Open Mike Night: Transmetropolitan - Back on the Streets

Back On the Streets….that might be a good name for this column, not just this trade this week.  Open Mike Night is back from our summer hiatus!

Transmetropolitan Vol. 1 - Back on the Streets

Written by:Warren Ellis
Penciled by: Darick Robertson
Inked by: Jermone K. Moore
Colored by: Nathan Eyrina
Lettered by: Clem Robins

Published by: DC/Helix

The trade “Transmetropolitan: Back On the Streets” contains Transmetropolitan #1-6.  We are reviewing the digital releases of the individual issues.

Maillaro: Part of the reason Transmet is on my mind is that last week was because I have been watching Patrick Stewart in Blunt Talk.  Patrick Stewart has gone on record several times as a big Transmet fan and even said that he would have loved to play Spider Jerusalem.   I honestly have no idea if that would be a good role for him, but part of me really would love to see that.  Blunt Talk is probably as close as we’re going to get...

TRANSMETROPOLITAN was Warren Ellis’s homage to the gonzo journalist.  Take Hunter S. Thompson, move him into a weird future, amp him up to the extreme, and you get Spider Jerusalem.   The series starts with Spider hiding in the woods.  He’s grown so jaded by city life, he’s retreated.  But his book publisher reminds him that he has a contract to write books, so Spider is forced to leave his happy hermit lifestyle and get back to the “real world.”   

He gets a job writing weekly columns to pay the bills, and his first story ends up involving humans who are trying to meld themselves with alien bodies.  When the police decide that these transients are troublemakers and need to be taken care of, Spider finds himself at ground zero reporting on government abuses. Later stories in the trade focus more on the media and religion, but for me, the first three issues are where this story really grabbed me.  Between Spider’s insane attempts to forcefeed truth on a docile public and the setting which is so packed with in-jokes and social commentary.  This is my fifth time reading Transmet, and I still find plenty of new things each time I read it.

Weaver: On the other hand, this was the first time I’d ever read Transmetropolitan.  I’d heard of it, sure, but never was inspired to try it.  I’m not sure what the hell I just read, but I’m pretty sure it was brilliant.

Maillaro: I have always wondered if Ellis thought they were going to yank the series out from under him.  The first trade seems so fast paced after the initial story where he seemed to have a little more time to explore one story.  But after that it’s real rapid fire for the rest of this trade.  Here’s Ellis’s commentary on politics (issue 4). Here’s Ellis’s commentary on television and pop culture (issue 5).  Here’s Ellis’s commentary on religion (issue 6).  The series definitely slows down some after these issues as Ellis is given a little more time and space to build up bigger stories and more elaborate satire.  

Weaver: I sort of disagree with you on the pacing.  Yeah, it gets rapid fire after the Transient story, but I think it needs to.  We saw some glimpses of the world throughout that first story, but we didn’t see it in the big picture at all.  Those three issues actually, to me, slowed things down enough to make sense and set a baseline.

Which isn’t to say that the Transient story was confusing or bad or anything, but with The City being such an important concept, we need to get a feel for it while Spider pretty much immediately reacclimates.  I actually liked the one shot style ones better.

Maillaro: I actually never thought of it that way, but it makes a lot of sense.  For me, the one shot stories had so much ridiculous humor in them I kind of overlooked the fact that they were really great ways to build the world up.  It’s almost the shotgun approach where he manages to get in as much as possible. And now that I think about, there were many elements and threads started here that would continue throughout the rest of the series.

One thing that has always stuck with me is the whole subplot of Spider ordering the “Jesus” shoes in issue 4.  We see the commercial.  We see him buying the shoes.  Showing the shoes arrive.  Showing him wear the shoes...and then falling from his ceiling when he was trying on the shoes.  That whole thing is so bizarre it has stuck in my head from the first time I read the book. Even as I type this, I am still giggling about it.

Weaver: No one should ever let Spider Jerusalem call into a talk show, that’s what I got out of that issue.  I like that he’s basically the ultimate revolutionary, the one guy dragging the apathetic masses to look at how messed up their world is, but sees himself simply as a journalist.  A really good journalist, but a journalist nonetheless.  

I do have a bit of a hard time believing that print media (even newsfeed print media) can succeed in a world where things like Buy Bombs exist, but I figure that’s actually one of the least ridiculous things in the comic.  Beyond the writing, the art is amazing.  Each frame is packed with all sorts of stuff, and yet when a location is revisited, it remains consistent.  The level of detail is incredible.

