by Vertigo Comics, through Penguin Random House, in a new Compendium edition. The first of two volumes is out this week.
For anyone who can’t get enough of The Boys on TV, the natural next step is to check out the source material. And for those who truly want to understand where Garth Ennis was coming from, how his style and sensibilities evolved up to when The Boys started in 2006, Preacher is equally essential reading.
Preacher Is Back With A New Compendium Collected Edition
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The new Preacher Compendium collects the first 33 issues of the main Preacher series, as well as the four-issue Saint of Killers tie-in miniseries, and the Cassidy: Blood and Whiskey one-shot. This is actually the second time these issues have been bundled together; in 2020, the first volume of the Preacher: The 25th Anniversary Edition Omnibus was released. This earlier collection was a hardcover, while Compendium One is a meaty trade paperback.
Either way, these collections make Preacher more accessible to new readers, many of whom will naturally find the series through The Boys. For years, the debate among fans (and critics) of Ennis’ work has been whether The Boys is better than Preacher. Today, there is no question which series has had a great cultural impact, with The Boys breaking into the mainstream and becoming a huge TV franchise with multiple spin-offs and a massive mainstream footprint. What that means, though, is there are a generation of Boys fans who are about to have their minds blown by Preacher.
It is like getting into a band with their most popular record, and then going back to the record before that and realizing it is just as gnarly, if not gnarlier. Preacher uses religious ideas and iconography the way The Boys does with superhero tropes. Its art is grittier, and its most shocking moments of violence and depravity feel more visceral, rather than the over-the-top parody of The Boys. All that is waited to be discovered by a new generation of fans thanks to the new Compendium collection.
Fans Of The Boys Have To Check Out Preacher Now That It Is Easier Than Ever
Compendiums and omnibus editions are to trade paperbacks what TPBs are to single issues of comics. As it was being published, Preacher was collected in nine trade paperbacks, one story arc per volume. Preacher was later re-released in a more condensed six-volume set, and then again in the three volume Absolute Preacher editions. Now, the Anniversary Omnibus and the new Compendium edition have that down to two books.
Some people who get really into Preacher might want all nine of those OG collections on their shelf. But for someone who is just looking to power through the series, and see what the hype is all about, the Compendium is the way to go. For at least some people in either category, the Vertigo masterpiece will rise above The Boys in esteem to become their favorite Garth Ennis series.
Preacher Compendium One drops tomorrow, November 3, from Penguin Random House.
The Boys franchise is a satirical and dark superhero series based on the comic book by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson. It explores a world where superheroes, or “Supes,” are corrupt, violent, and morally bankrupt, all controlled by the powerful corporation Vought International. The story centers around two opposing groups: The Boys, a vigilante team aiming to expose and defeat the corrupt heroes, and The Seven, Vought’s elite team of Supes led by the ruthless Homelander.
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