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Title: Transmetropolitan: Back On the Street by Warren Ellis, Keith Aiken ISBN: 1-56389-445-9 Publisher: DC Comics Pub. Date: 01 February, 1998 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $7.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.58 (26 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Transmet is a frightening look into our future.
Comment: What an amazing glance into the future society is creating for itself. Transmetropolitan delivers a brutal, scary and amazingly well crafted story accompanied by fabulous art. Warren Ellis' gritty style of writing shines in this book about a journalist (Spider Jerusalem) who is forced out of hiding in the mountains to come down to his former home - a wretched city full of drug addicted household appliances, mutated house pets and people who turn themselves into aliens.
Rating: 3
Summary: Gonzo journalism goes fiction.
Comment: "Gonzo journalism" is the brainchild of Hunter S. Thompson, author of the American classics FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS and FEAR AND LOATHING ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL '72. This form of journalism, part truth and part outrageous tale-spinning, in the primary inspiration for Warren Ellis's TRANSMETROPOLITAN: BACK ON THE STREET, a comic that attempts to turn what is already mostly fiction into complete fiction with a humorous and blackly satirical bent. From the internal ramblings of protagonist (it's hard to call him a "hero") Spider Jerusalem to the bizarre world that surrounds the character, the writing of BACK ON THE STREET reeks of Hunter Thompson's particular brand of drug-fueled outrage. Coupled with Darick Robertson's artwork, which brings the grimy City of the story to colorful, grungy life and gives Jerusalem a very Thompson-esque appearance (complete with omnipresent cigarette clenched between the teeth), TRANSMETROPOLITAN may be the most involved homage to ever see print.
This is not to say that BACK ON THE STREET is not worth the reader's time. There's something almost refreshing about the way Warren Ellis plunges directly into the dark heart of his main character. Spider Jerusalem is unquestionably insane, but no more so than the world around him. The plot of this collection, which spans the first three issues of the TRANSMETROPOLITAN comic, turns on a group of people voluntarily mutating their DNA in order to be more like space aliens. Actual space aliens. Jerusalem takes in a chain-smoking cat with one-and-a-half heads. His major home appliance, artificially intelligent, is on virtual acid. Weirdness abounds.
What keeps BACK ON THE STREET from really shining, though, is that all this weirdness doesn't seem to have much of a point. If the purpose of TRANSMETROPOLITAN is to out-gonzo Hunter Thompson, the creator/master of gonzo, then one can arguably say that Ellis has succeeded: his world is truly twisted, as garish as an acid trip. If Ellis means to turn the reader on to new ideas, or engage a latent sense of iconoclasm, he is far less successful. His work here is foul-mouthed and unrelentingly critical, but it's simply too far outside the mainstream to make any real impact on contemporary thought; the reader has to work too hard to connect the dots. Take the "transients," those wretched folks transforming themselves into aliens. Are they meant as stand-ins for transsexuals and, if so, what is Ellis trying to say about them? It's impossible to say.
As a wild, funhouse ride BACK ON THE STREET does its job well. Ellis and artist-collaborator Robertson have worked hard to make the story as outrageous as possible, from the lived-in filth of the City to the antics of the drug-addled Spider Jerusalem. The story is worth reading just to see how wacky things will become. In the end, however, there's the sense that it's all just absurdity for absurdity's sake, and therefore BACK ON THE STREET lacks the intensity of Hunter S. Thompson's best work. Ellis is a solid writer, but a writer of fiction, and no amount of talent will ever make Spider Jerusalem as real as he needs to be.
Rating: 4
Summary: Weird at first, but you'll grow to like it
Comment: I first read this comic on the advice of a friend, and found its strange, futuristic violent style of satire a bit too much at first. But stick with it - you'll find that the style of writing is refreshing and blunt. I can't wait to read the rest!
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Title: Transmetropolitan: Lust for Life by Warren Ellis ISBN: 1563894815 Publisher: DC Comics Pub. Date: 01 February, 1999 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Transmetropolitan: Year of the Bastard by Warren Ellis ISBN: 1563895684 Publisher: DC Comics Pub. Date: 01 September, 1999 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: Transmetropolitan: New Scum, The by Warren Ellis ISBN: 1563896273 Publisher: DC Comics Pub. Date: 01 September, 2000 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: Transmetropolitan : Lonely City by Warren Ellis, Darick Robertson, Rodney Ramos ISBN: 1563897229 Publisher: DC Comics Pub. Date: 01 July, 2001 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Transmetropolitan: Gouge Away by Warren Ellis ISBN: 1563897962 Publisher: DC Comics Pub. Date: 01 February, 2002 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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