Transmetropolitan
| Transmetropolitan | |
|---|---|
|
Cover to Transmetropolitan Vol. 2 TPB. Art by Darick Robertson. | |
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | Helix, Vertigo (imprints of DC Comics) |
| Schedule | Monthly |
| Format | Ongoing series |
| Genre | Cyberpunk, science fiction |
| Publication date | 1997–2002 |
| Number of issues | 60 |
| Main character(s) |
Spider Jerusalem Yelena Rossini Channon Yarrow Mitchell Royce |
| Creative team | |
| Writer(s) | Warren Ellis |
| Artist(s) | Darick Robertson |
| Inker(s) | Rodney Ramos |
| Colorist(s) | Nathan Eyring |
| Creator(s) |
Warren Ellis Darick Robertson |
Transmetropolitan is a cyberpunk, transhumanist comic book series written by Warren Ellis and co-created and designed by Darick Robertson; it was published by American company DC Comics in 1997-2002.[1] The series was originally part of the short-lived DC Comics imprint Helix, but upon the end of the book's first year the series was moved to the Vertigo imprint and DC Comics shut-down the Helix imprint. Transmetropolitan chronicles the battles of Spider Jerusalem, infamous renegade gonzo journalist of the future,[2] an homage to gonzo journalism founder Hunter S. Thompson. Spider Jerusalem dedicates himself to fighting the corruption and abuse of power of two successive United States presidents; he and his "filthy assistants" strive to keep their world from turning more dystopian than it already is while dealing with the struggles of fame and power, brought about due to the popularity of Spider via his articles.
The monthly series began in July 1997 and concluded in September 2002.[3] The series was later reprinted in an array of ten trade paperback volumes, and also featured two "specials" (I Hate It Here and Filth of the City) with text pieces written by the Spider Jerusalem character and illustrated by a wide range of comic artists.[4] These were later collected in trade paperbacks.
Story synopsis
Some time in the future (how long precisely is never specified, but said to be in the 23rd century) Spider Jerusalem, retired writer/journalist and bearded hermit, lives in an isolated, fortified mountain hideaway.[5] Following a call from his irate publisher demanding the last two books per his publishing deal, Jerusalem is forced to descend into The City, a twisted hedonistic amalgam of pervasive consumerism, sex, violence, and drugs where one can indulge in taboos such as cannibalism and child prostitution as a part of daily life. However, this futuristic culture is highly self-centered and focused almost exclusively on present-day matters. "Revivals" from cryogenic stasis are largely ignored and left to fend for themselves on the streets, and people almost never visit the cultural "Reservations" which were established for the sole purpose of preserving past civilizations and which are now left to run the course of their timeline in peace, with the sole exception of the Republican Party Reservation, which has its own television show due to the reservation being a hotbed of sex and erotica. No one even knows the current calendar year (this fact revealed by Spider in Issue #42), so the dates of events are always referred to relative to the present day or by famous events that occurred around the same time (i.e. the death of a celebrity) and as a result of this disassociation from time has a very odd relationship with infamous events of the past, including a chain of restaurants named after Jeffery Dahmer and the heavily sexualized glorification of Hitler and Nazi Germany.
Jerusalem returns to work for his old partner and editor Mitchell Royce, who now edits The Word, the City's largest newspaper. His first story is about an attempted separatist secession by the Transient movement (people who use genetic body modification based on alien DNA to become a completely different species, forced to live in the Angels 8 slum district). The leader of the movement, Fred Christ, is paid to incite a riot and provoke the police, who use it as an excuse to clear out Angels 8. However, Jerusalem publishes a story revealing the truth and the brutal methods of the police; Royce publishes it live all over the city, and the public outcry forces the police to withdraw. Spider is brutally beaten by police on his way home, but defiantly says that he's here to stay.
The first year of the series is a set of one-off stories exploring The City, Spider's background, and his often tense relationship with his assistants/sidekicks, Yelena Rossini and Channon Yarrow (referred to as his 'filthy assistants'), who become his full-time partners in his journalistic battles as the series progresses.
The main storyline of the series, the election and corrupt presidency of Gary Callahan (or "The Smiler"), begins in the series' second year and lasts the rest of its run. Spider initially considers Callahan the lesser evil compared to the incumbent president ("The Beast"), but his investigation into Callahan's past and his ties with a right-wing hate group leads to Callahan having his own campaign manager, Vita Severn, a friend of Spider's, murdered. In a one-on-one meeting, Spider realizes that Callahan is not merely corrupt, but is a complete lunatic who wants to be President solely to hurt people with his new power. To Spider's horror and disgust, the people vote Callahan into office by a wide margin.
