The PREACHER is coming to HBO

Geez, am I conflicted about this one.

The Washington Post is reporting that HBO is now going to be making a television series based on DC's Vertigo comic Preacher (actually as dark as Preacher was it's probably better to call it a "graphic novel").

Preacher was never something that I really "got", but I read a few issues and I generally thought that the tone of the series was pretty unique and arresting. I thought its use of the old west motif was especially clever. It's just that a lot of how it tackled issues pertaining to the Christian faith didn't really appeal to me. Like, I really can't believe that God would just up and walk away from His creation simply because something went screwy with it (namely an angel and a demon copulating and having a child). Preacher's idea of Christianity never reflected my own at all... but if anyone else can read and enjoy the series without it negatively affecting their faith, I've no problem with that.

It's just that if HBO is going to make a series based on Preacher, why couldn't they have let Carnivale continue? No doubt a lot of people are going to be asking that in the days and weeks to come, given how much alike Preacher and Carnivale are to each other. I thought that show had an incredibly deep mythology that was never allowed to come into its own like it should have. It also had - and still has - a loyal following of fans that are hoping that HBO might yet let the story continue somehow (according to the show's producers, there are still two "books" of two seasons each that Carnivale had left to it, that would have brought the story to 1945). I'll check out Preacher when it premieres and decide from there whether to invest any more time watching it... but it just seems like the sensible thing that HBO should have done if they wanted to do something in this vein was just fund a third season of Carnivale and then have seen how things went from there.

Or if HBO really wants to impress on the comic book front, they should somehow snag the rights and produce a twelve-part adaptation of Watchmen: that's the ONLY way that story is ever going to be told on the screen and have it done justice.