Hot Grits Petrified Spider Jerusalem

[prog]

No, no, no, I can't read any more of this here Transmetropolitan. There's a lot I like about it, but the main character isn't one of them, and it's very clear that I'm supposed to be cheering every time he opens his mouth. I can tolerate ol' Spider through the stories -- aye, I have been seen to laugh out loud at some of his antics -- but there are in-between issues which are nothing but an illustrated rant which is about as interesting to read as a fourth-rate weblog, or any open thread on Daily Kos. I giggle to myself imagining a pre-teen Spider alive right now (it's a near-future comic, right?), developing his early journalism skills by posting raving comments about teh sheeple to Slashdot. Jeeeeez. +5 Insightful!

Midway through the third collection I've read (the second chronological one, as I was reading them out of order), the final deal-breaker scene is not the exploding heads or buckets of eyeballs, but a scene from an issue where Spider/Ellis gets all righteously James Randi on the entire concept of religion. The two main characters sit at a bus stop next to a respectable-looking priest (looking strangely out of place in TwenCen clerical garb, not wacko-future clothes like everyone else), and their frank talk of fucking and shitting is so shocking to his virgin ears that he instantly becomes violently ill upon the sidewalk. And as someone who has known a lot of priests, and the sorts of things they have to deal with every day as part of being active in their community and mixing with all manner of humanity, I found this really bizarre.

But it was just a throwaway sight-gag. I don't know. If the priest had been drawn as a crazy caricature of a religious person, or even a stereotypical wizened nun, it would have been an eye-rolling, content-free gag, sure. But care was taken to make him look like a realistic, "real-world" priest, which suggests that he's part of the author's thesis that all religion finds the necessary animal activities of sex and excretion unspeakably revolting, and is therefore a clueless and harmful institution. And I in turn think this bespeaks Warren Ellis' generally not knowing what the hell he thinks he's ranting about, other than his easy themes of the blind masses eating up lies and so on. Yes, yes, I know. Whatev. I switch it off. Transmetropolitan goes into the Toilet of Destiny. (Not literally; it's a loaned copy.)

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I actually have been reading good comics lately but haven't written anything about them. Have I posted any positive comics reactions here at all?! Oy, that needs fixing. Um... later.

Comments

[mangosteen]

Warren Ellis wrote Mary Sue Jerusalem because he desperately wants to be a Hunter Thompson/Max Headroom hybrid.

Or something.

[prog.livejournal.com]

Ha ha Max Headroom. (And thanks for the name correction; I was thinking of the writer of Preacher, I guess, even though I've never even read that one.)

I would like the book a lot more if Ellis emphasized the setting more, and blurred the focus on Spider somewhat, enough so that he was, um, fallible.

[mangosteen]

I would like the book a lot more if Ellis emphasized the setting more, and blurred the focus on Spider somewhat, enough so that he was, um, fallible.

I assure you that he eventually figured that one out. It takes about two more collections for him to get there, though.

[rikchik.livejournal.com]

Actually, it's made clear elsewhere in the book that it's actually supposed to be ridiculously far in the future. But it's actually about the modern day, of course :)

Transmet really hits its stride when it reaches the political story that takes up the majority of the series (like, the last 7 8ths or so). But if it's not your thing, no big deal.

[prog.livejournal.com]

Ah, between your and the doctor's advising that it gets better, I'll probably give it another chance. Maybe I'll just breeze through the rest of this one and then skip to book four. :)