Transmetropolitan Volume 1

One-sentence summary: Hunter S. Thompson mixed with Jesus in a dystopian future -- yaaay.

This is part of my "reading comics I really should've read years ago" series. I love Warren Ellis, so it's a shame I hadn't read this (which a variety of people consider his best work) before now, because it is friggin' fantastic.

I almost feel bad writing this review without having read the entire series, as this is clearly going to be a fairly contained, long story. It's Ellis dealing with one of his favorite motifs: the messiah. Ellis does these sorts of stories pretty often: crazy dude returns from the wilderness, supercharged with "the truth" and generally dishevels existence in fair City. It's Transmet, it's Doktor Sleepless, and in a lesser degree most of his other works deal with the concept of a broken savior too (Gravel springs to mind). If it weren't for how well he does it, it'd probably get old.

Journalism struck me as a novel occupation for his messiah. I mean, it makes complete sense, but I can't recall too many other savior scenarios using it (excepting Superman, which doesn't quite count I'd argue). It gives the character a reason to wander around all day screaming at people and searching for the Truth.

And that's really what the book is about -- not just Truth, but the search for it. His point (in this volume at least) was stated pretty directly: what we consider the gritty, tough-to-uncover truth is obvious, we're just more comfortable with ignoring it until we forget we're ignoring it.

Anywho, Ellis's writing is top-notch here. His dialogue is crackling with depraved, manic energy, and the series skips most the exposition he likes to delve into. The art by Robertson is good too, hyper-detailed enough to help make Spider's vision our own: the truth of the world is there, we just might have to read outside the speech bubbles.