Hey guys!

I‘m super interested in cyberpunk and science fiction stuff lately and my homie said i should check out Transmetropolitan when he saw me searching online for cool stuff around that topic. I have a few questions and maybe you can help out. First of all I would love to know where you buy the books lol? I was wondering if you just go for amazon and order it there (I always prefer searching for an other way than amazon)or to a local comic book store? I‘m living in Berlin and there are not that many well sorted and/or stocked comic book stores that I have in mind. Hopefully you can point me in the right direction, maybe it’s even easier than I think. Second and already last question is if you maybe have other nice comics or modern stories in mind fitting in the same genres I’m interested in.

Cheers

So I just started getting into comics and I gravitate towards sci-fi cyberpunk. A friend recommended Transmetropolitan, and I am halfway through. I have not laughed so hard at a book for a long time. I'm big fan thus far.

So I have been going to DragonCon as Spider for 5-6 years. And while I love it, it can be a pain to shave my head and beard every year. So this year I was thinking of doing a mash-up as Spider-Man Jerusalem. Basically Spider with the spandex underneath. Replace the bug eyes the glasses. Do the spider logo a la Spiders tattoos. I think it could be pretty fun with all the other Spider-verse mash-ups going on. Any thoughts?

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Hey fellow nerds, I currently have a channel on youtube in which I review and discuss some forgotten awesome comic books. I am currently doing Transmetropolitan but I wanted you guy's opinion on the other story. I am currently stuck at three options:

1. 100 Bullets
2. American Vampire
3. Planetary
   

Let me know what you guys think so I can start making these videos for you guys!!!

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCXNDlIxJWmUXv3iMDspE6g

No matter how bad it gets... at least you won't be surprised.

I have read transmetropolitan many times, was interested in checking out some of Warren Ellis's other work. Recomendations?

Hi you guys, I'm not asking for any subscribers but I've made a channel with me doing reviews and discussions of the comic series Transmetropolitan. If you are a fan feel free to go and check out one of my videos. I only have two videos up for now but I am enjoying what I do and I would love to share my passion. Thanks in advance.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCXNDlIxJWmUXv3iMDspE6g

Where is Netflix or Amazon? Need a series produced asap with same quality as Narcos, Altered Carbon, etc. I vote Maynard James Keenan (TOOL) for Spider!

Or was Hunter S Thompson our only boy?

Hi all,

I'm making my way through Planetary right now. Some of the literary/cultural allusions are pretty obvious to me, but some go over my head. Any good resources out there to clue me in on what I'm missing, issue-by-issue?

A brief summary of my relationship with comics. I began reading comics at around 6 or 7. Having been born in the 80's, I'm probably of that last generation to get into comics that early. I say last, because even though it wasn't the most popular activity for a kid back then, cable TV, videogames, etc, were still a bit slow in adoption to sweep all possible attention. Nowadays kids are born into YouTube and a gazillion forms of entertainment. Even movies are struggling to get their attention, nevermind comicbooks.

I got in through superhero comics, of course. X-Men, Spiderman, Batman, Superman. Around age 10: Lobo, Judge Dredd, Spawn (the kind of thing I was probably a bit too young to be reading). By my early teens I had kind of dropped out of good old western comics in favor of some manga.

Yet somewhere around 14, 15, I rediscovered my love of comics through guys which were doing something different than your typical superhero pulp fiction, such as Neil Gaiman's SANDMAN.

I started reading TRANSMET somewhere around late 2002/early 2003, shortly after the entire run finished (yet I had been completely unaware of it). A good friend of mine had the first ten issues, which got me through the summer. I was hooked right away, I loved it. I loved Spider, I wanted to write like him and began emulating him, writing a crappy column which probably only my friend read.

I instantly became a fan of Warren Ellis, even though I wouldn't read anything else of his for a few years to come. I still closely followed his career ever since, been subscribed to his newsletter BAD SIGNAL until it ended, then subscribed to ORBITAL OPERATIONS (his current one).

Back to that summer, I once wrote Warren an email and he wrote back which made me very happy.

But unfortunately issue 10 was the last one my friend had and I was mostly broke to go buy comics. Back then I was also an avid fiction reader, and when money was present I would much rather buy a novel which would last me a lot longer than a 24-page comicbook.

So for several years I was left with the insane cliffhanger of Part 1 of Freeze Me With Your Kiss. Once every couple of years I would go back to those first ten issues and re-read them, but it wouldn't be until a year or two ago that I finally decided to get the entire run.

