Art is art and literature is literature, but when you slam the two together as a graphic novel the culture vultures peer down their nose at the result and in doing so often miss great contemporary art and literature in one mistaken moment of idle snobbery.

It's their loss, and Garth Ennis & Steve Dillon's Preacher series is a case in point.

The Preacher series is an unashamedly blasphemous, shocking, original and funny tour-de-force that draws the open-minded reader in from the first page and quickly becomes such compulsive reading it is practically addictive.

It follows the story of Jesse Custer, small-town preacher and drunk, who's banal and faithless life is transformed when he merges with a spirit known as Genesis which grants him a power equalled only by God.

Accompanied by his ex-lover (and retired hit-woman) Tulip and the hell-raising Irish vampire Cassidy Jesse sets off on an epic journey across America in order to find God. If he finds Him he intends to ask Him some serious questions and just possibly kick his ass for His neglect and abuse of mankind.

Fantastic artwork accompanies engrossing, many-layered plots that interweave with the main story and twist and turn in unexpected directions leaving the reader ravenous for the next instalment.

The real strength of the books, however, is in the characters. The cast of unique characters, be they human, divine or diabolical, are portrayed with a realism that is both surprising and refreshing given the fantastic themes and premise of the story. This credibility allows the reader to feel a real empathy with the characters and to genuinely care what happens to them.

The books are peppered with viscreal, laugh-out-loud humour that add colour and depth to the characters without detracting from the overall seriousness of the story and in fact adds a depth of realism to the characters. Sometimes, in extremis all you can do is laugh or die and it's this knee-deep-in-mud-and-guts trench humour that is most evident although there are more subtle and intelligent gags throughout.

Thematically Preacher deals with divine and personal responsibility, trust, truth, honour and the bounds of acceptable behaviour. It covers forgiveness, love, lust, evil, betrayal, purpose and many more relevant and challenging themes in an intelligent, subtle and unpatronising manner. Despite the title the Preacher books simply present a story that encourages the reader to think about these themes and draw their own conclusions rather than pushing a particular point of view.

Preacher is certainly not for everyone; no doubt many Christians will be appalled by the blatant blasphemy and even a hard-skinned comic-book fan will find some of the violence and perversion on show stomach-turning.
That, however, is the point.
Violence and perversion should be shocking but they are too often barely even noticed by those jaded by the modern media's over-sanitised and unrealistic take on such things. As for blasphemy, well, any religion that feels threatened by the fictions of a comic-book (or any other publication for that matter) has serious problems in the faith department in the first place and should take a good long look at itself before condemning others.

Preacher is available in all good comic-book stores and the more forward-thinking mainstream bookshops (I got the full series from Borders.)