Sam Mendes is about to become the latest "serious" director to tackle a comic book, though he won't be bringing any of the usual big-name characters to life. The Oscar-winning director of American Beauty will direct an adaptation of Preacher, a 1990s Vertigo comic series about.... wait for it... a preacher possessed by a supernatural entity that is a combination of angel and demon.

I get the feeling this will go beyond the usual angel and devil sitting on your shoulder. As The Hollywood Reporter describes it, the story will follow the preacher as he teams up with an old girlfriend and an Irish vampire to travel across the country and track down God and bring him to justice. It's another road trip story like Road to Perdition, which was actually Mendes' first graphic novel adaptation, back when Spider-Man was the only comic book hero anyone was bothering to see onscreen.

We'll see with December's Revolutionary Road whether Mendes has still got his directing chops, but I see no real reason to doubt it. The more fascinating novels like this one that get adapted, and the more different ways graphic novel stories get told, the better off we'll all be. Thanks Sam!