This may not be the place to get a balanced opinion on the matter, but I want to know if a die-hard fan of the comics will enjoy the show.

Quite recently on a whim, I bought the first paperback collection of the Preacher comics. I burned through the entire series in about a week, and it's perhaps one of the greatest stories told in any media form. Since then, I've been deliberately putting off the show because of how much it appears to depart from the source material. The cast is far from what I'd hoped for for the characters, and the story looks like it diverges pretty heavily from what happens in the comic.

If it were any other series I'd be fine with it. Marvel changed most of their characters in their movies and I love them all. Lord of the Rings cut out entire characters and became one of the best trilogies of all time. But Preacher is different for me. The comics had such a unique feel to them, and I'm afraid the show will lose some of that by changing too much. From what I could tell from the trailers, it just looks like strangers in the guises of Jesse, Cass, and Tulip.

Am I overreacting? Do the trailers make it seem more different than it actually is? Or will all the changes taint my enjoyment of the Preacher mythos, no matter how well-made the show may be?