Once elected, Callahan begins to use his presidential power to torment Spider, the source of his trouble during the campaign. Spider narrowly escapes a police massacre of people protesting how a recent hate crime was investigated. The police refused to release footage of the incident because it reveals several police officers watching the crime occur without interfering. Spider writes a story revealing the truth about the crime and subsequent engineered massacre, but Callahan spikes it via "D-Notices," government censorship of stories that could "embarrass" the country and the Callahan administration. After being informed of the "D-Notice," Spider leaks the story via a straight-text news feedsite called "The Hole" and follows it up with a story exposing Callahan's corrupt circle of advisers, one of whom is a pedophile. When Royce runs the story, Callahan forces the paper's board of directors to fire Spider, who makes an agreement to publish his future stories with "The Hole." However, Callahan arranges for the City to be left defenseless from a hurricane-like "near-near-near ruinstorm" (as an actual ruinstorm can skin anyone caught in it) that ravages the City and kills thousands, using the chaos to destroy the evidence Spider has gathered against him, and places the city under martial law after the storm ends. Royce reveals that he had archived most of Spider's evidence and delivers it on disk to him, but during the ruinstorm Spider collapses and is diagnosed with an incurable degenerative neurological illness with similar symptoms to Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease caused by constant exposure to the now-defunct informational substance known as I-Pollen. With about a year before dementia renders him dysfunctional and with only a 1% chance of escaping this fate, Spider increases his vendetta against Callahan, ultimately exposing his evil deeds and bringing the President down.
Spider returns to his mountain home in the final issue epilogue. Royce comes to visit, and the assistants show him around the house while explaining that Spider's disease is progressing. It is revealed that Channon has a book deal, and Yelena is taking a journalistic role similar to Spider's; Channon and Royce note Yelena is Spider's spiritual successor, displaying his trademark rage and passion as well as talent. Out in the garden, Spider tells Royce that the disease is so advanced that he cannot light his own cigarettes, and he forgets one day out of seven. However, when Royce leaves, Spider pulls out a package of cigarettes and what appears to be a handgun. He appears to be placing the barrel under his chin, until it's revealed in the next panel that it's actually a lighter. He lights the cigarette and then spins the lighter on his finger, suggesting that he was in fact one of the 1% of patients who recover from the disease, and is now merely faking his illness so that he may enjoy his retirement in peace.
Characters
Publishing
The series was originally published under DC Comics's then-new science fiction Helix imprint. When the Helix line was discontinued, Transmetropolitan was the only ongoing series of the line which had not been canceled, begin switched to the Vertigo imprint starting with issue #13. The entire set of trade paperbacks are now published under the Vertigo label.
Collected editions
| Volume | Old Printing | ISBN | New Printing | ISBN |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vol. 1: Back on the Street | #1–3 | ISBN 1-56389-445-9 ISBN 978-1-56389-445-9 |
#1–6 | ISBN 1-4012-2084-3 ISBN 978-1-4012-2084-6 |
| Vol. 2: Lust for Life | #4–12 | ISBN 1-56389-481-5 ISBN 978-1-56389-481-7 |
#7–12 | ISBN 1-4012-2261-7 ISBN 978-1-4012-2261-1 |
| Vol. 3: Year of the Bastard | #13–18 and story from Vertigo: Winter's Edge II | ISBN 1-56389-568-4 ISBN 978-1-56389-568-5 |
#13–18 | ISBN 1-4012-2312-5 ISBN 978-1-4012-2312-0 |
| Vol. 4: The New Scum | #19–24 and story from Vertigo: Winter's Edge III | ISBN 1-56389-627-3 ISBN 978-1-56389-627-9 |
#19–24 and stories from Vertigo: Winter's Edge II and III | ISBN 1-4012-2490-3 ISBN 978-1-4012-2490-5 |
| Vol. 5: Lonely City | #25–30 | ISBN 1-56389-722-9 ISBN 978-1-56389-722-1 |
#25–30 | ISBN 1-4012-2819-4 ISBN 978-1-4012-2819-4 |
| Vol. 6: Gouge Away | #31–36 | ISBN 1-56389-796-2 ISBN 978-1-56389-796-2 |
#31–36 | ISBN 1-4012-2818-6 ISBN 978-1-4012-2818-7 |
