Transmetropolitan
Outlaw journalist Spider Jerusalem, determined to expose the misdeeds of a president that sent professional assassins after him, is diagnosed with a deadly brain infection as he and his crew of assistant investigators follow the trail of corruption
Stats for nerds
7recommend
10mentions
10people
2014–2026years
70% recommend30% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- I can recommend the comic “Transmetropolitan” by Warren Ellis, which deals with this and many other questions.
You have to imagine what it would be like for someone who lived in 1826 too wake up today, in a world where nothing they know is relevant, they have no connections, no idea what to do with any of it. Historians might want to interview you, or the first couple of people like you, but then what?
You will be an audience member to a show you don’t understand, until you die.
- If you're interested in a vaguely similar case, I found the situation of somewhat-famous video game writer Chris Avellone interesting to follow.
He's worked on some games I enjoyed in my youth (Planescape: Torment is probably the most well known, considered a genre classic) and my reaction to his cancellation was roughly something like "ah crap, another one of my heroes turns out to be a bad egg". The narrative of famous men abusing their end of a power dynamic is generally easy to believe, etc.
As a result, he lost his employment, contracts and so on as well.
But this one had an aftermath a couple of years later. He wrote some elaborate/lengthy pieces defending himself (which struck me as plausible and even convincing, but then I had to keep in mind he's an expert writer) and initiated legal proceedings -- that he eventually won, resulting in a public statement by the accusers that the events they accused him of never took place. I think his posts make for interesting reading.
His career seems to have resumed recently, five years after the accusations were made public.
Even so, if you look at internet comment threads on recent news of his new game involvement, there's a persistent meme that he paid for this statement in the form of a "seven-figure settlement", which is a curious misreading because the seven-figure sum was paid to him by the accusers to make up for damages.
Sadly, the case of another writer I sometimes liked (Warren Ellis; I enjoyed Transmetropolitan back in the day) is rather grim in comparison.
- I'm not seeing anyone mention of Transmetropolitan by Warren Ellis, released a decade after Neuromancer and Akira. It's a significant contribution to the cyberpunk canon told from the perspective of an investigative gonzo journalist exploring all the oddities of his world. Goodreads lists it as the 2nd best cyberpunk manga after Akira.
- Warren Ellis' excellent Transmetropolitan touches on this as well.
[0] - http://amzn.to/1Tzbd5T
- Yes, plenty! Warren Ellis has some great stuff, particularly Transmetropolitan, Global Frequency, and now Trees¹. The Private Eye is an independent series, also ongoing, about a near future where privacy is much more important to society. The Fuse is a policial where all the events happen in a "floating city", orbiting around the Earth. Planetoid and Who is Jake Ellis are both good short series (4 and 5 issues, respectively), though the latter may not fit as sci-fi necessarily. Last but not least, there's Prophet, though that's a more fantasy mixed work.
I recommend looking into publishers such as Image Comics (lots of good creator-owned series with cheap DRM-free releases) and Vertigo, a DC imprint dedicated to different kinds of works, which includes both Transmet and V for Vendetta.
¹ My favorite work by him is actually Fell, but there's nothing futuristic or techy about it.
- I don't know Warren Ellis's other stuff that well, but I thoroughly enjoyed Transmetropolitan, and would also recommend it.
