Nihilism Pays.

Not too long ago I posted a review of the first season of the nihilistic TV show PREACHER. Although I found large sections of the production to be actually offensive, there were enough bright and humorous touches for me to like it as a whole. Part of that had to do with the very simple (and selfish) fact that I find Ruth Negga to be extremely attractive, and another part of it was that I saw so much comedy and humanity in the way Jackie Earle Hailey portrayed the character of Odin Quinncannon.

Last week--because I had enjoyed the previous season--I tuned in for the first episode. I wish I had not done so.

For me, all of the humor was gone. The nihilism was still there--in great abundance--but the humor was missing. What they were trying to pass off as humor was just a kind of sick arrogance that I found merely disgusting. When one of the heroes casually murders the pet of an innocent man, and that same innocent man in hunting for the lost pet has his tongue pulled from his living face...well...you can see where I might be just a little bit put off. That's the point where I stopped watching, and that's the point where I decided that I won't bother with the show anymore.

Sorry, Ruth. Not even your presence can get me to watch another episode of PREACHER.

But nihilism these days seems to really pay in great dividends. All around the world of novels, comics, TV, and film, the worst of the worst seems to be in great demand. Novels that are nothing but racist gun-porn sell like mad. Movies that feature one inhuman murder after another are tops. I know this is nothing truly new, but the unrestrained excess of it has reached a point where I just cannot tolerate it.

Hell. Blame it on my age. Or on the point where my own level of tolerance has been saturated. Whatever it is, I've had enough.

Apparently the most popular cable TV show in the history of the medium is now embroiled in a vast legal battle over the billions (yes, you read that right--billions) of dollars it has generated for the network that aired it. I am, of course, talking about that Queen of Nihilism: THE WALKING DEAD.

That THE WALKING DEAD was copped from the work of George A Romero without remuneration to said fellow is beside the point. The fact of the matter is that while Romero's work was social commentary, the TV show gleaned from the vision of Romero and John Russo is just simple, nasty, violence-infused grue. But my how that shit sells! It has sold to tunes so vast that it has created its own self-perpetuating industries. Starting as a comic trimmed from Romero & Russo's zombie vision, it branched out into collected graphic novels, a TV series, video games, T-shirts, media conventions, etc. and so on. If there's a way to squeeze a dollar out of it, they have done so.

And enter now the original director and show-runner Frank Darabont who was chased away from the series and is now suing. There is something extremely satisfying in watching these Hollywood folk fighting over the steaming corpse of a visual property the way the rotting zombies struggle to get their piece of a recently murdered human.

I have to laugh.

There's still some actual humor to be found in the nihilism of true life.

For what it's worth, Mr. Darabont--I hope you win.

PREACHER

After I left the comic book industry (as a retailer, as a back-issue dealer, and as a writer), I didn't look at comics for a very long time. But I still had friends in the industry (mainly comic artists) and I would talk to them from time to time. During some of these conversations with several of these folk, a title kept coming up concerning the kinds of books that were appearing on the scene since my absence. That book was PREACHER.

PREACHER was published by DC Comics. Probably their Vertigo line, but I'm not sure and I don't feel like looking it up. At any rate, it was created and written by Garth Ennis, and illustrated by Steve Dillon. It has always been my impression that both of these fellows hailed from Europe, and when I looked into it, sure enough: Ennis from Ireland, and Dillon from UK.

The title was set in the USA, specifically the state of Texas. And it dealt mostly with Americans and USA situations and locale. Despite the fact that these two hailed from outside our nation, they pretty much seemed to have a grip on the seamy underbelly of life in this country. The book was well written with clever dialogue from Ennis, and illustrated cleanly but with a fine, twisted line by Dillon.

But I didn't care for the book.

It should have been at the top of my list of favorite reading material, but I had become so alienated from the comics medium that I just couldn't formulate any enthusiasm for the title. Yes, I picked up a couple of the multi-issue collections to get a feel for the work, but I couldn't stay with it. Part of the problem was that I was getting older and things that had once thrilled me now bored me. Also, I found the nihilism present in almost every page to be bothersome and almost sophomoric in the book's attempt to shock and outrage the reader.

PREACHER was ugly, it was disgusting, it was crude, and it was damned near nauseating. I read about seven issues and grew bored with it.

Then, AMC announced that they were producing it as a television series. My thought was that there was absolutely no freaking way they could do this. How could you show that much violence and that caliber of nihilism in a TV series? It couldn't be done and be allowed on a television show.

I was wrong.

There it was, in all of its horrific glory. Arseface. Jesse Custer. Tulip. Cassidy. And the rest of the whole, sorry, worthless lot. Blood. Broken bones. Murder. Torture. And lots and lots and lots of blasphemy. Tons of blasphemy. Blasphemy in almost every line of dialog and every frame of video.

And I like it. A lot. For some reason, what did not appeal to me in four color comics suddenly made all the sense in the world on my big flat-screen TV.

Why? Fuck if I know! I could not tell you why. The simple fact is that what I found boring and pedestrian in comics format was transformed into humor and attraction on the TV screen. Yeah...I know: it makes zero sense. The lines were similar from the comic to the teleplay. The images were almost spot-on when it came to recreating the characters from two dimensional renderings into human actors. But whatever it was, I found the show to be funny, and sarcastic, and entertaining.

Part of it could very well be the cast and how the writers chose to translate the story. It doesn't hurt that Ruth Negga (as Tulip) is achingly pretty. And both Jesse Custer and Cassidy are portrayed with a clever combination of humor and pathos. Whatever it is...I enjoy watching the show.

It works.

I like it.

PREACHER, the comic book.

PREACHER, the TV series.

The Craft

I have not been keeping the blog current. Mainly I have been working on my craft of choice: the creation of fiction. To that end I have been spending a lot of time writing, and reading.

If you choose or happen upon the right creator, you can be inspired to work harder and to try to reach another level. So it has been this week as I rediscovered the work of Fritz Leiber.

So, for a while I will likely not be able to post here regularly. I'll be working hard on at least two novels and crafting two short stories. Until then...

Fritz Leiber, Jr. Author of horror, sword and sorcery, fantasy, science fiction. Creator of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. Author of NIGHT'S BLACK AGENTS (which contains "Smoke Ghost", one of the finest ghost stories I have read). Stage actor, Film actor, Anglican lay preacher, and more.