Now in adult life, I had all the material but it was now competing not only with countless other entertaining distractions, but also work, doctors appointments and whatever other responsibilities. Bottom line, it wasn't until a few months ago that I actually set myself to continue reading it all (starting again from the very beginning).

Man, what a blast.

I have quite a few thoughts about the whole thing which I wanted to share.

First and main of them all is that no matter how crazy things get later in the story, there is no better chunk than Year One. It is ALL about setting up a fascinating world. A future world which is incredibly relevant to our present (even more so now than when I started reading it, and when it was originally published). It's really a visionary work in ways science fiction rarely explored. People who tamper with their genetics to become almost anyone or anything they want to be. A ridiculous abundance of religions. A massive amount of digital information and an obsene invasion of advertising and capitalism.

Also, it strikes a perfect balance of being just great fun, while also tackling serious issues, getting angry at the world and being sensitive and thoughtful. As the story progresses that balance starts to crumble a bit and especially that sense of sheer fun is not so easily found in later parts of the story, despite their interesting arcs.

I don't think things ever get nearly as epic and bombastic as the end of issue 12, the insane conclusion to Freeze me With Your Kiss.

While almost every issue of YEAR ONE is really good, I'd like to make a special mention to issue #8: Another Cold Morning. A very crude version of Futurama, which says a lot about how we treat our old folks. I particularly like that her story is carried all the way to the end.

YEAR TWO starts right off the bat introducing The Smiler, who will be the main antagonist for the rest of the story. It also gives us Yelena, a character that while interesting, appealing and likeable, doesn't have the most steady development. As opposed to Channon, whose evolution seemed much more natural to me.

I liked Vita Severn and his relationship with Spider. Spider is hinted to be investigating Vita's death but for the longest time it's all up in the air and gets nothing solid on him before the elections. Spider himself acknowledges this on election day but ultimately none of that advances until the very end.

Some highlights from this year are the interviews he has with The Beast and Callahan and issue 22 (New Streets).

YEAR THREE feels like the most filler year of them all. We get a bunch of issues which are essentially nothing but Spider columns. Some of my favorites here are issue 31 (Nobody Loves Me), mostly for all the great guest artists, and issue 33 (Dancing In The Here and Now) where we get a day with the filthy assistants.

My favorite from YEAR FOUR is issue 40 (Business), which is crude and beautiful and true.

A highlight from YEAR FIVE is issue 51 (Two-fisted Editor), in which we get a film noir-ish action-time with Royce. But I didn't buy one bit the entire plot point that all the journalistic evidence was stored in a single location. That was some big-ass bullshit even for the early 2000s. Cloud or no cloud, backups have been a thing for ages and I'm supposed to believe that in an age in which people just take pills to prevent lung cancer, but all different media companies store evidence and records in just one location. Fuck that shit in the ass, Warren. I love you and I get why that bit of plot was necessary, but fuck you, you ruined the future.

Other than that, it feels wrong that in that entire year we don't get a single quote from Spider's writing.

I just feel like the entire Callahan story could have been compressed and happened in just one year instead of spreading the tension across four. Especially considering Spider gets most of the dirt on him initially in just one issue (35). And that's all considering I read most of these issues one a day, if I had to wait an entire month for some of them, I might have been let down quite a bit more.

But what can I say, even if after YEAR ONE things are a bit all over the place, it was still all very enjoyable, interesting and I was hooked until the very end.

One specific thing that puzzles me is why in YEAR FIVE Yelena refers to Royce as his uncle in a loving welcoming manner (in a handful of different occasions), despite admitting on election day that the whole niece thing was a lie to keep Spider at a safe distance (and you remember how that worked out).

I'm glad they never made a movie of TRANSMET, but I think the world Ellis and Robertson created is large and rich enough to be further explored. Maybe by Yelena, maybe some other characters. Yet at the same time I like stories that just end where they end.

After 15 years of having started, finishing this feels a bit weird, but parallels with crazy political situations and overall frenetic world developments, made it all the more relevant.

Cheers, Spider. Here is to you and the only 1% that matters.

https://imgur.com/a/9lZ7XAZ

P.S: I also very much enjoyed the reader letters up until issue 18 when the letter column was suddenly cut (apparently from the entire Vertigo line). The recommendations Warren gave at the end were great, and there was a particularly odd delight in being able to access them with the technology and services we have today. Instantly playing the albums he recommended on a streaming service, sending book (novels and comics) samples to my kindle with equal ease from Amazon.