(no subject)

[noahgibbs]

Transmetropolitan. That's the one with Spider Jerusalem as the main character. Until today I'd never read any of it. Now I've read two volumes.

It's really, *really* good.

Comments

[bredmold.livejournal.com]

I've read through volume 4. Thoroughly enjoyed every page of it.

[queen-elvis.livejournal.com]

I have a little Spider Jerusalem action figure on my computer here at work.

Spider Jerusalem action figure

[bredmold.livejournal.com]

That rocks. Where can I get one of these?

[queen-elvis.livejournal.com]

I bought it in Pittsburgh about four years ago, so the long answer is "I don't know, try eBay." :}

[bredmold.livejournal.com]

Ah yes - eBay has everything.

[shannon_a]

Agreed. I'm eagerly awaiting the 10th and final volume to come out in trade paperback. I believe it's due in April or May.

[angstronaut.livejournal.com]

Well, duh:-)

In case you weren't aware of it Warren Ellis, author of Transmet, has both a blog (www.diepunyhumans.com) and is here on livejournal intermittently as mistersleepless.

~Az

[angstronaut.livejournal.com]

Just FYI, his site is currently down and he only intermittently updates the livejournal.

[apotheon.livejournal.com]

Warren Ellis (of Transmetropolitan fame) has a LiveJournal (mistersleepless). It seems to be on the blink, however, for whatever reason. I have no idea why. Previously, it was full of nifty writings.

More volumes...

[gizbot.livejournal.com]

You can borrow them at foo this Sunday, if you appear.

Re: More volumes...

[angelbob.livejournal.com]

May or may not be able to make it, but... I'm actually okay for copies of Transmetropolitan. Just not done reading the stack I'm using.

[ravenslost.livejournal.com]

I have heard that they are fantastic. :-) How would you rate them against Watchmen?

[angelbob.livejournal.com]

Almost entirely different. If the Watchmen is an intricate Swiss watch whose gears you scrutinize and slowly come to understand, then Transmetropolitan is four burly guys with cheap Hello Kitty watches who'll stop beating you long enough to tell you the time.

I'd say the Watchmen is definitely a more impressive work, but that doesn't mean Transmetropolitan doesn't have a lot of good points that the Watchmen doesn't share.

[astralagos.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed it up until the point that Callahan was elected; after that, Ellis' weaknesses as an author start coming in the forefront more. In particular, Jerusalem ceases to be a character and becomes more of a superhero with a typewriter - the moral ambivalence which defines him early on fades away and he's made "complex" by introducing the platonic bad melodrama cliche. It's not that he's given superpowers, but as the story progresses, Spider is given absolute moral license, in part because he is never again wrong (as evidenced by the really dumbass way the gray hooker was handled). Near the end, it's pretty much self-parody, since it feels like Spider's method of "journalism" is to find the person that has all the information he needs and beat the crap out of them. It works occasionally (such as with the g-reader story), but it wears thin.

I think a lot of this has to do with the really ham-handed way that Callahan is handled. The guy is personally disgusting, but apart from the fact that he's a conscienceless campaigner and enthusiastic press censor with some quasi-kinder,kirke,kucken imagery, we don't really see him do anything particularly evil until the end, and even then he's just personally evil. This isn't helped any by the fact that The Beast is supposed to have been a horrible hell-creature in himself, so there's nothing to indicate why, in comparison to the Beast, Callahan is so much worse - except of course that he personally hates Spider. A bit of this isn't helped because, either through ignorance or just the urge to compress thing, Ellis really misrepresents American politics in the book - Transmet's version of the U.S. seems to be closer to a Parliamentary governmental system, in particular in terms of what powers are granted the chief executive.

That said, the first few books are quite good. I think a lot of my problems started when he left the transhuman aspects and started focusing on a more contemporary political story. The earlier work is closer to science fiction, while the latter stuff tends to treat the technology as more magic-do-things-stuff. A good indicator of how you'll feel about the rest is probably how you took the religion chapter; the rest of the book feels like that after a while.

[angelbob.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed it up until the point that Callahan was elected

Interesting. I've only just gotten there.

A good indicator of how you'll feel about the rest is probably how you took the religion chapter; the rest of the book feels like that after a while.

Ouch. That bit *did* start to feel pointless pretty quickly. It entirely left behind the journalist/article motif and became something wholly other, and not in a good way.

It had possibilities -- the debunking was a good start, and could have worked a lot like the "Spider calls into daytime talkshows" bit, which was quite good. But he followed that up with an unsubstantiated unalloyed rant, not with the thoughtful and journalistic style of previous issues.

That works in the religion chapter, if only because "Spider gets famous again, loses his edge, starts going a little crazy from it" is the overarching theme for awhile there, and that's definitely part of it. However, if that lasts very long it'll get really old really fast.