Wednesday, December 10, 2014

The Matt Signal Advent Calendar 2014 Day 10: Transmetropolitan #14


Transmetropolitan #14, October 1998 

“Home entertainment system: Give me fire. Give me information.” Give me every single issue of this wonderful futuristic tale, please. 

I admit to being a flag-flying member of the Merry Marvel Marching Society, but I’ll read any series with great characters, great concepts and quotable word balloons. Warren Ellis’ writing had already made me a fan of Excalibur, but this series made me a fan of Warren Ellis.

And that Darick Robertson splash page – with gonzo journalist Spider Jerusalem sitting in a room on metaphorical fire in front of a dozen TV screens filling his brain with news feeds – that, my friends, is good comics.

Vertigo’s Transmet is the first “indie” series I read from beginning to end. Y the Last Man and Ex Machina followed, and I plan to finish Saga and Chew as well. (Can you smell the pending Brian K. Vaughn post?)

Jerusalem was the perfect protagonist for me: a cranky writer with no respect for authority, endless supplies of drugs and a pair of “filthy assistants” at his beck and call. That’s me up until the no respect for authority, drugs and assistants parts. (It should be noted that issue 14 marks the first appearance of one of said assistants, Yelena Rossini, who on Day One tells Spider, “Shut up. You’re horrible. I hate you.”)

The Jerusalem figure Matt bought me many moons ago still features prominently among my shelf porn, complete with bowel disruptor.


For more on Ellis’ contributions to comics, from Transmet to Global Frequency to Moon Knight, click here.

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