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Seth Rogen and his producing partners have undertaken a task that many others have found impossible — they're bringing the comic book "Preacher" to the screen.

As a new TV series on AMC, that is — after almost two decades of failed attempts to turn it into a movie. Or a TV show.

The problem? How do you translate writer Garth Ennis' incredibly violent, remarkably profane, sacrilegious tale into something palatable for viewers? For programmers?

"We want the show to be fun for regular people with not-sick sensibilities," Rogen said. "Put that on a poster."

How do you do that without losing what made "Preacher" successful to begin with?

"I don't know if you could translate the comic strictly to television," Rogen said. "I think everyone involved thought we should not do that directly, including Garth.

"But … we love the comic. There's tons of stuff in the comic that we hope to include."

"Preacher" centers on Jesse Custer (Dominic Cooper), a small-town Texas preacher who is somewhat magically merged with a half-demon, half-angel being. When Jesse learns that God has abandoned his post, he teams up with his ex-girlfriend, Tulip (Ruth Negga), and his vampire pal, Cassidy (Joseph Gilgun), and sets out to find the missing God.

The series is filled with other characters from the pages of the comic books, including Eugene (Ian Colletti) — aka "Arseface" — who survived a suicide attempt that left him hideously disfigured, albeit less disfigured on TV.

If you've never read the "Preacher" graphic novels, you'll have a difficult time believing the "Preacher" TV series has been toned down. It is incredibly violent. It's profane (for basic cable). But the one area that has been softened considerably is the religious angle. At least in the first four episodes (screened for critics), the idea that God has abandoned us is more a subtext than a major plot point.

And there are definitely things from the comic book that won't make the series. Even on AMC.

"It's a constant discussion," Rogen said. "There's no formula for it. Your own taste, your co-worker's taste. You make it a discussion.

"But I think that, overall, we want the show to be watchable and fun and entertaining. And we don't want it to be alienating in its content."

That includes the violence. Executive producer Sam Catlin recalled "a very long, sort of Talmudic argument" about whether, in the first episode, Tulip should bite off a guy's nose (as in the comic book) or an ear.

"And we basically were, like — the nose, that's just disgusting," Catlin said. "You can't do the nose. That's way over the top. But somehow the ear …"

"Was OK," Rogen interjected. "So those are the kinds of discussions that we have."

And they want the TV series to be full of surprises, even for those steeped in "Preacher" lore.

"Our big thing is we want fans who love the comic to get everything they want," said executive producer Evan Goldberg, "but also make some new twists and turns."

That's going down the trail blazed by AMC's "The Walking Dead." That series is filled with characters familiar to fans of the comic books, and there are similar storylines.

But there are also some major divergences.

"Preacher" has been through a long series of attempts to turn it into either a theatrical film or a TV series. And a big reason for the failures may have been attempts at too-literal translations of the comic books.

"It didn't seem, at first, that we should do it that way," Goldberg said. "And then we talked with Garth, and Garth very much encouraged us to make a lot of small changes and to, kind of, make it a good show first and foremost." —

On TV

"Preacher" premieres Sunday on AMC — 8 p.m. on DirecTV and Dish Network and 11 p.m. on