Raw Truth
I have finally begun reading the series I have heard so much praise for. And I have to say, honestly? It deserves every word of it. I had the first trade and recently bought the second a third trades. Reading these reignited my desire to review, though part of the spark is still suffering from a lack of identity. So I'm trying something new, something more stream of consciousness to see what comes of it. I hope I'll be able to get back to my regular weekly reviews, and make some time to keep pushing through my library, but oddly enough I may end up finding the latter to be the one that comes more to me.
So the series begins, and we're introduced to Spider Jerusalem, one of the greatest comic book characters to ever be conceived. He hates... everything and everyone, and he's the most bash asshole about stating it. But god dammit if that's not what makes him such a fun character to read about. His every dribble of dialogue is a breath of gaseous gold as he spreads his hatred around those deserving of it equally. He looks like how many people imagine Alan Moore. He has the same facial hair and always looks like he wants to kill everyone and everything. Feral but human. I actually liked him so much in this state, that the shock of seeing him become the Spider he is for the entire rest of the series is always a huge shock no matter how many times I read this issue. I ALWAYS have to adjust to the 'real' Spider as opposed to the one from the beginning. He's a journalist who writes things as raw as they come, apparently once writing an essay that consisted of the word 'Fuck' eight thousand times to express his disgust at the president at the time.
We're also introduced to The City, which exists in the most sprawlingly diverse and insane future I've ever encountered. If the future from Samurai Jack was fused with the one in Futurama and then multiplied by itself a few times; it would still be behind the rampant menagerie of cultures past, present, predicted, and beyond comprehension. Everything you could ever imagine and more exists in this future. A household appliance called a Maker manufactures things from raw materials via nanotechnology. Spider has one that's on drugs. I can't even begin to describe the sheer insanity, it's just too much to describe. BUT, it's amazingly not overwhelming. The series treats these things with such casual regard, you can actually understand it. They're such casual parts of this future society, they never have to waste time trying to explain it, each bizarre thing is treated as part of the life, and makes things easy to process.
The driving force for this series is a great one. Spider is forced to return to the city he hates because he was cut an advance 5 years ago for two books he has yet to write. Since Spider's a Journalist, he can't write in the middle-of-nowhere he's come to know and love, he has to return to The City. In order to make a living doing so, he has to do the only thing he knows how, by writing fucking journalism. Thus we have a driving force for the series, as well as an excuse to write a wide variety of side stories.
So this entire issue was basically just the setup for the series of sixty issues to come. And honestly there's nothing really wrong with it. Spider makes his debut in a grandstand of spite and hilarious truth. Spider rambles on A LOT about all sorts of things. And it's just so damn funny. There's haunting truth in some of what he says, but his extremely loose and free manner of speaking makes everything he says the best dialogue ever. There's a huge sense of uninhibited everything in this series, and that's why it's so hard to put down. It hits all cylinders with a blazing fire that constantly forces you to want more, even though the series is giving you everything it can. This issue is just the beginning, and already it owns every iota of my brain while I'm reading it.
In Conclusion: 5/5
Transmetropolitan is NOT for the easily offended. It is raw, uninhibited, and NEVER knows the meaning of 'enough.' These things are the main things that make this series the masterpiece it is. But the main component is the idea of truth, and the unending jounrney of a journalist to achieve this.