Monthly (Comic) Book Club - February - Transmetropolitan19059
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Monthly (Comic) Book Club - February - Transmetropolitan: Back on the Street & Lust for Life  Transmetropolitan #1-12 Week 1 (1/30-2/5): Transmetropolitan #1-3 Week 2 (2/6-2/12): Transmetropolitan #4-6 Week 3 (2/13/-2/19): Transmetropolitan #7-9 Week 4 (2/20-2/26): Transmetropolitan #10-12 Discussion topic ideas: * Thoughts on the story or artwork * Details in the story, artwork, or presentation * References to outside events or other works of fiction * Making of/Behind the Scenes details * Editions you will be reading from * Items in your collection pertaining to this week’s selection |
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 If the viagra is working you should be well over a 9.8.
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| Darick Robertson mostly from The Boys, but I've also seen his work on Wolverine. Ellis also did The Boys, of course, but he's done so much else that it would be hard to miss. I've read a few X-Men projects, the Iron Man Extremis storyline, some of the Ultimates-related projects, The Batman's Grave, and he appeared as a character in an issue of Powers that we read. Ellis is also notable for the long list of people who have accused him of poor behavior. Going only by what it says on wikipedia, he seems to be making an honest effort to do better, which is good. |
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| #1 is obviously our introduction to the world. Spider Jerusalem wrote a famous book or two and then left the city to live alone in the mountains for five years, but is pulled back because of his contract to write more books. He needs money to live while writing the books, so he gets a job as a journalist again. The city is London (I think) in an unspecified future. It reminds me vaguely of Idiocracy, in the sense that any future where everything is advertising and and a mess reminds me of Idiocracy. Spider is violent and profane, and it's a little unclear how different he is from other people. He blows up the mountain bar on the way into town and drops grenades in the office on his way in to ask for a job. We'll have to see where the story goes, of course. The art is solid, and very detailed. There are a lot of names and labels that I'm sure are a bunch of easter eggs if I were to look them up. One that jumped out was the book Confederacy of Dunces in Spider's house; it certainly sounds like an inspiration or at least a fellow entry in the genre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Confederacy_of_Dunces |
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Quote:Originally Posted by xkonk I think you briefly confused Warren Ellis with Garth Ennis. I don’t think Ellis has written on the Boys but otherwise, you’re right on the breadth of his work |
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| #2 follows Spider's first idea for a story, which is an interview with someone he knew who is now the head of a group of transients. Transients are people who took a temporary genetic modification treatment and used it to permanently make themselves part alien. This group, at least, has decided to cordon off the neighborhood where they were forced to live and say they are seceding to join the alien colony. Spider thinks the leader is full of it and warns that the government will find an excuse to wipe them out, which appears to start happening at the end of the issue. Spider makes mention of a president, so apparently this isn't set in London. Since he comes down from a snowy mountain we have to imagine this is Colorado or somewhere on the west coast, although the city feels like a New York City or something else big. Or I guess the mountains could be smaller than I was imagining. Since it's The City (TM), the location is fictional and might not really matter that much. There are some interesting tidbits in the story that aren't commented on too much. The treatment of the transients sounds like pretty standard "let's hide the people we don't like in slums" stuff. On the flip side, the guards outside Fred's bar wearing all black except for red armbands is not a good look. I'm curious if these kinds of things will come up explicitly or if they'll just be in the story for readers to pick up or not. With the in-your-face nature of the book, I did some googling and noticed that Transmetropolitan ran from 1997 to 2002, essentially the exact same time as the WWE's Attitude Era. I guess that was the time for this kind of thing. |
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| #3 answers my question a bit - it's certainly going to be clear what side of political issues Spider is on. He goes up on a roof to live-blog the 'police action' on the transients, which is just an exercise in authoritarianism. His editor sells the rights to broadcast it and the public backlash stops the fight in real time. Spider blames it all on the government but also marks the general public as complicit. He gets his own police beating at the end of the issue for his trouble, but he seems happy to be back in the game. This mini-arc is only three issues, so it wraps pretty completely. I wonder where it will go from here, and where exactly Spider falls on the political spectrum. He rejects authority in all forms, including dudes just working a tollbooth or guarding a bar, but is he then an anarchist? Or is he more anti-government control and also really violent? Or maybe a sociopath? |
