Spider Jerusalem our hero is a indy journalist who writes for an underground newspaper against the fetted stench of a plastic whitewashed society. Dilution and supression of the important things like corruption and theft were the sorts of things that got me hooked on Transmetropolitan. It tells the story of Spider Jerusalem who after retreating to the mountains to escape human kind, finds that his money has been frittered away. A threatening phone call from his publisher brings him back into the City to resume work as an investigative reporter. When he arrives he falls smack dab into the middle of a civil rights riot staged by a womanizing former rock band manager who is an old acquaintance.
The goal of these first few issues was to introduce Jerusalem as a postmodern anti-hero that we can all relate to, and Ellis achieves that admirably. We are given a drunken antisocial and ultimately antagonistic view of what our culture and society inflict on it's members who believe in things like truth and decency. Ellis' thesis is basically that it turns them into depraved drug addicted curmudgeons, who are incapable of interacting with the rest of society. As a depraved curmudgeon living under such circumstances myself to a degree (with the power of Murdoch, Fairfax and Packer), I can confidently say that this analysis is spot-on. And more power to him. The underbelly needs its advocates.
After the carnage of the first three issues, Ellis laid back a bit and did some exploring of the world he'd unleashed the angry little man on. He explores various real issues in the context of a fictitious world. For instance: in Jerusalem Ellis asks the question of what value the is in history when compared to the lives of modern people, through Jerusalem's explorations of the Reservations, a place for the preservation of the exact historical context of various cultures. Ellis postulates the idea of modern people with artificial memories placing them in "Cultural reservations" whose goal is to preserve ways of life no longer practiced. Like the Sun worshipping Aztec culture and the Zen lifestyle of Japan prior to western contact and influence. Throughout Jerusalem's explorations of the Reservations and various other fictional subcultures, you begin to get an understanding for who Spider Jerusalem is, what he believes and what his faults are and there are loads of them.
From the outset he was not created to be a likeable character but I like him because I see pieces of myself in his crushed idealism. I think it's something that most intelligent people can relate to. Spider's personality is unfolded masterfully for the reader as a dejected revolutionary who wanted very much to believe that everything will be all right if he only can steadfastly pursue the truth, only to be shown vividly in graphic detail how little the truth matters in the modern world.
Which brings me to another point. Transmetropolitan is supposedly a Science Fiction Comic, it was originally on DC's Helix label before being moved to Vertigo. Yet it avoids the great pitfall of most science fiction, which is that it forgets to be of the moment it was created in favor of the authors barely plausible gadgetry and setting. I think it was Aristotle that said that setting was the least important aspect of a serious work, or some ignomonious bollocks like that. Ellis follows this logic, his fantasy world serving only to support the purpose of the work, and is not a purpose in and of itself.
In other words, don't go expecting a nicey-nicey sci-fi comic book, it doesn't look cute, the issues and themes certainly aren't simple and the colours and mood is dark bordering on the psychotic. Transmet won its Eisner Award for good reason and if taken to its logical conclusion, Spider Jerusalem would have used that as an ashtray.
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