Buy all 10 in the series! NOW!
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Ok your not going to like this if you are conservative or easily offended. It's irreverent, outspoken and full of righteous indignation and I love it. It is an excellent commentary on modern day society that shows us a future that our present day exploits could take us, without taking itself too seriously remaining cool and exciting. It is excellently written by one of comics/graphic novel living legends, Warren Ellis. It oozes brilliant satire, amazing imagination and shocking ideas that are not all that far from reality. Robertson supports this with some lovely, dynamic artwork to visually create Ellis's future world.
This series is effectively one long book so its silly to say that one book in the series is better than the next. Its like saying a certain chapter in a novel was not as good as the last. With the on going plot there are bound to be part that are not as exciting but they are necessary to drive the plot.
In Spider Jerusalem Ellis has created the ultimate anti-hero. He's obnoxious and generally a right pain in the ass to be around with a highly flawed personality and little social skills. Yet he is driven by a strong and deep sense of justice. All right he takes copious amounts of drugs and has a penchant for stamping on puppies but it is he who has dedicated his work to bringing down the corruption, oppression and exploitation that is rife in his world. He's not perfect, who is? But unlike those in power he makes no pretence to be. He is the ultimate cynic but it is this cynicism that allows him not to be influenced by the propaganda be it from marketing, media, religion or government. Spider refuses to blindly believe what he is told and searches for the answers himself using evidence and facts, something perhaps we could all learn to do.
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A tour of hell... or at least the city...
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'Let me say now that with your history of drug abuse it was conceivable that you could produce a child with no head...' Having established Jerusalem in volume 1, and shown us the city he exists in and how disturbingly similar to our own it is, Ellis now takes us on a walking tour of all the ways it's different. All these are just believeable - most likely because of the easy way in which Ellis describes it. Spider tells us what foglets are without turning it into a science lecture, and gives us the horrors of being revived after centuries of cryogenic freezing without making it mawkish. This is quiet work of genius. Enjoy the peace before the real story kicks in next volume...
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Bowel disruptors at 20 paces!
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A mixed bag of Transmet stories here, as we build up both Spider as a character & his assistant Channon, and also more fully realise the media-saturated & soulless futuristic world of the City. Here we see: * Spider Jerusalem take on the President in a public toilet. * Spider investigating TV and becoming a broken man... ("Coming up next on the Single Male Virgin Channel...") * Spider visiting a religious convention, with a look at the many bizzare religions of the future. ("My life was nothing before I castrated myself.") * A look at the Foglets, an incredibly cool and thought-provoking sci-fi concept. * Spider visiting the Reservations, areas of the city simulating past cultures. * Spider on the run from the whole city after getting a death threat in the form of a petition signed by 500 and after having his ex-wife's head stolen from cryogenics. ("I have given this considerable thought and have decided I don't give two tugs of a dead dog's c**k what you do with my EX-wife and you can have her.") * And best of all, the deadly serious and emotional "A Cold Place", telling the story of the Revivals- people from previous eras ressurected in the future. It's not a pretty site, and a vicious attack on our culture's willingness to dump our past in the bin. You shall buy this...
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Modern day parables for life
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Quite frankly, the pinnacle of graphic novels. Sometimes shocking, always brilliant, Ellis expertly weaves the characterisation, plot and dialogue from seemingly dischordant stories into one brilliant, superlative-defying masterpeice. Darick Robertson's artwork is the best I have seen in a comercial work; his line drawings and use of colour are unparalelled in any other European artist. Plus, because only one artist is used throughout, the novel never feels segmented or restricted by differences of style or art, unlike so many other collections. Hilarious in places, thought provoking and reflective in others, this book is the perfect anecdote for those who are sick of the endless stream of overly - American "Character X Vs. Character Y" stereotypical trash. Spiky, bold, and very, very sharp, this is one hell of a ride.
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Not really much good
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The first few stories in this book are readable enough, though Spider Jerusalem isn't really a character, just a mouthpiece for Warren Ellis' own views. Nobody from the other side politically ever gets a fair chance to speak, though sexy women are allowed to put him down sometimes. The art is all right, though its depiction of a dystopian future reminded me of nothing so much as The Electric Hoax - a comic strip that ran in Sounds twenty years ago. Shouldn't we have moved on since then? The best story is a single-issue piece about a woman being revived from cryogenic suspension, told in the form of one of Spider's columns; though apart from the framing device, it really has nothing to do with the ongoing series. Easily the worst is a three-issue arc that takes up the last third of the book. Incomprehensible storytelling meets ugly pictures in a mess that I found too boring and distasteful to finish. I won't be reading any more Transmetropolitan collections, and I don't recommend this one.
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