| Vol. 7: Spider's Thrash | #37–42 | ISBN 1-56389-894-2 ISBN 978-1-56389-894-5 |
#37–42 | ISBN 1-4012-2815-1 ISBN 978-1-4012-2815-6 |
| Vol. 8: Dirge | #43–48 | ISBN 1-56389-953-1 ISBN 978-1-56389-953-9 |
#43–48 | ISBN 1-4012-2936-0 ISBN 978-1-4012-2936-8 |
| Vol. 9: The Cure | #49–54 | ISBN 1-56389-988-4 ISBN 978-1-56389-988-1 |
#49–54 | ISBN 1-4012-3049-0 ISBN 978-1-4012-3049-4 |
| Vol. 10: One More Time | #55–60 | ISBN 1-4012-0217-9 ISBN 978-1-4012-0217-0 |
#55–60 and the specials Transmetropolitan: I Hate It Here and Transmetropolitan: Filth of the City | ISBN 1-4012-3124-1 ISBN 978-1-4012-3124-8 |
| Vol. 0: Tales of Human Waste | Contains specials Transmetropolitan: I Hate It Here and Transmetropolitan: Filth of the City along with "Edgy Winter" from Vertigo: Winter's Edge II | ISBN 1-4012-0244-6 ISBN 978-1-4012-0244-6 |
Content moved to Volume 10 (specials) and 4 (Winter's Edge) | N/A |
In other media
Film adaptation
Co-creators Ellis and Robertson were approached about making a Transmetropolitan film adaptation, with Patrick Stewart's production company Flying Freehold Productions offering to option the rights in February 2003. Later, the burgeoning Internet boom led to an offer to create an online animated film series, with Stewart providing the voice of Spider Jerusalem, but the project never fully developed. Rumours have stated that Ellis and Robertson have indicated that they would like to see Tim Roth play the character of Spider Jerusalem, however during a panel at London's Kapow! comic convention Ellis said that there is no chance of seeing Spider Jerusalem on the big screen and Tim Roth was not discussed to play him. He further explained that production costs would be too expensive to bring Transmetropolitan to the big screen.[6][7]
Transmetropolitan remains unfilmed. In 2010, Ellis noted in his Twitter account that no production was underway.
Merchandise
Some items of Transmetropolitan merchandise have been made, Robertson himself having produced one T-shirt: a black shirt with a three-eyed smiley face on the front with the text "I Hate It Here" in yellow on the back. DC Direct has produced five products: a black T-shirt with an image of Spider Jerusalem lifted from the comic's interiors with the text "Spider Jerusalem. Cheap. But not as cheap as your girlfriend". They produced an action figure in the early stages which featured Jerusalem wearing nothing but his trademark boxer shorts so as to show off his tattoos, and a variant figure that is giving the finger and holding a bowel disruptor. The third is a statue of Jerusalem, in the same state of near-nudity, sitting on the toilet growling into his cell phone and arguing with his editor Mitchel Royce, who is visible on his small laptop computer on the base. The fourth is a wristwatch with the three-eyed Transient smiley as the watch's face; and the fifth is a replica of Spider's trademark glasses.
References
- ↑ Yayanos, Meredith (December 18, 2000). "Transmetropolitan's Warren Ellis". Publishers Weekly (Reed Elsevier). Archived from the original on December 7, 2008. Retrieved 2008-10-28.
- ↑ "COMICS: Mot Just For Speciality Stores Anymore". Publishers Weekly. October 16, 2000. Archived from the original on December 7, 2008. Retrieved 2008-10-28.
Sometimes the cart is pulling the horse--DC/Vertigo's Transmetropolitan, a dark science-fiction satire about a gonzo journalist in a sprawling future city, is the textbook example of a well-regarded comic for older readers that pulled itself up from poor sales with the help of some heavily promoted collections.
- ↑ Cascio, Jamais (May 22, 2004). "The Transmetropolitan Collection". Worldchanging. Retrieved 2008-10-28.
- ↑ De Blieck Jr., Augie (May 18, 2001). "Transmetropolitan: Filth of the City". Comic Book Resources.
- ↑ Bukatman, Scott (2003). Matters of Gravity. Durham: Duke University Press. p. 209. ISBN 978-0-8223-3119-3.
- ↑ Goodsmith, Edward (2008-01-29). "Warren Ellis on 'Transmetropolitan'". Comics2Film. Retrieved 2008-03-27.
- ↑ "Transmetropolitan Update". The Z Review. The Z Review. 2003. Archived from the original on 2008-07-19. Retrieved 2008-03-27.
External links
 |
Wikiquote has quotations related to: Transmetropolitan |
- Darick Robertson Studios Home page
- "The Transmetropolitan Condition", interview with Warren Ellis, conducted by Melanie MacBride (28 October 2002)
| ||||||||||||||||||||||