The play had its origin in Stoppard's discovery that James Joyce, Lenin, and Tristan Tzara, the founder of Dadaism, had all lived in Zurich during the First World War — a conjunction of expatriates that made instant comic connections in his mind.
Make comics, write books, animate animes, just make yourself popular.
When his material threatens to become blandly observational, as with one spiel about dipping biscuits in tea, he rescues it by ratcheting up the dismay and making increasingly absurd comic connections ("Hobnobs," he insists, "are like marines").
He took on different characters with different accents, roamed to all kinds of locations, both physical and metaphysical, made lightning-fast comic connections in time and space that were at once hysterically funny and like nothing I had ever experienced before.
I spoke with him recently about how the series has evolved over the years, the new respectability of graphic novels, and the connection between making comics and drawing covers.
We've both made comics for marriedtothesea.com.
This article is part of VICE Gaming's Comic Connections week.
If you've read the comic and can make the connection with Grail Industries, it's not hard to surmise that this is Herr Starr: one of Preacher's best, unluckiest human villains.