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| Issue #1 was definitely an intentional assault on the senses. Spider is basically a hermit, sho bears something of a physical similarity to Alan Moore. I’m not sure if that was intentional but you could say Moore’s life parallels Spider’s to some extent. After becoming insanely popular with his comics work in the 80s Moore became somewhat reclusive and even a bit hostile to the whole idea of fandom. Anyways, Spider very much fees like a creature of pure Id. He says what he thinks and does what he wants with his only real concern is getting what he needs to keep going. I’d also like to mention that the overwhelming nature of the city feels very relevant to today’s world. Maybe not necessarily reflecting today’s cities but the city in the story certainly feels a little what living in today’s world and interacting to any significant degree on the internet is like. A bombardment of ads and a constant flood of mostly depressing news. In a way, Spider behaves the way many of us wish we could when the modern world has overwhelmed us without rest for far too long. |
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| The bulk of issue 2 is Spider finding and speaking to the leader of the Transient group that has barricaded themselves in their neighborhood and are demanding independence. Spider, knowing the leader from way back, can tell part of the leader’s spiel is rehearsed and that he’s using the situation to his own benefit with the hired goons guarding him and easy access to sex. What we don’t really get an idea of in this issue is how big the Transient movement is. Is it local? National? International? As far as Slider is concerned, I think we get to see that despite his cynicism he very much cares about the little people. Hell, he adopts a mutant cat off his doorstep because it’s hungry I imagine his cynicism grew because he couldn’t stand how the world seems to just trample on people for the benefit of a small few. Again, it is certainly something relatable in this day and age. Unfortunately, what Spider knew would happen happens and the government moves riot police towards the barricaded district. I do wonder what Spider will do when he gets there. It seems even he isn’t sure. |
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| #4 seems like a standalone issue, but it could tie into something bigger. Spider gets an assistant, who he treats marginally better than everyone else, and assaults the president with a diarrhea gun. It was an enjoyable read, if you enjoy this type of attitude (which I do at least on occasion), but I don't think brought anything big to the table. I wonder how Spider and Channon's relationship will play out. | ||
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| #4 is another one-off, with Spider going through the couple thousand TV stations on 'basic' so he can 'better understand the culture'. There's a strong Idiocracy vibe, with each show's description sounding like something that exists now but taken to an extreme. We briefly meet Channon's boyfriend, who is (probably correctly) afraid of Spider, and the issue ends with the TV sending out a transmission that sends commercials into your dreams. Channon does seem sympathetic to Spider spending the day watching TV, which is a rare emotion in the series so far. The one bit of 'work' that Spider does is calling into call-in shows and berating the guests. That gets him on the news, which sends him into a funk because (I assume) journalists are supposed to report the news, not be the news. His initial call did seem reasonable in the context of informing the public, where he lets everyone know that the 'impartial' political analyst is anything but impartial. Berating the cooking show person over their recipe seems a bit out of scope, though. The line between Journalist Spider and Troll Spider seems thin. |
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| #6 is Spider ranting against religion, or at least religion that preys on people who need help, which has gone over the top along with everything else. He saves his biggest (at least initially) beating for a guy selling the religion of Release, which seems appropriate since Spider seems to be the one who needs to release some violence. | ||
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| Issue 3 is basically just Spider’s real-time news report. I thought it was interesting that you referred to it as a liveblog, which it essentially was, but I wonder if that was a term used way back when this was written. The issue hinges on Ellis’ writing; if the indignation in Spider’s article wasn’t convincing then the story would’ve fizzled out. He’s certainly capable and I wonder what specifically he was channeling into Spider for this story. There’s no shortage of authoritative abuse but I was probably too young to be fully aware of current world events in 1997 to really know. Some issues seem to be evergreen, however, as Spider’s police beating shows. |
