Transmetropolitan: Difference between revisions

'''''Transmetropolitan''''' is a [[Cyberpunk]] [[Graphic Novel]] series by [[Warren Ellis]] and Darick Robertson, originally published from 1997 to 2002. It's a wild mix of gonzo journalism, American politics and the [[The Future|weird future]]. Although much of its focus is on surreal comedy, the books ultimately tell a heartwrenching story of one nation's politics swirling the drain in every possible way.

* [[AIA.I. Is a Crapshoot]]: We rarely see someone talk with a machine that ''isn't'' on some sort of electronic drugs.

* [[Bittersweet Ending]]: {{spoiler|Spider exposes the Smiler, who now widely hated and is spending vast amounts of money to stay out of prison (and may or may not run out), but he's caught an incurable disease that will kill him in a year.}}

** {{spoiler|[[Your Princess Is in Another Castle|ONE PERCENT!]]}}

* [[Conveniently-Common Kink]]: In a one-page side-story, a woman stops to talk to a man who's sitting on the sidewalk, crying. He explains that he's crying because he has no friends -- hefriends—he keeps eating them. "Me too," she says. Then she invites him to dinner.

** [http://www.innocence.com/transmet/images/royce.gif This] is Mitchell Royce. [http://earth616.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/warren_ellis.jpg This]{{Dead link}} is [[Warren Ellis]]. Royce's job is to take Spider's work and deliver it to the people. Ellis spent five years taking the unchained id which is Spider and winding it into a coherent narrative. Ellis inserted ''himself'' in the comic as Spider's ''[[Literary Agent Hypothesis|editor]]''. Only he smokes pens, it seems.

* [[Fashionable Asymmetry]]: [https://web.archive.org/web/20130927130002/http://www.planetkrypton.net/product/LS-Transmetropolitan_Spider_Jerusalem_Glasses Spider's glasses].

* [[I'm a Humanitarian]]: Cloned human meat is ubiquitous.<ref>presumably along with other cloned meats given that Spider once eats a ''bucket'' of caribou eyes</ref>. Beyond that, cannibalistic murders come up more than once: [[Cannibal Clan|a family of crazed cannibals]] that eats election canvassers, and Spider makes an off-handed comment about once getting hit with an [[Horror Hunger|auto-cannibalism meme]] that left him unable to eat pork to this day. Also, the Beast [[Eats Babies|eats Chilean Baby Extract]].

* [[No Party Given]]: Two political parties exist, but they're referred to by whether they're in office or not. (The Beast's party is referred to -- byto—by Spider, mind you -- asyou—as the [[Fun with Acronyms|Party In Government]].) It's still implied to be a Liberal vs. Conservative sort.

** Notably, despite the general adherence to the "Opposition party"/"Party in office" descriptors, Callahan is identified in his first appearance as "D-Cal." Of the two Opposition party candidates shown, Callahan's campaign shows traits of the modern Democratic party (such as hiring Vita as a showpiece for women's representation despite giving Schact more power), while Heller's campaign shows some aspects of the modern Republican party (with an exaggeration of said party's neoliberal economic ideals). Further obscuring the issue, Callahan and Heller's party is red on the election map, while the Beast's party is blue.

* [["Not Making This Up" Disclaimer]]: Spider's account of a Heller rally ends with one of these.

* [[Refuge in Audacity]]: Oh, boy. It starts out taking refuge in audacity; and very quickly progresses to building a holiday home there.

** Quoth Spider ([[Cosplay|Cosplaying]]ing as Jesus):

** Another subtle one: the cigarettes Spider smokes are called "Carcinoma Angels"--which—which is the title of a story by [[Norman Spinrad]], originally published in [[Harlan Ellison]]'s 1967 anthology ''[[Dangerous Visions]]''.

*** Another Groening reference: the Dice Bar has [[The Simpsons (animation)|Duff Beer]] on tap.

* [[The Singularity]]: Not quite there yet, but damned close -- theyclose—they have free energy due to solar plants on Mercury, nanotech assemblers, casual genetic engineering (up to and including a pill you can take that makes it so you genetically ''no longer need to do anything but breathe to be fed''), cybernetics (Spider gets a built-in cellphone later in the series), mind uploading (into immortal nanotech cloud bodies, natch), mental time travel, mind modifications, teleportation, intelligence augmenting drugs, human cloning, and the repair of ancient cryogenically frozen minds. But people are still people, and most of the futuretech is used for truly depraved entertainment -- aentertainment—a popular fast food is nanotech assembled ''human flesh'', for example, and a popular vacation for the middle class is to temporarily turn yourself into a [[Half-Human Hybrid]] (such as going swimming with the dolphins... as a human/dolphin hybrid).

** It has been suggested on a few Singularity sites that the singularity did happen in Transmetropolitan, but anyone affected directly by it are [[Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence|busy elsewhere]]. The geeks are gone, the rest of humanity -- wellhumanity—well, life goes on.

* [[Take That]]: As might be expected for an [[Author Tract]] based on Hunter S. Thompson and making frequent references to ''[[A Modest Proposal]]'', pretty much every issue has this to some extent about topics ranging from shallow mass media, to political corruption, to religion as a means to oppress and abuse people rather than comfort them. The biggest, most ongoing [[Take That]], though, is probably for the audience itself.

* [[Token Good Teammate]]: Vita for the Smiler's team.

[[Category:TransmetropolitanComic Books]]

[[Category:Comic BookBooks of the 1990s]]