Having been an avid Preacher reader for two of it's three years (hopping aboard on issue 13), I decided it was time to get back to the roots of the series and finally pick up a copy of Gone To Texas, the trade paperback collecting the first 7 issues of the series. What's interesting most is to see how far the characters have come. When I hopped aboard, Jesse, Tulip, and Cassidy already seemed larger than life... so full of themselves as if they'd been through enough to know they could survive everything. In Gone To Texas, none of that was there. The rocksolid relationship between Jesse Custer and Tulip of current was far from it. And the lifebond friendship between Jesse and Cassidy was also more rocky than solid.
And since I was always used to seeing Jesse so surly and Tulip so lovestruck, I couldn't imagine them as perfectly normal humans. But the onset of the series had them just that way, with regular fears, desires, and conversations. It's great to see the growth of all the characters... although Cassidy has remained Cassidy (which is even more interesting).
If you haven't read Preacher before, pick up Gone To Texas to start off with. It's a little rough around the edges compared to later issues, but it sets the series up perfectly for what to expect. Twisted is key.
A slight recap in case you don't know. Jesse Custer is a small town preacher, who through happenstance joined with the energy being Genesis (the progeny of an angel and a demon). Through this merger, Jesse practically gains the power of the word of God, and also learns the startling truth that the sky has been keeping... God has gone into hiding, forsaking the Earth and Heavens. Jesse, along with his ex-girlfriend Tulip, and his new friend (who happens to be a vampire) Cassidy, vows to scour the Earth in search of God, and to kick some sense into his sorry ass.
But it's not so easy once the Saint of Killers (an unstoppable destructive force) is unleased after him, and mass murderers, Custer's Granma, and a weird but powerful cult stand in Jesse's way. What's a small town Preacher supposed to do?
Kick some ass.
That's Preacher in a nutshell. Buy, read, enjoy.