Transmetropolitan

When I looked at the reading list this week I wasn't entirely intrigued by Snow Crash, though I'm sure it's a fine novel, but I was pleasantly surprised to find something written by Warren Ellis that I had never heard of.  I've respected Ellis' work on comics such as Hellblazer, Planetary, and some of his shorter runs on a few Marvel comics like his Iron Man collaboration with Adi Granov, Extremis.
Transmetropolitan written by Warren Ellis and illustrated by Darrick Robertson is a literary  masterpiece that should be read by any fan of the cyberpunk genre wether you like comics or not.   This graphic novel seems almost personal to Ellis and is probably the best writing that I've ever seen him produce, as he depicts this perfect blend of Fear and Loathing in an almost Blade Runner world.  The art of Darrick Robertson, though not my favorite style, is absolutely perfect for the story in practically every way.  Ellis and Robertson's immaculate effort defines the cyberpunk genre completely, really leaving nothing out.

The tattooed, loud mouthed, pill-popping journalist Spider Jerusalem is perfect and quite a compelling protagonist for this cyberpunk tale. In the genre, protagonists are often patterned on the idea of the lone hero fighting injustice, such as Robin Hood, Spider is no exception.  Most of the time the protagonist in a cyberpunk tale is manipulated and placed in a situation where they have no choice but to do what they're being forced to do, just as Mr. Jerusalem is forced to move back into the city he loathes in order to fulfill his contract with a book company.   Every column Spider writes he skillfully, through either physical means or entirely through his words, reveals the corrupt nature of whatever it is he feels is unjust.   He's not the typical protagonist however, he's unsanitary, a drug user, and I don't think I've ever heard so much poor language  out of a single individual, but he's oddly likable. ­

The world in Transmetropolitan has high tech conventions and ideas, but it's still portrayed in a grungy manner opposite to the very sleek and clean utopian nature of traditional science fiction.  The city that Spider inhabits is beautifully illustrated by Robertson, showing the cluttered streets, alien prostitutes, and all sorts of humorous drug and porn advertisements.  There are things that are super high tech such as machines that can manufacture just about anything, and then there are things that are still oddly grounded to the present. For instance, many of the buildings are basically what we have presently, which is realistically not how buildings I imagine would be engineered in the future, having all of the other advances that the inhabitants of Transmetropolitan enjoy.

I'm now about halfway through the series, even though we were only required to read the first graphic novel in the series and I just can't get enough of Transmetropolitan. Every time I'm done with a chapter I wanna immediately jump into the next and find out what kind of messed up political or social corruption Spider will violently and skillfully uncover and expose next.

- Dan