"I Hate it Here" Appreciating Transmetropolitan

Transmetropolitan is an inspired work of refined madness. The comic series created by Warren Ellis and Derrick Robertson follows the futuristic exploits of Gonzo journalist Spider Jerusalem, the uninitiated may need to take a moment to let the sheer greatness of that name sink in, on his restless crusade for the truth (and drugs). Transmetropolitan has shades of Alan Moore and early nineties Frank Miller but Ellis blazes his own path with this series. My first impression of Spider was that he was just another nineties’ sardonic anti-hero. However a tangled web of political intrigue reveals Spider’s true nature as a caring, earnest, hyper-violent man-child who manages to be strangely endearing. Perhaps more important than Spider himself is the horrifying and wondrous sprawl of future NYC that he reluctantly finds himself in. While the story is driven by an endless gush of new and explosive absurdities, the world Ellis and Robertson have created feels oddly prescient and alive. Ellis’ mash up of genre tropes, social commentary, surreal humor and stylish ultra-violence sets an unprecedented tone for the series that would be difficult to capture as effectively in any other medium.

For all its skull-shattering brashness Transmetropolitan actually offers a fairly nuanced look into the future. Ellis posits a future that rides a razors edge between utopia and urban hellscape. In the real future there is no morally unassailable position, no magic solutions. The future just introduces a different range of compromises, Spider is the personification of this reality. Ellis’s techno-optimism sits comfortably alongside uncompromising bleakness. This is a view of the world that should resonate with contemporary readers. The promise of life changing, reality-altering technology appears closer today then it ever has before. Likewise the dangers to our civilization only appear more inescapable day by day.    

As I mentioned earlier, Transmetropolitan is a truly unique work. Its distinct tone separates it from other more archetypical works of cyberpunk from writers like William Gibson or Bruce Sterling. That being said I would also recommend Ellis’s earlier tonally similar work Lazarus Churchyard. Though it lacks the craftsmanship and diversity of attitudes he later achieved with Transmetropolitan, it’s still worth a read. While not in the cyberpunk genre Ellis’s writing reminded me of The Filth by Grant Morrison, The Filth portrays a similar mix of comic absurdity and futuristic intrigue. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Hard Boiled by Frank Miller, which I imagine had some influence of Ellis’s writing. On a more surreal tangent I want to mention a comic from a similarly original mind, The Incal written by Alejandro Jodorowsky’s, drawn by Mobius. So far very few movies have ever done justice to the scale and insanity of the kind of world created by Ellis in Transmetropolitan.  Without giving anything away The Congress directed by Ari Folman, comes close, as does the razor sharp future satire Black Mirror.  Where movies fall short I think interactive entertainment offers a new opportunity to deliver similar kinds of narrative worlds in a new frontier. From the absurd indie game Jazzpunk, to the beautifully subtle narrative of Transistor to blockbusters like Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Cyberpunk 2077.