Transmetropolitan, Vol. 1: Back on the Street [DC/Vertigo, 1998]

Transmetropolitan, Vol. 1: Back on the Street

by

Warren Ellis (writer), Darick Robertston (Illustrator), Rodney Ramos (Illustrator), Keith Aiken (Illustrator), Nathan Eyring (Illustrator), Garth Ennis (Introduction), Patrick Stewart (Introduction)

Absolutely frikkin brilliant this is! This is the book that made me bow my head and acknowledge the genius that is Warren Ellis.

Granted the man is so slow, annoyingly delayed as a writer (especially the last few years) and has left multiple excellent series unfinished/on cliffhangers, that you want to pull your scalp off along with you hair. But there is no denying that he can create stories and ideas that are beyond amazing and so damn good that you can’t help but wait for the next one regardless of how long it takes! The saving grace for this series is that it is an earlier work and one that had a defined start and finish.

Damn you Ellis, damn you… Anyway, here’s a broad spectrum summary of this first volume in the series:

“After years of self imposed exile from a civilisation rife with degradation and indecency, cynical journalist Spider Jerusalem is forced to return to a job he hates and a city he loathes. Working as an investigative reporter for the newspaper The Word, Spider attacks the injustices of his surreal 23rd century surroundings. In this first volume, Spider ventures into the dangerous Angels 8 district, home of the Transients – humans who have decided to become aliens through cosmetic surgery. But Spider’s interview with the Transients’ leader gets him a scoop he didn’t bargain for.”

But let’s back on track – this is the introduction to one of the greatest (in my humble opinion) characters in ANY medium ever: Spider Jerusalem.

Caustic, psychotic, brilliant, maddeningly aggravating, disturbingly magnetic, drug-crazed maniac, caring and true journalist, hateful bastard… these and so many other colourful and oft contradictory terms are all perfect when describing Spider. Truthfully, he is for me an insane ideal of a journalist – perhaps taken a step too far but in keeping with the setting and the spirit of his character is what truly makes him timeless as a representation.

“Journalism is a gun. It’s only got one bullet in it, but if you aim it right, that’s all you need. Aim it right and you can blow a kneecap off the world.”

– Spider Jerusalem

Following his first days back in The City – after abandoning civilisation at the peak of his infamy/fame back in the day, in favour of a hermetic life in a weapon encrusted cabin on a mountain – these early chapters give such a shockingly intense glimpse of this future world that at first you keep reading without knowing what the hell just keeps hitting and bitch-slapping your innate sense of decency and niceness… But despite its harshness and negative leanings it is a powerful beginning to one of the most amazingly entertaining stories I’ve ever read. This first volume deals with things including politics, religion and a social movement for acceptance of people called “transients” who are surgically altered and transitioning to become “aliens” – you have to read to get more detail but I wanted to give the gist because now more than ever, I find the content explored in these stories is striking when you look past the over-the-top stuff and contrast it to the insane world we live in today.

Bringing it all to life is the amazing, AMAZING art team led by Darick Robertson who I was introduced to through this book. Every page is in its own way a work of art and I was struck both decades ago when I first read this and even today by the sheer density of the details that they manage to stack into every page, the attention to contextual jokes and random things that I have to believe were added in by the artists as they went – there’s almost a MAD magazine aspect to some bits with things happening in the background and an absurd feel at times, but it never detracts or distracts from the story, in fact I found the art really elevated the story, somehow find a balanced synchronicity with both the manic energy and the more pensive and provocative moments of the comics’ chapters. The characters, the panelling, the vibrancy of the colours and the energy that Darick and team bring to bear on the page is quite exciting and telling of the passionate intensity of the (at the time) young artists.

We see in this first volume, Spider bulldoze his way into a paying job from his old friend Royce and along the way he recruits a protégé (of sorts) in the form of the character Channon and defacto adopts a chain-smoking cat with two heads merged into one skull. He also owns a drug-addled maker machine (like the matter replicator in Star Trek) and a terrifying “Bowel Disruptor” gun. All the while he is on a rampage for the truth to write columns about for Royces’ newspaper so Spider himself can earn enough money to keep living in The City long enough to write the two books that he was contracted to write five years ago and if he doesn’t now, will likely be liquidated by his publishers (maybe literally?).

Follow Spider’s crusade through the series is fascinating enough by itself – but its these first baby steps (or smoking, drinking, pill-popping angry charges… really, same thing…) as our hero rediscovers the ins-and-outs of this cesspool that he once called home, sees faces old and new and guides us through the basics of this disturbingly fascinating future world that stings the contemporary sensibility regarding what lies ahead.

Along the way he recruits a mentee of sorts in the form of the character Channon and defacto adopts a chain-smoking cat with two heads merged into one skull. He also owns a drug-addled maker machine (like the matter replicator in Star Trek) and a terrifying “Bowel Disruptor” gun. All the while he is on a rampage for the truth to fill the aforementioned columns with no regard to the insane world that gets in his way because “HE’S A PROFESSIONAL, DAMMIT!”

Raw, charged and full of piss and vinegar and the gods alone know what else – this is truly one of a kind in all the varied books and genres Ive read and stays so even if I throw in TV, movies and the like. Never before has there been anything like it and never again I feel, at least not without feeling like a copy. Truthfully, I cannot even imagine how you could top this without entering dangerously close to straight absurd comedy or disgusting extremes.