Funko Pop Unveils ‘Preacher’ Vinyl Figures With One Huge Omission

Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon's Preacher is the new biggest show on televison, and its debut episode on AMC this week has everyone talking about Jesse Custer and the town of Annville, Texas. It seems all popular television shows and films these days receive a line of Funko Pop vinyl figures at some point, and Preacher is no exception, but the upcoming line of three is missing one major character.

Take a look at the official description of the line and see if anything seems off to you:

Preacher transforms the beloved comic into an
action-packed television series only on AMC!

Follow Jesse Custer, a small town preacher, on his mission to find God!
He'll have to call on the disfigured Arseface and Cassidy the Irish vampire for help!

Collect the whole set this summer!

That's right! For some reason, Funko is releasing a wave of three vinyl figures without the comics' second most important character, Tulip O'Hare.

What makes it worse is that in the television adaptation, Tulip is portrayed by the Ethiopian-Irish actress Ruth Negga, so Funko is excluding a woman of color in a starring role in TV's newest hit TV show, in favor of a white male character that offers an unflattering portrayal of people with facial disfigurements.

Preacher features three lead characters in both the comics and the show; Jesse Custer, Tulip O'Hare and Cassidy. If you haven't read the comic, Tulip is Jesse's girlfriend who sticks with him through thick and thin, and she's a crack shot with a revolver. It's actually a plot point in the comic that Jesse is an idiot for not valuing her skills, and his effort to put aside his macho preconceptions is a huge part of the character's growth. The idea that Tulip could be left out of an initial line of three figures is almost unfathomable, but for the fact that it's actually happened.

Of course, this follows a trend that saw characters like The Avengers' Black Widow, Guardians of the Galaxy's Gamora and Star Wars' Rey almost absent from toy shelves because licensees didn't produce enough merchandise featuring these leading characters.

Funko Pop's Preacher line hits shelves this August, but we're not happy about it.