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Underground > Comic Books >

Transmetropolitan: What Happened?

09:04 / 20.07.01

I bought the first two trades because everyone seemed to rave about the book and I was somewhat under-welmed. Now it seems no one likes it anymore. What happened? Just curious since I didn't like it to begin with (Warren Ellis is very hit and miss to me- including Planetary).

09:04 / 20.07.01

The first couple of trades were wicked.
But I recon the problem now is that he's trying to build up a wave of sympathy for Spider so that the "Death of Spider" storyline will have the kind of emotional resonance for the readership that gets awards. Unfortunately, he's doing it with pseduo-filmic grandeur: full page zoom shots, etc. Which is all well and good, but doesn't really work in a monthly comic. When you've bought it for, what, £2, and you go home and there's hardly any advancement of the story. None of the witty dialogue or crazy ideas. Whereas the first issue was incredibly fast, full of ideas and cool stuff, at the moment it's sort of acquired the pace of a geriatric. The art's nice enough, but I don't buy comics only for the art. Transmet at the moment will work okay in a trade, but is really frustrating as a monthly buy. And even more so because I only just started buying it monthly!

(A kinder explanation might be that he's slowed the pace down to provide a "calm before the storm," which is a fairly common technique. But I don't recon that's it.)

[ 20-07-2001: Message edited by: Templar ]

Our Lady of The Two Towers

10:19 / 20.07.01

Another reason may be fanboy reaction against Warren 'Uncle Joe Stalin' Ellis himself, but then, I'm nuts.

10:58 / 20.07.01

transmet: what's happened- well, for the past 25 odd issues - not much.

11:43 / 20.07.01

but it has picked up with the last couple of issues - but did anyone else think that the art's getting a bit rushed? Like in the last few pages of the latest issue - hello, where are those backgrounds?

13:32 / 20.07.01

quote:Originally posted by Cochese:
but it has picked up with the last couple of issues - but did anyone else think that the art's getting a bit rushed? Like in the last few pages of the latest issue - hello, where are those backgrounds?

Yeah I noticed that, well more the images of spider himself in the last few pages.
Also i guess the reason the pace seems to of slowed is that in the first few issues ellis had to introduce the concept of the transmet future as well as his bastardisation of hunter s thompson. That's why the first few years of issues (and the first few trades) seem chock full of ideas and pacing and what not, because they were.
To give him his credit ellis had to create another, bigger character than spider - the city itself.

18:50 / 30.07.01

I'll tell you what happened. Spider's alright. In fact, the person who we are seeing now is spider's clone. Spider is up on the mountain and he's remote-controlling his clone. That's why the Spider you see "tunes out" of reality. Cuz the real Spider's taking a bathroom break.

22:13 / 30.07.01

I lost my enthusiasm for Transmetropolitan the day I lost my enthusiasm for the Warren Ellis forum.

Everything seemed to get too bitingly sarcastic, and I lost my taste for the sort of judgmentalism that seems to seep into his work. In any case, I hadn't realized that anything had happened to the comic. I just thought my tastes had changed. *shrug*

Ganesh

23:07 / 30.07.01

I'm afraid I found it shit, derivative and idea-free from the start.

Jamieon

07:41 / 31.07.01

Me too.

What are these great ideas Warren's supposed to have? I really would appreciate examples.

00:10 / 01.08.01

As I see it: Basically, a bunch of nothing started happening in the book. I have decided that it's supposed to be a "calm before the storm", which would be reasonable in a graphic novel but just plain doesn't work in monthly format. So I've quit buying Transmet for now, but intend to catch up once I can buy about 12 issues at once.

Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo

01:08 / 01.08.01

I think he had about 24 issues of story inside him, and the last 5 and being stretched for another 30.

I personally thing he felt he was doing a short-lived book for a dying comic line and was put on the spot when it got picked up by Vertigo.

Hopefully the last 5 or so issues will be worth it.

08:16 / 01.08.01

Maybe someone should post a link to this over at the WEF and see if he responds. Or an e-mail so all his fanatics don't run rampant...

"Explain yourself, Warren..."

08:16 / 01.08.01

But do we really need a jihad from the rampant Ellis-ites? I've got to live this life man!

Our Lady of The Two Towers

16:23 / 01.08.01

But we could bet on how many seconds it lasts before Stalin or the KGB spikes it. I have nothing but contempt for Ellis (and it's diffcult to find impartial observers who think much of his work other than Transmet that he's done at the same time) but do quite like Transmet.

Regrettable Juvenilia

07:26 / 02.08.01

quote:Originally posted by The Ungodly Lozt and Found Office:
it's diffcult to find impartial observers who think much of his work other than Transmet that he's done at the same time

Er... Planetary, anyone? It doesn't come out very often, but when it does it's one of the best things out there...

Our Lady of The Two Towers

08:39 / 03.08.01

<hit head repeatedly against a senior manager>

D'oh! And his Authority stuff was good too.

04:33 / 06.08.01

I usually wait for 6 to 10 issues of Transmet to pile up before I read them. That usually gets the Transmet out of my system once or twice a year. I couldn't read it monthly, but I still enjoy it when I read it.

And Ellis' Ministry of Space got off to a good start.

07:56 / 06.08.01

The only way I've ever read Transmet is with trades... and I still like it. I couldn't picture buying it monthly, though. Not enough information packed into the panels in these later arcs (not like the beginning arcs/trades) to make it satisfying on a monthly basis.

Elijah, Freelance Rabbi

19:59 / 07.08.01

i think that was the scheme. first 10 or so issues, jam packed with comic goodness, then it peters out but by then the weak minded are hooked....by the way, has the nmew one come out yet?

actually, im at the point where i buy it for the art, and even that has been getting sad

ENG

12:34 / 08.08.01

Random Moaning:

You'd think that, since there's been god knows how many issues without any flabbergasting climatic action or manic storytelling, they might have concentrated more on.. say.. characterization..

..except that there hasn't been any bloody characterisation in Transmet. since bloody issue 8 or something!

Also, any attempts at political intrigue or narratrive complexity which might have rendered the story kind of interesting were rendered pointless as soon as it became clear that the President had been set up as the clearcut one-dimensional villian, and everything bad & wrong was going to lead directly back to him..

Like in the latest issue: Spider reveals that THE PRESIDENT was responsible for that bunch of assassinations! Like, shock horror! We all thought it was .. well .. actually there aren't any other characters at all..

There haven't even been any good knob gags or bowel disrupter incidents for months..

Which is a shame, because the first 3 trades are still very, very good indeed.

Jamieon

12:40 / 08.08.01

See, this is my problem with Ellis: lot's of postmodern idea nabbing, but, unlike Morrison, he does sod all with them. He doesn't jam on them - they don't go anywhere.
Transmet can so easily be reduced to crappy dystopian future shock with a Hunter S. clone thrown in. It doesn't ever get much more complicated/interesting than that.

I just don't think Ellis is this great ideasmith others think he is.

Spank my arse!

13:38 / 08.08.01

Didn't Ellis say in Transmet that they've got time machines in the future but when you travel back you can only watch and not influence? May be someone's paid him a visit...

Ellis

17:08 / 09.08.01

Has anyone read the newest issue of Transmet?

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I reckon that Spider killed The Smilers family; he does say at the end of the issue "I'm going to make the grinning bastard suffer" and then there's the mystery of the bloody footprints which vanish on the same page as Spider's eyes which seems kind of relevent.