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Quote:Originally Posted by xkonk I kinda of disagree that it didn’t bring anything big to the table. I think the issue gave us a clear mission statement for Spider. As he says at the end, it’s a journalist’s job to strike fear into the hearts of criminals and we just saw who he considers criminals. I don’t think politicians necessarily, but the corrupt and the liars. Ellis might just have been responding to the general state of affairs at the time but the setting is certainly relevant, perhaps frighteningly so, to recent and current events. I agree that it will be interesting to see how Spider deals with Channon and how their relationship will develop. I feel she might have been added as an avenue to help the reader understand Spider and his motivations easier. He’s such an extreme individual but Channon seems a bit more relatable and forcing Spider to relate to her allows the audience to better relate to him. |
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| I really feel that starting with issue 4 and continuing into issue 5 that the series has leaned more into the satire and become a bit more traditionally comedic and more relatable as opposed to the drier, dark comedy of the first arc. I’m not entirely understanding Spider’s funk. I don’t think it’s a journalistic integrity thing. Gonzo journalism is meant to be very immediate and does away with the illusion of journalistic impartiality so that the journalist is an active participant. That said, Spider does seem to have a problem with fame. It is what drove him i to isolation in the first place. So is it that his funk is brought on by his aversion to fame? Maybe it’s an aversion to the medium and being grouped together with the rest of the lowest-common-denominator programming? Or something else I haven’t quite grasped yet. To comment a bit on the art in this issue. Robertson really had a field day with Spider’s expressions in this issue. We’ve seen him angry or snarky/mischievous plenty of times before but in this issue we got to see him bored, playful, giddy, angry (of course), and even pitifully sad. It was fun to see. |
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Quote:Originally Posted by dielinfinite I hadn't thought of it. Wikipedia gives credit to someone in 2001, which would be after this was published https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liveblogging . I wouldn't be surprised at all if the idea was presented somewhere else previously. I also mentioned Idiocracy once or twice; that was 2006. |
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| Let's get some more issues in while I keep an eye on Brian's sale. #7 covers Channon's boyfriend dumping her and turning himself into a nanorobot cloud. I thought this was an interesting issue because it's about a pretty high-level topic (what makes a human a human?) but it's fairly non-judgmental and examines the topic essentially through the reactions of the characters. There are no big monologues or arguments, just Spider laying out the basics and one fan saying why he did it. Through Ziang's choice and Tico's explanation you can see the pros and through Channon's reaction you can see the con's. I also thought the last panel or two of Ziang's body being destroyed/transformed were good art. The art in general has been good, although I also thought Spider's lack of facial reaction when he says "what?" early on was puzzling. He's usually very expressive. |
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| #8 has what looks like a typo on the cover - 'cyro' instead of 'cryo'. Looking forward to seeing what the company is called inside. Nope, looks like a typo. This issue covers another way that people change themselves and try to live on in a different form, but from a different angle. Instead of future tech, which can turn people into foglets, there are people who were frozen in the past (somewhere around our present) and then revived in the present of the book. Because the company(ies?) that did it were not really built for the long haul, or because companies are terrible, they don't do a good job of it. People are brought back into new bodies as contractually obligated, but then essentially dumped on the street with no support or introduction to the current time. No one in the future is interested in them, except for maybe Spider, especially when one was a photojournalist. It's a sad story. I wonder if Ellis had any particular angle in mind when he wrote it. I could see it being about how people/society treat old people, how people don't seem to care about history, or both and more. |
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| #9 stands somewhat in contrast to the previous one. No one cares about the cryogenically frozen people, who are living history, but there are a series of reservations around the city, where there are living recreations of history. Although Spider says no one goes to them, so I guess that's consistent. The reservations are sealed-off areas that are like living in a particular time and place in the past, so they're like a museum on steroids. Aside from saying that they're important, I don't think the issue gives us too much to think about per se. While the last few issues have been standalone stories, there are a couple of nods to on-going threads in this one. At the end, Channon shows up and says she's going to join a convent. It's run by Fred Christ, the same guy who was the head of the Transients. I wonder if that's sort of a joke or if it'll be a plot point. The other nod is that some of the panels look like someone is surveilling Spider, which might turn into something. |
