Garth Ennis (born 16 January 1970) is a Northern Irish-born naturalized American comics writer, best known for the Vertigo series Preacher with artist Steve Dillon and his nine-year run on Marvel Comics' Punisher franchise. He has collaborated with artists such as Dillon and Glenn Fabry on Preacher, John McCrea on Hitman, Marc Silvestri on The Darkness, and Carlos Ezquerra on both Preacher and Hitman.
Ennis began his comic-writing career in 1989 with the series Troubled Souls. Appearing in the short-lived but critically acclaimed British anthology Crisis and illustrated by John McCrea, it told the story of a young, apolitical Protestant man caught up by fate in the violence of the Irish 'Troubles'. It spawned a sequel, For a Few Troubles More, a broad Belfast-based comedy featuring two supporting characters from Troubled Souls, Dougie and Ivor, who would later get their own American comics series, Dicks, from Caliber in 1997, and several follow-ups from Avatar. Ennis was later critical of his writing debut, which he describes as "the kind of thing that was doing well at the time. (...) With hindsight, what Troubled Souls really represented was naked ambition. It was a direct attempt to get published. And that was the road that seemed most likely to lead me to success".