Preacher: Dead or Alive, the Collected Covers [Paperback]

Garth Ennis (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Vertigo (March 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1563898489
• ISBN-13: 978-1563898488
• Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 6.6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,346,528 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "A hell of a vision", November 19, 2000

By 

John DiBello (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Preacher: Dead or Alive (Hardcover)

In my crowded apartment, there's very few comic books in my collection that don't get put away in a comic longbox. Only a handful of titles make the cut to be displayed on my bookshelf: Neil Gaiman's "Sandman," James Robinson's "Starman," Jeff Smith's "Bone," and Garth Ennis's "Preacher": all of these I keep out to take down and read again and again.

Too often these days a comic book series is plagued by shifting writers, interior artists, and cover artists; it's a rare case when a unifying vision keeps a top team together for a full run on a series. It's even more rare when the team (writer Ennis, interior artists Steve Dillon, and cover artist Glenn Fabry) produce one of the more controversial, black-humored, anarchic, and *human* comic books in the past ten years. It's Ennis's writing that kept me coming back month after month, but it was the vibrant, vaguely unsettling Fabry portrait of Jesse Custer on the first issue that got me to pick the series up in the first place (well, that and my friend J.C. telling me I'd be a wanker if I passed on this series).

This gorgeous color collection of the original painted covers to the recently-concluded "Preacher" series is a great overview of how, month after month, Fabry's powerful art unified the series and made it one of the most distinctive and outrageous on the comic book stands. Plenty of original sketches show how covers evolved, and the covers themselves are reproduced without logos or sales information to give you the full effect of the art. Ennis and Fabry comment on (and critique) each cover. My only complaint is that the commentary is sometimes somewhat skimpy commentary.

A fair warning: like the series itself, this collection is not for everyone. Black-humored, blasphemous, sometimes physically grotesque but always powerful, these images have the power to offend...well, just about everybody. It helps to be a Preacher fan and understand these images in context, and to come to this collection with an open mind and a sense of humor.

For a "Preacher' fan this is a necessity; I'd even recommend it to graphics people or budding artists as a great overview of design and anatomy that straddles the grotesque and the fantastic. You'll proudly display it on your bookshelf next to your paperback bound volumes of the Preacher comic. (Now, DC, now about issuing the comic volumes themselves in hardcover much like the Gaiman "Sandman" volumes?)

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Nothing New For Longtime Fans...., June 23, 2003

By 

Daniel V. Reilly (Upstate New York, United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Preacher: Dead or Alive (Hardcover)

As a longtime of Garth Ennis' legendary DC/Vertigo comic Preacher, I was very excited to see this collection, which promised not only every Glenn Fabry cover from the series, related mini-series and one-shots, and trade paperbacks, but commentary by Fabry and Ennis, behind-the-scenes stuff like sketches and rejected covers. The book is a great buy for newer fans, but longtime Preacher faithful won't find nearly enough value for the hefty price tag. Ennis and Fabry's comments are REALLY brief, and although there are a few laughs to be had from the acerbic duo, two or three chuckles do not make a book worth thirty smackers. The most glaring omission is the original cover from Preacher #52; The depiction of an 8 year-old Tulip getting a gun for Christmas from her Dad was scrapped because of the Columbine school shootings. The cover is discussed here, but not shown. Considering the unused cover was the primary reason for my buying the book in the first place, I was pretty angry to find it wasn't included. It's a nice-looking book, but if you've been a fan of Preacher for a while, chances are you've seen every piece of Fabry art contained here.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing, February 6, 2004

By 

N. Durham "Big Evil" (Philadelphia, PA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Preacher: Dead or Alive, the Collected Covers (Paperback)

Undoubtadly one of the best comic series' ever created since the Sandman, Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon's Preacher saga is still one of the most revered and beloved comics of all time. Dead or Alive, a collection of every issue's covers and supposed to be loaded with extras, was anxiously awaited by loyal fans of the series, and much to their disappointment, this collection offers little. While it does offer every Glen Fabry cover of every issue in the series, the original cover for issue #52 (a cover which was scrapped because of the Columbine incident) is not here, yet it is discussed. Also, the much looked forward to commentary by Ennis and Fabry is the biggest disappointment in the book. There are a few chuckles here and there, but it is scant and does not go as in depth as many had hoped. Other features, such as original sketches and the fantasticly drawn covers themselves, are worth taking a look at the book for, but die hard Preacher fans will feel gyped and only wish there was more.