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| Time to finish this puppy up. #10 takes the random violence that has briefly shown up in the series and turns it up a notch. Someone wants to kill Spider and the attack in his apartment is the emphasis of the book. Fitting with the series, it's over the top and graphic. It definitely reminds you that these are the people that are going to do The Boys. It's almost enough to make you forget that Spider apparently has an ex-wife who has been frozen, and then the talking police dogs at the end almost make you forget about all the stuff before. |
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| #11 felt oddly like an info-dump issue. There's still all the 'look at the weird stuff in the future' details, like newscaster bacteria, but most of the plot is people finding out about who's attacking Spider. Also, we get confirmation (although it seemed like a reasonable guess last issue) that the headless kid with Royce is Spider's son. #12 wraps things up in what seems to be an appropriate way for the series. Spider realizes that his ex-wife set him up for the attack and fixed the problem by throwing her head off a roof. Stomp, the police dog, throws himself off the roof. The headless boy turns out to be an explosive robot, and is thrown off the roof (roughly speaking). While Spider has been the protagonist, and obviously not what you would call A Good Guy, the story about his former assistant makes it seem more like he is actually A Bad Guy. Spider's disregard for people has been clear, but so far (unless I'm forgetting something) they largely seemed to be bad people involved in things they shouldn't be involved in. The little saga of Stomp fits the series' theme well; if you abuse authority you deserve almost literally anything that's coming. But if Spider's taking his underage assistants to places where he knows bad things are going to happen to them, that's a different deal. His disregard for himself (obviously limited, since he knows to protect himself) shouldn't extend to others, especially if they don't know better. I wonder if there are any repercussions for Spider down the road, beyond more death threats. |
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| Issue 6 is clearly an anti-religious rant. That said, I don’t think it’s necessarily against one’s personal religion in general but against organized religion which, at the very best, does nothing to help the people like the priest that sat silently while Channon laid bare her insecurities. Others try to make themselves out to be special, like the guy being interviewed. At the worst, they hurt their followers in the name of their beliefs like the Church of release guy. And of course there is a whole lot of noise in between. | ||
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| I agree that issue 7 was interesting. I’m not sure there’s much more to add on the subject matter from what you said. To comment on the characters, I think Channon is something of an avatar for the audience. She’s far more grounded and relatable for the audience. She’s as close to normal as the audience will recognize in this book. The reaction she has to the breakup and the procedure fees more like what you’d expect from someone who heard it today. Spider, I feel has been sanded down and refined quite a bit since the first arc. At first he was something of an insufferable asshole. He still is that but he had far more opportunity to show sympathy in the way he interacts with Channon. He seems to genuinely want to help her when she’s having life problems. He’s always crude about it but and he’s very blunt about the truth but he’s always trying to do what’s best for her. The “What?” frame stood out to me as well. I feel it was off-model for Spider but probably purposefully so to further sell his confusion to the reader. |
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| Issue 8 feels very melancholic. The Photojournalist passing away with the hope that she will be revived in the future to keep on living. Unfortunately, the contract with the cryogenics company didn’t obligate them to much more than that I can certainly see the parallels to the way society treats its elderly population. Replace the revivals hostel with a nursing home and it almost fits perfectly. The company certainly does come off looking good. The employees are distracted and uncaring. The equipment is old and not adequately maintained and just push their revivals out the door without really easing them into their new lives. Still, they seem to at least fulfill their obligations so the worst you can really say is that they do what they say they will though not in the most respectful way. I think this issue once again shows Spider’s sympathetic side. Sure to a degree he feels added kinship with her due to her photojournalism background but I also feel that he wouldn’t not care if that wasn’t the case. As for what instigated this issue, assuming it is a metaphor for the aging population, it could be in response to news stories about the aging of the country. I’m fairly certain these were gaining steam around the time of the books’s release reporting on the need tof care facilities and deficiencies in Social Security and retirement funds. |
