Every good book has a good introduction (or foreward).
With my rediscovery of comics within the past five years, I’ve discovered a new part of comics. Yeah, yeah, yeah I know the introduction really doesn’t count as part of the comic, but to me it does. To me intros are very important, its like I always say, if you can make it through the intro you can make it through the book. I’ve read intros to The Sandman, Preacher, Watchmen, and more recently Final Crisis. What better way to whet your appetite, to know what to expect without giving the story away. For you people who like to skip the intro and go directly to the action, I have a few words for you, SHAME ON YOU.
Having read Preacher, I just so happed to read through the foreword. Let me tell you something if you haven’t read it, go to your bookshelf and break out your copy. GO ON, it’s written by the Joe R. Lansdale. If you don’t know who Joe R. Lansdale is, aside from his novels and stories, he wrote for Batman: The Animated Series. He wrote that one episode ”Perchance to Dream” you know the one where Bruce Wayne’s parents never die. The one with the scene where he tries to read the book, but when he opens it and tries to read it it’s all gibberish. Anyways. Mr. Lansdale opens the series with a statement I find as an absolute. ”THERE AIN’T TWO JUST LIKE IT”. It hasn’t stopped me from looking, but he’s right - Preacher is a very unique series. And the way he wrote it, GENIUS! He wrote it like a true proud Texan. When I first read it, I actually had trouble reading it. I’m from Texas, but hearing it everyday then trying to read it, it’s hard. It’s like looking at the giant pink elephant in the room, then hearing him speak, and hearing a gruff mans voice. I hear all the y’alls and the ain’t, but the intro still stumbled me. But I agree with Joe, Garth does capture the ”mythical spirit of Texas”, and he’s a magnificent writer he just ain’t a Texan.
Sandman. Need I say more. The intro’s so great and easy to read, and I really enjoyed the quote of Job 28:12,13,18 on the cover page (book one). The intro was written by Mr. F. Paul Wilson, creation of the Repair-man Jack series. What I forgot to mention above just how fun this was to read, I read it begrudgingly in complete agreement with him. Believe me I hate to say it but it’s true about the two things I love the most, comics and rock music. Fist, music, we were on top of the world with rock and roll, man we owned it, it was ours. But somehow we lost it, and it had to be imported back to us (better than it was before I might add). The Beatles, The Rolling Stones – come on need I say more. And comics, if you can honestly say your a fan of comics and not know Moore or Gaiman, then can you truly call yourself a fan. They took our heroes and made them better than they were before. Sandman made into the king of dreams was, to me was something different, it changed the way I viewed comics, they didn’t just have to be about heroes in tights. I agree with him on both music and comics, they are what they are now because of ”Those Brits”.
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I could go on and on about all the intros or forewards I’ve read, but I don’t want to be to much of a bore. When I first was thinking what to write about I thought it was pretty obvious, an intro about intros. It was my first so take it easy on me, I promise next month I’ll have better material. I believe our name is Life in Technacolour, so please read our stuff. If you’ve made it this far – Thanks, and I hope it was worth it.
Merin on 
A good introduction is essential, not just to whet one’s appettite but to prime the audiance for what’s to come and give readers a frame of reference for the story and the context in which it was originally published. I’ve read both of the comics you’ve mentioned start to finish several times, and each time I feel obliged to re-read the introductions for every trade. A well written introduction not only gives you a notion of what the comic (or whatever else) has in store for you, but the impact it had on other creators when it was new, and the central themes of the work as they emerged in concert between the writer and it’s readers.
I do have to disagree with you and Paul Wilson on one point though, American Rock and Roll was doing just fine before the British invasion. And while I can’t deny that the Stones were, for a period of time, the greatest rock and roll band in the world, the revolutionary work the Beatles did was built upon a foundation of recording ideas advance by Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys, and derivative of the psychedelic movement – whose origins can actually be traced right back to your home state of Texas.