‘You gotta be one of the good guys, son’: mobilities of Foucauldian ethics and freedom in Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon’s Preacher

ABSTRACT

In the Preacher comic book series, writer Garth Ennis and artist Steve Dillon appear to conjure every type of blasphemy against the Christian church as possible. Ennis and Dillon, however, use the mythos of John Wayne and the American West to suggest a male ethics that incorporates pleasure as a tactic in relations of power. Rather than suggest a resistance towards a generalised Christian morality that judges both pleasurable and violent actions, Preacher imagines the work needed to be done by the Anglo-American male subject to achieve freedom while still existing within mechanisms of power. This article explores how the character of Jesse Custer becomes an ideal man of the West through the storylines of Preacher. The following analysis shows that mobility is an important component for this ethical subject formation to unfold.

KEYWORDS:

• Preacher
• Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon
• Foucauldian ethics
• mobilities
• John Wayne

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to thank the anonymous referees for their helpful critique as well as Darrell Moore and Eve Oishi.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Michael W. Pesses

Michael W. Pesses is a Professor of Geography at Antelope Valley College. His research interests include mobilities, racial geographies, and Michel Foucault.