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| Issue 9 took me a little bit to understand exactly what the reservations were. At first I just figured they were isolated areas to preserve various cultures. An interesting enough idea but it seemed a bit lacking compared to the more imaginative extrapolations into the future or satirical bent of previous issues. When I understood that it was people choosing to leave the modern world to live in these reservations with all knowledge of anything beyond that culture stripped out of them, it became much more interesting. I agree that the issue doesn’t seem to do a whole lot with the concept aside from taking us through a tour of a variety of reservations. It was interesting that there were reservations, not only for recognizable past cultures but also areas for a kind of transhumanist future culture. Channon has had a bit of a b-story weaving through the past few issues but it looks like it might be bumping up in importance. It wasn’t until you mentioned it that I realized that Spider was being surveilled. The text boxes didn’t appear different enough from Spider’s monologue for me to catch it. As I’ve said, Channon is the more relatable of the two main characters so I’m definitely interested to see where her story goes. |
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| Issue 10 feels like a parade of absurdities. We start with Spider learning that his ex-wife’s cryogenically frozen head has been kidnapped, followed by Channon quitting. I’d say the attack on Spider was played blackly comical. Spider’s expressions and the violence on display are over the top to the point of being comical. It reminds me a little of something in the making of Robocop where they are talking about the boardroom scene where ED-209 kills the executive. If they leave it too tame and realistic its horrifying but if they pushed it further to the point of ridiculousness it becomes a kind of funny. Also I think you confused Warren Ellis for Garth Ennis again. The talking police dogs was absurd, even for the standards of the book. Everything else is a bit of an extrapolation from some of the societal trends and ills we recognize but talking dogs? And talking police dogs to boot! Stomp’s story of woe reminds me of that bit in early Rick and Morty where the family dog, given intelligence, approaches the daughter and threateningly inquires about his missing testicles. So at this point we definitely have the makings of a longer story arc. Who is out to get Spider? Who stole his ex-wife? Will Channon come back? |
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| Issue 11 is pretty straightforward, I think. We get a brief look at Spider back in his more “normal” days when he covered a war over the French language. Royce has a parade of funny faces as he stress smokes over the situation and Ellis shows he’s not above a poop joke. I do wish that the article that put a target on Spider’s head was one we had actually seen in a previous issue, though. |
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| Issue 12 wraps things up in an expectedly non-conventional way with Spider tossing away his wife’s head and making peace with the would-be assassins, one of which is a fan of his. My takeaway from the Stomp story wasn’t so much an anti-authority theme but more a reflection of how The City will always beat you down. We’ve seen it with the Revivals, with Channon, and now with officer Stomp. The City, for all its futuristic marvels, is not a healthy place for an intelligent being to be. The story did leave a few things dangling, like will we ever see Channon again? And definitely the situation with Spider and his former assistant. I agree that what he did with her puts things in a new light. I do feel, however, that the person he was at that time is different than the person he is now. And I think that what we saw with Channon showed that he has some capacity for sympathy. I think the five year gap in the mountains marks a hard divide between “the past” and “the now.” This latest arc clearly shows that Spider will have to reckon with things that he did in the past. The assistant is certainly a rather large thread left dangling and it would be strange not to address it in the future. Although, the book does does seem to move very quickly from one idea to the next. If they don’t address his assistant directly, I think that modern Spider will have to deal with that same recklessness to get a story that got her in trouble. |
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Quote:Originally Posted by dielinfinite Man, probably. If you've read one edgy UK comics writer, you've read them all  |
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Quote:Originally Posted by dielinfinite It was, but there were hints earlier. In issue 7 when Spider is talking about the folks leaving their human bodies, he mentions how some people started putting themselves into animal bodies, and the horse pulling their carriage says something. It's not clear if Stomp and the other officers are/were people or if they're actually talking dogs, but there was the tiniest bit of stage-setting. Although now that I've typed it, it's an interesting question. Would Spider have neutered Stomp if Stomp were a person? I'm going to say yes. |
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| Thanks for this thread! | ||
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