Maillaro: Yeah, I mean this book is close to 20 years old, and at this point we live in a world where print is fairly close to dead already.  Wow, that came out way more grim than I really intended, especially since I am not quite sure that is a bad thing.  I love that I can access any magazine, book, comic, etc with my tablet.  I tend to think that most of Spider’s work was probably being read on some kind of personal reading device too.

Darick Robertson is an incredible talent.  I am always surprised he isn’t much more well known than he is.  Transmetropolitan and The Boys are pretty much the highlights of his career.  He did seem to do some work on X-Men, including a twelve issue run on Nightcrawler (I didn’t even know Nightcrawler had an ongoing series before Claremont/Nauck did one last year).  

Weaver: I remember that Nightcrawler series.  It was pretty neat because it was all basically noir detective stories/light horror stories.  It wasn’t mutant focused or superheroic in the traditional sense.

Of course Spider’s work is being read on feeds, they make that much clear.  But if you can just stick an idea in someone’s head for them to decompress later, I think you wouldn’t need words.  I think the rise of blogging has hurt established print media more in our reality than in Spider’s, but then again...working at a paper is such a superhero cliche that it adds an extra level of satire to it.

Maillaro: Yeah, any half-wit with a keyboard can be a journalist these days.  Hell, they let us do it.  Though we only cover entertainment stories, so I think we’re fine.   Actually, it’s funny since I graduated with journalism as my major.  One of our teachers LOVED to ask the “trick” question, “What kind of actions can cause a journalist to lose their journalism license?”  Since there is no such thing as a journalism license.   As we can clearly see if you watch CNN or Fox News.  Much less all the blogs.

Weaver: I take pride in being part of the problem.  So back to Transmet.  It’s interesting to see how many things people just don’t care about anymore...there’s blatant references to eating dogs, for instance...but people care about the Transients.  It’s kind of a classic case of “Other” where people just hate something because it’s different, but if we’re all eating dogs, meh, who cares.  And in no way does Transience actually hurt anyone else.  It fuels the alien economy, after all.

Maillaro: See also: immigration and gay marriage.

The ending of the Transcience story was the best part to me.  Spider gets his story out there on how the police and government cracked down on a group of relatively harmless freaks.  The general public are outraged.  The police are pissed and kick Spider’s ass for daring to show them in a bad light.  And how does Spider respond.  By laughing.  This is what he was meant to be, not hiding up in the woods trying to stay out of the way.

Weaver: I also like that the lead revolutionary was a dude just in it to get laid, so both sides had deep flaws and didn’t represent the people they theoretically represented.

Maillaro: Sadly, that is often the case.  A “leader” who starts a cause for less than noble reasons.  

So, scores?

I have to go 5/5 for the art.  No question there for me.

The writing I can get a little wishy washy on.  I love Transmetropolitan, but I do wonder if Ellis was a little too heavy handed at times.  There is a fine line between satire and preaching, and Ellis may has slipped over it a few times.  I especially thought this was true when he came to dealing with politicians and religion.  

Weaver: I think there were times when certain threads would go a little too far, also.  The bowel disruptor was funny, but the pretty constant emphasis on how various things impacted bathroom habits got a little old.  I’m going 5/5 with the art, certainly.  I’ll go 4 of 5 with the writing.

Maillaro: Yeah, I was going back and forth from a 4 or 4.5.  I think I will take the higher score.  There is just so much I love about Transmet, and I’m a huge Ellis mark anyway.

Maillaro: I want to say it was great to have you back writing. I always miss doing this with you when you’re not around.   Next week is a pretty crazy week of comics.  DC is launching it’s new Batman weekly series, Batman and Robin Eternal.  And Telos is a follow up to Convergence,  No idea why it took so long to come out.

And Marvel is releasing the first of their “relaunched” line with Amazing Spider-Man, Avengers 0, Contest of Champions, All-New All-Different Point One, and Invincible Iron Man...even though Secret Wars isn’t over yet…

Plus, Archie is expanding their relaunch with Jughead #1 by Chip Zdarsky of Howard the Duck and Sex Criminals fame...

Weaver: I leave for a little while, and everyone decides to publish comics.  Let’s do two new ones.  Jughead and whichever of the Marvel relaunch looks best to you.

Maillaro: Amazing Spider-Man would be my first instinct, but Avengers 0 or All-New All-Different Point One would likely give us a much wider picture of what’s in store for Marvel’s future…

Weaver: Let’s do Spider-Man.  I don’t know if I want a wide picture.

Maillaro: Works for me.  I think this is the first “new” Spider-Man we’ve done with Doc Ock stopped being Spider-Man.  

Weaver: He needs to inherit a nuclear reactor.  Anyway, til next week!

Final Scores