Meat Fiction and Burning Western Light. The South in Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon's Preacher

Overview & Synopsis

This article examines the way in which the South and the West intersect in Garth Ennnis and Steve Dillon's comic book series, Preacher (DC/Vertigo, 1995-2000). Preacher attempts to chart the ground for a renovated hybrid fiction which would blend the iconography of the South and the West in order to redefine both the limitations and the possibilities of southern identity, offering a version of the South that is self-consciously in dialogue with its popular representations and with the real histories those representations both reveal and conceal. From this dialogue comes the possibility for a new, more complex South, one that acknowledges its histories and representations without being constrained by familiar narratives.